Again, Piedmont is not very distant from Lorraine, and it is from this latter district, which was the country of the birthplace of her mother, that Mary, Queen of Scots, is said to have brought plaitters to Scotland in 1552, and thus to have introduced the art to the British Isles. Some writers on this subject, failing to discriminate between plait and hats, adduce many adverse arguments (_see_ below) when the claim is made that the unfortunate queen established the trade in the coasts of Britain. These point to the undoubted fact that straw hats were made both in Scotland and England before her time. That, of course, is quite true, but what is not equally certain is whether the hats made in the British Isles before 1552 were hats woven in one piece, or hats made of plaitted braid sewn afterwards in some manner to the required shape. In the old account of the transaction one reads that in Lorraine Mary noticed the people “profitably employed, some in plaitting straws and others in working (_sic_) the straw plait into hats.” It is, therefore, evident that it was an established industry in Lorraine and that _both_ operations were being carried on. One may also deduce that, while the weaving of hats may have been common in Scotland, the making of plait and the subsequent making into hats was a novelty to Mary, and, therefore, in the interests of her Scottish subjects, she endeavoured to promote a similar industry in which they also might be “profitably employed.” The late Mr. John Waller, of Luton, a member of one of the oldest families connected with the straw trade, after a careful and apparently unbiased investigation, says that the statement about Mary being the founder of the industry “can only be regarded as pleasing fiction”; and to support this quotes from Oldmixon’s _History of England_ (edition of 1724) “That the manufacture of straw plait had thriven for about 100 years in the neighbourhood of Hemel Hempstead and Dunstable.” But from 1552 to 1624 is a long period, and one can easily imagine the natives of sunny Lorraine feeling none too homelike in “Caledonia, stern and wild.” With the accession of James I (Mary’s son) to the English throne, what could be more natural than the migration of these workers to more genial southerly temperatures, bringing with them their art? As James became king in 1603 there would have been plenty of time for the industry of making plait for sewing into hats being established between then and 1624, which would be exactly 100 years before Oldmixon’s account! And speaking of the advent of the Lorrainers into Beds and Herts, Mr. Thomas George Austin, in his book on the _Straw Hat and Bonnet trade of the Luton District_, writes, “It is said to be the true history of the introduction of the handicraft into England.”