In "The Stocking Knitter's Manual" it says:

"It may be interesting to know, that the art of knitting is first about the sixteenth century; and, according to some, originate in Scotland, whence it found its way into France. It is related that, in 1564, a certain Wm. Ryder, an apprentice of Master Thomas Burdett, having seen accidentally, in the shop of an Italian merchant, a pair of knitted worsted stockings, made a pair exactly like them, which he presented to William, Earl of Pembroke, and these were the first stockings knitted in England of woolen yarn."

The Scots invented or made the first of everything.