From Dorcas Magazine, New York, February 1885
The word doily, now a familiar one with fashionable ladies, had, by the way, a curious origin. It is derived from the name of Robert D’Oyley, one of the followers of William the Norman. He received a grant of valuable lands on the condition of the yearly tender of a tablecloth of three shillings’ value at the feast of St. Micheal. Agreeable to the fashion of the time, the ladies of the D’Oyley family were accustomed to embroider and ornament the quit-rent table-cloths; hence these cloths becoming curiosities, and, accumulating in the course of years, were at length brought into use at the royal table and called doilies.
L.B.S.
