The foreign origin of the tapestries (even those which were manufactured in England being made and designed by foreigners) accounts for the foreign flavour which pervades their backgrounds and accessories. It has, consequently, been asserted that the inspiration of these embroidery pictures is also foreign, the assertion being based on the fact that the buildings are for the most part of Teutonic design. This is not my opinion. The buildings, it is true, for the most part assume a Flemish or German air, but this is probably due to the reason given at the commencement of this paragraph. It might, with equal force, be held that the pieces are Italian in their origin, as their foregrounds, as we shall presently show, largely affect that style. That either of these suppositions is correct is negatived by the thoroughly English contemporary costume that apparels the principal figures, which also proves that the majority of the pieces were in the main original conceptions, the designers following in the footsteps of their forerunners from the times of Greece downwards, and clothing their puppets, no matter to what age they appertained, in the contemporary dress of their own country. This brings us to the most interesting feature of these little pictures, namely, their value as mirrors of fashion. Tapestry Embroideries as Mirrors of Fashion In this respect they are hardly inferior, as illustrations, to the pictures of Vandyck or the engravings of Hollar; whilst, as sidelights to horticultural pursuits under the Stuart kings, and of the flowers which were then affected, they are perhaps more reliable authorities than the Herbals from whence it has been erroneously asserted that they derived their information. In these respects their value has been entirely overlooked. Authorities on dress go to obscure engravings, or to the brasses or sculptural effigies in our churches, for examples, which have, in every instance, been designed by a man unversed in the intricacies of dressmaking. They have failed to recognise the fact that these embroideries are the product of hands which very certainly knew the cut of every garment, and the intricacy of every bow, knot, and point, and which would take a pride in rendering them not only with accuracy, but in the latest mode. It was probably due to this desire to make their work complete mirrors of fashion, that the embroideresses gave up illustrating the figure in the flat, and stuffed it out like a puppet, upon which each portion of the dress might be superimposed. An illustration of this may be seen in the reproduction on a large scale, in the text of Part III., of some of the figures from the piece of embroidery illustrated in Plate XXIII.[12]