We have clear proof that, before the end of the seventh century, our fair countrywomen were skilled not merely in the use of the needle as applied to necessary purposes, but also in its application to the varied and elegant embroidered garments to which we have so frequently alluded, as forming properties of value and consideration. They were chiefly executed by ladies of the highest rank and greatest piety--very frequently, indeed, by those of royal blood--and were usually (as we have before observed) devoted to the embellishment of the church, or the decoration of its ministers. It was not unusual to bequeath such properties. "I give," said the wife of the Conqueror, in her will, "to the Abbey of the Holy Trinity, my tunic worked at Winchester by Alderet's wife, and the mantle embroidered with gold, which is in my chamber, to make a cope. Of my two golden girdles, I give that which is ornamented with emblems for the purpose of suspending the lamp before the great altar."[19] Amongst some costly presents sent by Isabella, Queen of Edward the Second, to the Pope, was a magnificent cope, embroidered and studded with large white pearls, and purchased of the executors of Catherine Lincoln, for a sum equivalent to between two and three thousand pounds of present money. Another cope, thought worthy to accompany it, was also the work of an Englishwoman, Rose de Bureford, wife of John de Bureford, citizen and merchant of London. Anciently, banners, either from being made of some relic, or from the representation on them of holy things, were held sacred, and much superstitious faith placed in them; consequently the pious and industrious finger was much occupied in working them. King Arthur, when he fought the eighth battle against the Saxons, carried the "image of Christ and of the blessed Mary (always a virgin) upon his shoulders." Over the tomb of Oswald, the great Christian hero, was laid a banner of purple wrought with gold. When St. Augustine first came to preach to the Saxons, he had a cross borne before him, with a banner, on which was the image of our Saviour Christ. The celebrated standard of the Danes had the sacred raven worked on it; and the ill-fated Harold bore to the field of Hastings a banner with the figure of an armed man worked in gold thread: to the same field William bore a standard, a gift from the Pope, and blessed by his Holiness.