ports to all manufactured Indian goods. The only artistic trade _now_
protected is that of the silversmith; no plate from foreign workshops
being permitted to enter England--not even do we allow Indian plate to
come in, except under certain conditions. This may be the reason that
our own plate is so very bad in design and execution, for want of
competition and example.

Protection is always more or less fatal to art. The Wars of the Roses
had injured our own best schools, and we needed refined imported ideas
to raise our standard once again. Perhaps, since embroidery had become
a regular industry, our markets were overstocked by home productions
which were outrivalled by the works from the Continent, and it was
distress that caused the plea for protection.

[Illustration: Pl. 79.
Pall of the Vintners' Company (sixteenth century).]

It is fair to say that some of the English works of that time, of
which we have specimens, are as good as possible. In the Dunstable
pall, for instance, the figures of which are perfectly drawn and
beautifully executed, the style is excellent and pure English (plate
78). The pall itself is of Florentine crimson velvet and gold brocade,
with the little loops of gold drawn through the velvet, showing the
loom from whence it came. The white satin border carries the
embroidery. It is a more perfect specimen of the later fourteenth
century work than the famous pall of the Fishmongers' Company, which
shows the impress of the Flemish taste, which was at its perfection in
the fifteenth. The style reminds us of that of the fine tapestries
from the St. Mary's Hall, Coventry, of which the subject is King Henry
VI. and Cardinal Beaufort praying. The Vintners' Company's pall is
also very fine (plate 79).

[Illustration: Henry VII.'s Cope from Stoneyhurst]

Of the time of Henry VII. we have the celebrated cope of Stoneyhurst,
woven in Florence, of a gold tissue, the design raised in crimson
velvet. It is without seam, and the composition which covers the whole
surface is the crown of England lying on the portcullis; and the Tudor
rose fills up the space with a magnificent scroll. The design is
evidently English, as well as the embroidery, which is, however, much
restored[597] (plate 80).

This is one of the "whole suite of vestments and copes of cloth of
gold tissue wrought with our badges of red roses and portcullises, the
which we of late caused to be made at Florence in Italy ... which