Its exportation was then forbidden by proclamation; though that edict was never strictly executed.

Most of the cloth was exported raw, and was dyed and dressed by the Dutch; who gained, it is pretended, seven hundred thousand pounds a year by this manufacture.[**] A proclamation issued by the king against exporting cloth in that condition, had succeeded so ill during one year, by the refusal of the Dutch to buy the dressed cloth, that great murmurs arose against it; and this measure was retracted by the king, and complained of by the nation, as if it had been the most impolitic in the world.

It seems indeed to have been premature.
In so little credit was the fine English cloth even at home, that the king was obliged to seek expedients by which he might engage the people of fashion to wear it.[***] The manufacture of fine linen was totally unknown in the kingdom.[****] * Journ.

26th May, 1621.
** Journ.

20th May, 1614.