The English word lace is derived from the Latin word lacis, meaning noose. Whereas Tudor lace was predominately ‘net’ lace, fashionable laces of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries used bobbins or needles to create the intricate and fine web-like patterns. Aristocrats mortgaged estates for the want of it, just as the poor laboured, often by candlelight, to produce it. Smugglers risked their lives to obtain it, while women and children were transported to worlds beyond the seas for stealing a handkerchief’s worth.
