The Tapestry Hangings of the House of Lords:

Shortly after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 Lord Howard of Effingham, commander of the British Fleet, commissioned Robert Adams to produce a series of charts representing the various phases of the action and then commissioned H.C. Vroom to produce a series of designs for tapestries, based on the work of Adams. They were woven by Francis Spiring of Haarlem. Some years later they were sold to James I and eventually came to furnish the walls of the House of Lords. All the tapestries (except one stolen at an earlier date and now lost) were burned in the fire that destroyed most of the Palace of Westminster in 1834. Pine's great work depicting this famous naval battle is therefore now of great historical importance. Apart from the remarkable detail of the engraving and the wealth of invention in the various cartouches, the restrained use of coloured ink to the plate surface produces a strikingly attractive effect, and represents a very early example of the colour-printing of illustrations.