A very celebrated tapestry-worker, William de Pannemaker, was commissioned by Charles V to weave _The Conquest of Tunis_, the cartoons for which were made by Jan Vermay, or Vermeyen, of Beverwyck, near Haarlem. Although eighty-four workers were employed, it took five years to complete it. Pannemaker also made _The Victories of the Duke of Alva_. What the principal centres of tapestry were, we learn from an edict of Charles V, in 1544, that says: “It is forbidden to manufacture tapestries outside of Brussels, Louvain, Antwerp, Bruges, Oudenarde, Alost, Enghien, Binche, Ath, Lille, Tournay and other free towns, where the craft is organized and regulated by ordinances.” Holland also produced tapestry in this century. Looms were set up in Middelburg in 1562; and later in Delft, where Franz Spierinck worked. A little tapestry was produced in Italy, but even there the greater number of weavers were Flemings. Two Flemish tapestry-workers, Nicholas and John Karcher, were employed by the Duke d’Este, at his court in Ferrara; and Cosmo I employed Nicholas Karcher and John Rost of Brussels at his establishment, the “_Arazzeria Medicea_,” in Florence. The store-rooms of royalty and nobles in England were filled with superb sets that were brought out for decoration on occasions. Most of these were imported from the Continent; but towards the end of Henry VIII’s reign, William Sheldon orders one Robert Hicks to make maps of Oxford, Worcester, Gloucester and Warwick counties at his manor in Warwickshire, and calls Hicks “the only auteur and beginner of tapestry and arras within this realm.” Returning now to the consideration of furniture as an architectural accessory, we find that Margaret of Austria’s tastes were shared by many of her contemporaries. The Gothic style lingered here and there far into the sixteenth century, and even those whose sympathies were frankly in favour of the Renaissance did not entirely cast away Gothic traditions. (_See_ Plate X.) For example, let the student examine the beautiful choir of St. Gertrude in Louvain. The stalls are adorned with statuettes and twenty-eight reliefs of scenes from the lives of Our Lord, of St. Augustine, and of the patron saint, Gertrude. The ornamentation recalls the last days of the Gothic style. The work ranks among the finest examples of wood-carving in Belgium. It was executed by Mathias de Waydere, of Brussels in 1550. Mechlin was the capital of the Netherlands while Margaret was Regent. Her palace, now the _Palais de Justice_, shows both the old and new styles. The older parts date from 1507, and were built in the late Gothic style by Rombout Keldermans. Before the palace was finished, in 1517, a French architect, Guyot de Beaugrant, was associated with Rombout in the work. This part of the palace is the oldest Renaissance building in Belgium.