I have stated these facts in the early history of English glass at some length not only for their intrinsic interest, but also to illustrate the curious fact that just as there is from Saxon times to 1550 a gap in the history of its manufacture, which no authenticated examples assist to fill, so from the accession of Queen Elizabeth to that of King Charles I. there exist to-day very few indisputable examples of the English glass-blower’s art of this period; and yet it is hardly possible to believe that they were not produced in considerable quantity. For, in spite of specimens bearing the Tudor rose--an ornament, by the way, largely employed at a later date--and of others with detailed and more or less accredited histories, “Elizabethan glass,” so glibly spoken of by some collectors, is chiefly conspicuous by its absence. Happy, therefore, the collector who acquires even a dubious example. One famous specimen which may safely be assumed to be authentic is that from the British Museum Collection shown in Fig. 1. This drinking cup or goblet stands about 5¼ in. in height and bears the initials G. S.--probably those of the person for whom it was made--the date 1586, and the motto, “IN: GOD: IS: AL: MY: TRVST.” Experts generally concur in attributing it to Jacob Verzelini. Four years after the Armada, Elizabeth granted to one Thomas Bowes a monopoly to make drinking glasses “to be as good cheape or better cheape than those imported from Venice.” As to the success of his venture history is silent. In the reign of her successor--that British Solomon, James I.--glass-making seems, however, to have made considerable progress; for in 1610 a licence was granted for “the invention of coal-heated glass-houses,” and in the following year Sir Edward Zouche expended no less a sum than £5000 in erecting glass-houses in Lambeth and perfecting the production of glass with sea-coal. This change is a momentous one in the history of glass-making, inasmuch as it became necessary to cover the pots, and this brought about various improvements. They are mainly associated with the name of Percival, and it is to be presumed that they included the introduction of oxide of lead into the frit in quantity, with the result of producing a more brilliant crystal than had yet been produced. From this time English glass began to acquire fame, and the industry became a definitely British art. One outcome of this change in the method of manufacture was that the industry became localised, the glass-houses springing up in those districts where it was easy to obtain fuel as on the coal-fields, where the sand was of exceptional quality as at Reigate, or where there was an abundance of clay suitable for making the pots as at Stourbridge. One of the most interesting discoveries in connection with the history of the glass industry in England was made some sixty or seventy [Illustration: FIG. 1.--AN EARLY ELIZABETHAN GLASS, DATED 1586.]