Ironwork .. . incorporatedthe smiths and blacksmiths into a company in 1578. TheGerman Steelyard, nevertheless, continued to flourish, steel was preferred to English, while in 1556 therewas actually a movement to close down English ironworksaltogether, in favour of Spanish iron, which was then at theextraordinary price of but five marks per ton, the inferiorEnglish being nine marks. This must have been merely dueto a Steelyard manoeuvre, for in 1551 Spanish iron was re-tailed at £8 ios., and in 1596 at £14 per ton. There wereSpanish smiths, too, for in 1556 one was hanged. But fina
Ironwork .. . incorporatedthe smiths and blacksmiths into a company in 1578. TheGerman Steelyard, nevertheless, continued to flourish, steel was preferred to English, while in 1556 therewas actually a movement to close down English ironworksaltogether, in favour of Spanish iron, which was then at theextraordinary price of but five marks per ton, the inferiorEnglish being nine marks. This must have been merely dueto a Steelyard manoeuvre, for in 1551 Spanish iron was re-tailed at £8 ios., and in 1596 at £14 per ton. There wereSpanish smiths, too, for in 1556 one was hanged. But finallyone of Elizabeths last and most patriotic acts was to closethe German Steelyard for good and all. Flemings hadflocked to England in 1576 ; they, however, chiefly occupieda 44 IRONWORK. Canterbury and Sandwich, where they have left manywall anchors, one of which is dated 1564, and part of another1603, of patterns such as are seen in Bruges, and formerlyat Ypres, in great numbers. There are also many still. Fig. 3.—Wall anchors at Sandwich, Kent. existing in the old Rows at Yarmouth, some possibly ofElizabeths date. A very fine lock of this date is on the westdoor to the choir of St. Georges Chapel, Windsor, of threepierced arabesqued plates of sheet iron superimposed andenclosed in cable borders. In the absence of important outdoor iron gates andrailings, the time for which had not yet come, the grates to tombs in churches, as they were called, represent the mostimportant efforts of the smith, and in these his progressor the reverse is most readily discerned. But that vastnumbers have been destroyed in restoration, tomb-rails THE RENAISSANCE. 45 might have presented an epitome of the average develop-ment of this great national industry from the fourteenthto the seventeenth century. These were not merely pro-tective but in most cases an integral part of the designof the monument, to which they contribute a certain are formed of bars set vertically and spiked ab
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Keywords: ., bookauthorvictoria, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, bookyear1922
