The reference to lacemakers moving to Normandy possibly relates to the machine lacemakers. After trouble with Luddites in Loughborough then Nottingham, John Heathcote moved his bobbinet factory to Devon, and from there machines were smuggled (after being stripped down to smaller parts) to Calais - workers later migrated to Australia. There are tales of dogs being used to aid the smuggling of lace from France to England, and it struck me that a small dog like this breed would be a likely candidate. There was some movement from France to England due to religious persecution but this, I think, was in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, much earlier than the impression I got of when the dogs were popular. The late Dr John Yallop dispelled a lot of the myths surrounding the religious migrants in his History of the Honiton Lace Industry, having done what a lot of the lace 'historians' didn't do and checked primary evidence.
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