row called Paternoster Row, as the name implies, was formerly a few
houses, where they sold rosaries, relics, &c. The once celebrated
herbalist and astrologer, Nicholas Culpepper, was another inhabitant of
this spot. He died in 1654, in a house he had some time occupied, very
pleasantly situated in the fields; but now a public house at the corner
of Red Lion Court, Red Lion Street, east of Spittlefields market. The
house, though it has undergone several repairs, still exhibits the
appearance of one of those that formed a part of old London. The weaving
art, which has arrived at such an astonishing perfection, was patronized
by the wise and liberal Edward III., who encouraged the art by the most
advantageous offers of reward and encouragement to weavers who would
come and settle in England. In 1331, two weavers came from Brabant and
settled at York. The superior skill and dexterity of these men, who
communicated their knowledge to others, soon manifested itself in the
improvement and spread of the art of weaving in this island. Many
Flemish weavers were driven from their native country by the cruel
persecutions of the Duke d'Alva, in 1567. They settled in different
parts of England, and introduced and promoted the manufacture of baizes,
serges, crapes, &c. The arts of spinning, throwing, and weaving silk,
were brought into England about the middle of the fifteenth century, and
were practised by a company of women in London, called silk women. About
1480, men began to engage in the silk manufacture, and in the year 1686,
nearly 50,000 manufacturers, of various descriptions, took refuge in
England, in consequence of the revocation of the Edict of Nantz, by
Louis le Grand, who sent thousands (says Pennant) of the most
industrious of his subjects into this kingdom to present his bitterest
enemies with the arts and manufactures of his kingdom; hence the origin
of the silk trade in Spittlefields.

P.T.W.