IF medieval England had wool, France had silk. Across the Channel, people had been weaving imported silk thread since the 11th century and, in 1466, the then King, Louis XI, ordered a new industry set up in Lyon, staffed by Italian weavers, in a bid to dominate European silk-cloth manufacture. The city duly became the silk capital of the Continent and, towards the end of the 16th century, the reigning French monarch, Henry IV, emphasised his country’s prominent role in silk production by establishing mulberry groves for the domestic breeding and feeding of silkworms.
In London, a peeved James I responded with a rival plan to breed ‘English’ silkworms. In 1607, he bade his Lord Lieutenants order landowners across the country to plant mulberry trees. Some 100,000 saplings were brought from the Netherlands and made available at three farthings a plant or
