Catherine the Queen brought no children to inherit the throne--the Duke of York being accused of having selected purposefully a barren mate for his brother--but she brought Bombay as a dower. So, with her Portuguese furniture and her Eastern designs, her gifts turned the heads of artists and artisans. In England are found those chairs for which we go to Portugal, yet they were made in England in the seventeenth century, the high-back straight chair covered with carved leather in both back and seat, put on with a prodigality of big nails, and having bronze spikes as a finish to the uprights of the back. The fluted foot came then, a sort of compromise between a claw and scroll, and known in our land as a Spanish foot, and used until the end of the seventeenth century. It is found on much furniture of early Colonial times prior to Anne's day. But perhaps the first change in Charles' reign was seen on the chairs of pierced carving of palm and S curve and cherub, with caned seats or backs. The carving on these chairs at once took as its popular device the crown, the crown which had been hidden out of sight in the years of the Commonwealth. As if to show the wealth of affection with which it was welcomed, it was repeated as many as five conspicuous times on one chair. With what complacence must Charles have looked upon this gentle flattery! For the Queen's satisfaction there were matters from the Near East in the way of ivory and ebony inlay, carved ebony, introductions of small black beings into designs, always in obvious subjection to white masters. But these were exotics of a sort that English taste preferred to import rather than manufacture. Ladies who took to embroidering affected the Bombay designs and colours. Charles II had been reigning but six years when the Great Fire swept away uncountable treasures in the way of furniture. To be sure, there was all the rest of England. But at that time London was practically all of elegant England. Country gentlemen had estates and big houses, but owing to the impossibility of transportation on the always miry, rutted roads, they went without the luxuries of town life. So, with the Great Fire of London perished so much of old oak and walnut furniture as to make collectors weep who turn their thoughts thereon. But as the phoenix rises unabashed from the flames, so rose the inspirations of Sir Christopher Wren, Grinling Gibbons, and of minor artists and artisans. Wren rebuilt the fallen monuments, giving to the world his great St. Paul's, and a pattern of church steeple that climbs high in American settlements as well as all through London; and the lesser workers gave men new patterns in beds and chairs for repose, and in tables for comforting viands, for games, or for the gossip which was a deep game of the day. CHAPTER IV CAROLEAN STYLES OR THE RESTORATION CHARLES II, 1660 TO 1685