persons which were a good deal older. After
Jason, with his golden fleece, supported by a
shepherd and shepherdess, and Bishop Blaise,
attended by wool-combers, came Edward III.,
with a company of Shearmen dyers; and the
English King, in armour, was followed by
Minerva and Arachne, in honour of the weaving
and spinning arts; and it is said that
some of John Kempe's descendants were
present. A feast, given within this week,
seems at once a curious linking with, and
a curious contrast to, that ancient celebration
of the Guild. The rejoicing this week
was on account of the honour borne by
Kendal at the Great Exhibition, where
prizes were gained by carpets of Messrs.
Whitwell's manufacture. When John Kempe
was setting up the Kendal manufacture, he
dreamed not of carpets. In the royal palace,
the floors were strewn with rushes, in which
were only half hidden all manner of abominations;
spillings of wine, lumps of fat, mire
from unpaved streets, and whatever it was
convenient to throw away, that was not too
offensive for the interior of a dwelling. It
was a grand feature of the luxury of Becket
that his dining-room floor was daily strewn
with straw or hay in winter, and with green
branches in summer, that the guests for whom
there was not room at the board might sit on
the floor, without soiling their clothes. The
office of rush-strewer to the royal household
was retained in name until lately; and every
year we see rush-bearing processions in the
small towns of the district, in memory of the
time when the churches were dressed annually
with fresh rushes. Probably many a child
who is employed in filling spools for the
modern carpet-weaving, carries a garland on
the rush-bearing day, in honour of the ancient
makeshift.

Whether John Kempe detained any of the
best wool at home, there is no saying; but it
seems clear that, in general, the coarser sorts
locally produced were kept at home, and the
finer sent to foreign markets. Yet, we know,
by acts of Parliament, passed during successive
reigns, that Kendal cloths—soon called Kendal
cottons—were an article of commerce of
considerable importance. The length and breadth
of these "cottons " (supposed to mean "coatings")
were settled by legislative acts; and
corn, then forbidden to be imported, was
permitted to be brought to Kendal from Ireland.
Within a century of John Kempe's settlement,
his fabrics were originating at least one fair
in the interior of the island. His woollens
clothed a multitude of London people; and
the Kendal men had no other idea than of
carrying their ware to London. Now, a fair
in London was no joke to the traders in
those days. The journey was a dreary one,
to begin with. The toll levied for the king
in the market was heavy; but that, of course,
was laid upon the price of the goods. The
kings would not allow fairs to be held within
a great distance, except at the places appointed
by themselves; and no care was taken to shelter
the trader from the weather; so that some dismal
accounts of London fairs have come down
to us. On one occasion, a Kendal clothier
got wet—both he and his goods got wet—on
his journey to London; and he stopped on the
spot where since, as Stourbridge fair, more
woollen goods have been sold than at any
other place in Europe. His cloth being sadly
wetted, he thought he had better sell it for
what it would fetch, and go home. It fetched
more than his London journey would have
left him. He and some of his townsmen naturally
came again, next year, with cloth in good
condition. "So that," says Fuller, "within a
few years hither came a confluence of buyers,
sellers, and lookers-on, which are the three
principles of a fair."

Perhaps this is not the only occasion of
Kendal goods being intercepted in their
passage to London. The pack-horses which
carried the "cottons" had to pass through
districts where gentlemen of the road helped
themselves to what they wanted from the
stock of travellers. We are not referring to
Robin Hood and his merry men, for they
were cold in their graves before John Kempe
set foot in England. The true date of Robin's
adventures is now found to be the reign of
Edward the First. Whether he and his band
would have been dressed in Kendal green, if
there had been such an article in his day, we
may have our own conjectures. As it was,
the old ballad tells us that King Edward
borrowed garments of "Lyncolne Grene " from
the outlaw's wardrobe. But Falstaff's enemies
-- the three who set upon him behind—were
"in Kendal green;" a fact which that accurate
narrator vouched for, though it was so
dark that he could not see his hand. Kendal
green was worn by knights of the road, it is
clear; and they probably got it, as they got
whatever else they wanted—by helping
themselves with it on the road. Midway between
the times of Prince Harry and his poet, the
manufacture had reached its highest fame.
The chroniclers tell us how the goods were
spread over all the land; a local tradition
relates how country weavers multiplied in
every hamlet among the hills, and how fulling-
mills might be found on every favourable
stream. But the time had arrived when the
woollen yarn was to be vised for something
else than Kendal cottons. We have mentioned
the church at Candale. There is also a castle—
(that is, the mere ruins of one). No one knows
when it was built; but a young lady was born
there, and brought up there, who was courted,
by a King sadly given to fall in love. His
wives had not been the happiest in the world;
but the young lady married him—becoming
the last queen of Henry the Eighth. This
King had been accustomed, like other gentlemen,
to wear cloth stockings; but during
his reign silk stockings were heard of from
abroad, and Henry much preferred knitted
hose to the ordinary awkward cloth. It