A man of the time of Henry VII.
Below, in the town over the moat, a crowd is gathered to see them off—merchants in grave colours, and coats turned back with fur, their ink-horns slung at their waists, with pens and dagger and purse; beggars; pilgrims, from over seas, landed at Poole Harbour, in long gowns, worn with penitence and dusty travels, shells in their hats, staffs in their hands; wide-eyed children in smocks; butchers in blue; men of all guilds and women of all classes.
The drawbridge is down, the portcullis up, andthe party, gleaming like a bed of flowers in their multi-coloured robes, pass over the bridge, through the town, and into the valley.
The sun goes in and leaves the grim castle, gray and solemn, standing out against the green of the hills....
And of Henry himself, the great Tudor, greater, more farseeing than the eighth Henry, a man who so dominates the age, and fills it with his spirit, that no mental picture is complete without him. His fine, humorous face, the quizzical eye, the firm mouth, showing his character. The great lover of art, of English art, soon to be pulverized by pseudo-classic influences; the man who pulled down the chapel at the west end of Westminster Abbey with the house by it—Chaucer’s house—to make way for that superb triumph of ornate building, his chapel, beside which the mathematical squares and angles of classic buildings show as would boxes of bricks by a gorgeous flower.
The stories against him are, in reality, stories for him, invented by those whom he kept to their work, and whom he despoiled of their ill-gotten gains. He borrowed, but he paid back in full;he came into a disordered, distressed kingdom, ruled it by fear—as had to be done in those days—and left it a kingdom ready for the fruits of his ordered works—to the fleshy beast who so nearly ruined the country. What remained, indeed, was the result of his father’s genius.
Take up a pack of cards and look at the queen. You may see the extraordinary head-gear as worn by ladies at the end of the fifteenth century and in the first years of the sixteenth, worn in a modified form all through the next reign, after which that description of head-dress vanished for ever, its place to be taken by caps, hats, and bonnets.
The richest of these head-dresses were made of a black silk or some such black material, the top stiffened to the shape of a sloping house-roof, the edges falling by the face on either side—made stiff, so as to stand parallel—these were sewn with gold and pearls on colour or white. The end of the hood hung over the shoulders and down the back; this was surmounted by a stoleof stiffened material, also richly sewn with jewels, and the whole pinned on to a close-fitting cap of a different colour, the edge of which showed above the forehead.
Seven head-dresses for women; side and front view of a shoe
The more moderate head-dress was of black again, but in shape nearly square, and slit at the sides to enable it to hang more easily over theshoulders. It was placed over a coif, often of white linen or of black material, was turned over from the forehead, folded, and pinned back; often it was edged with gold.
On either side of the hood were hanging ornamental metal-tipped tags to tie back the hood from the shoulders, and this became, in time—that is, at the end of the reign—the ordinary manner of wearing them, till they were finally made up so.
The ordinary head-dress was of white linen, crimped or embroidered in white, made in a piece to hang over the shoulders and down the back, folded back and stiffened in front to that peculiar triangular shape in fashion; this was worn by the older women over a white hood.
The plain coif, or close-fitting linen cap, was the most general wear for the poor and middle classes.
The hair was worn long and naturally over the shoulders by young girls, and plainly parted in the centre and dressed close to the head by women wearing the large head-dress.
Another form of head-dress, less common, was the turban—a loose bag of silk, gold and pearlembroidered, fitting over the hair and forehead tightly, and loose above.
The gowns of the women were very simply cut, having either a long train or no train at all, these last cut to show the under-skirt of some fine material, the bodice of which showed above the over gown at the shoulders. The ladies who wore the long gown generally had it lined with some fine fur, and to prevent this dragging in the mud, as also to show the elegance of their furs, they fastened the train to a button or brooch placed at the back of the waistband. This, in time, developed into the looped skirts of Elizabethan times.
Three women of the time of Henry VII.
The bodice of the gown was square cut and not very low, having an ornamental border of fur, embroidery, or other rich coloured material sewn onto it. This border went sometimes round the shoulders and down the front of the dress to below the knees. Above the bodice was nearly always seen theV-shaped opening of the under petticoat bodice, and across and above that, the white embroidered or crimped chemise.
The sleeves were as the men’s—tight all the way down from the shoulder to the wrist, the cuffs coming well over the first joints of the fingers (sometimes these cuffs are turned back to show elaborate linings), or they were made tight at the shoulder and gradually looser until they became very full over the lower arm, edged or lined with fur or soft silk, or loose and baggy all the way from shoulder to hand.
A woman of the time of Henry VII.
At this time Bruges became world-famed for her silken texture; her satins were used in England for church garments and other clothes. The damask silks were greatly in use, and were nearly always covered with the peculiar semi-Spanish pattern, the base of which was some contortion of the pomegranate. Some of thesepatterns were small and wonderfully fine, depending on their wealth of detail for their magnificent appearance, others were huge, so that but few repeats of the design appeared on the dress. Block-printed linens were also in use, and the samples in South Kensington will show how beautiful and artistic they were, for all their simple design. As Bruges supplied us with silks, satins, and velvets, the last also beautifully damasked, Yprès sent her linen to us, and the whole of Flanders sent us painters and illuminators who worked in England at the last of the great illuminated books, but this art died as printing and illustrating by wood-blocks came in to take its place.
Nearly every lady had her own common linen, and often other stuffs, woven in her own house, and the long winter evenings were great times for the sewing chambers, where the lady and her maids sat at the looms. To-day one may see in Bruges the women at the cottage doors busy over their lace-making, and the English women by the sea making nets—so in those times was every woman at her cottage door making coarse linens and other stuffs to earn her daily bread, while my lady was sitting in her chamber weaving, orembroidering a bearing cloth for her child against her time.
However, the years of the Wars of the Roses had had their effect on every kind of English work, and as the most elegant books were painted and written by Flemings, as the finest linen came from Yprès, the best silks and velvets from Bruges, the great masters of painting from Florence, Germany, and Belgium, so also the elaborate and wonderful embroidery, for which we had been so famous, died away, and English work was but coarse at the best, until, in the early sixteen hundreds, the new style came into use of raising figures some height above the ground-work of the design, and the rich embroidery of the Stuart times revived this art.
I have shown that this age was the age of fine patterns, as some ages are ages of quaint cut, and some of jewel-laden dresses, and some of dainty needlework.
A few ladies wore their gowns open to the waist to show the stomacher, as the men did, and open behind to the waist, laced across, the waist being embraced by a girdle of the shape so long in use, with long ends and metalornaments; the girdle held the purse of the lady.
A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY VII. (1485-1509)
Notice the diamond-shaped head-dress, the wide, fur-edged gown with its full sleeves.
The illustrations given with this chapter show very completely the costume of this time, and, except in cases of royal persons or very gorgeously apparelled ladies, they are complete enough to need no description.
The shoes, it will be seen, are very broad at the toes, with thick soles, sometimes made much in the manner of sandals—that is, with only a toecap, the rest flat, to be tied on by strings.
As this work is entirely for use, it may be said, that artists who have costumes made for them, and costumiers who make for the stage, hardly ever allow enough material for the gowns worn by men and women in this and other reigns, where the heaviness and richness of the folds was the great keynote. To make a gown, of such a kind as these good ladies wore, one needs, at least, twelve yards of material, fifty-two inches wide, to give the right appearance. It is possible to acquire at many of the best shops nowadays actual copies of embroidered stuffs, velvets, and damask silks of this time, and of stuffs up to Early Victorian patterns, and this makes it easy forpainters to procure what, in other days, they were forced to invent.
Many artists have their costumes made of Bolton sheeting, on to which they stencil the patterns they wish to use—this is not a bad thing to do, as sheeting is not dear and it falls into beautiful folds.
The older ladies and widows of this time nearly all dressed in very simple, almost conventual garments, many of them wearing the ‘barbe’ of pleated linen, which covered the lower part of the face and the chin—a sort of linen beard—it reached to the breast, and is still worn by some religious orders of women.
Badges were still much in use, and the servants always wore some form of badge on their left sleeve—either merely the colours of their masters, or a small silver, or other metal, shield. Thus, the badge worn by the servants of Henry VII. would be either a greyhound, a crowned hawthorn bush, a red dragon, a portcullis, or the red and white roses joined together. The last two were used by all the Tudors, and the red rose and the portcullis are still used. From these badges we get the signs of many of our inns, either startedby servants, who used their master’s badge for a device, or because the inn lay on a certain property the lord of which carried chequers, or a red dragon, or a tiger’s head.
I mentioned the silks of Bruges and her velvets without giving enough prominence to the fine velvets of Florence, a sample of which, a cope, once used in Westminster Abbey, is preserved at Stonyhurst College; it was left by Henry VII. to ‘Our Monastery of Westminster,’ and is of beautiful design—a gold ground, covered with boughs and leaves raised in soft velvet pile of ruby colour, through which little loops of gold thread appear.
I imagine Elizabeth of York, Queen to Henry VII., of the subtle countenance—gentle Elizabeth, who died in child-birth—proceeding through London, from the Tower to Westminster, to her coronation; the streets cleansed and the houses hung with tapestry, arras and gold cloth, the fine-coloured dresses of the crowd, the armoured soldiers, all the rich estate of the company about her, and the fine trappings of the horses. Our Queen went to her coronation with some Italian masts, paper flowers, and somehundreds of thousands of yards of bunting and cheap flags; the people mostly in sombre clothes; the soldiers in ugly red, stiff coats, were the only colour of note passing down Whitehall, past the hideous green stuck with frozen Members of Parliament, to the grand, wonderful Abbey, which has seen so many Queens crowned.
Reigned thirty-eight years: 1509-1547.
Born, 1491. Married, 1509, Katherine of Aragon; 1532, Anne Boleyn; 1536, Jane Seymour; 1540, Anne of Cleves; 1540, Katherine Howard; 1548, Katherine Parr.
VERSES BY HENRY THE EIGHTH IN PRAISE OF CONSTANCY
‘As the holy grouth grene with ivie all aloneWhose flowerys cannot be seen and grene wode levys be gone,Now unto my lady, promyse to her I makeFrom all other only to her I me betake.Adew myne owne ladye, adew my specyallWho hath my hart trewly, be sure, and ever shall.’
‘As the holy grouth grene with ivie all aloneWhose flowerys cannot be seen and grene wode levys be gone,Now unto my lady, promyse to her I makeFrom all other only to her I me betake.Adew myne owne ladye, adew my specyallWho hath my hart trewly, be sure, and ever shall.’
So, with songs and music of his own composition, comes the richest man in Europe to the throne of England. Gay, brave, tall, full of conceit in his own strength, Henry, a king, a Tudor, a handsome man, abounding in excellence of craft and art, the inheritance from his father andmother, figures in our pageant a veritable symbol of the Renaissance in England.
He had, in common with the marvellous characters of that Springtime of History, the quick intelligence and all the personal charm that the age brought forth in abundance. In his reign the accumulated mass of brain all over the world budded and flowered; the time gave to us a succession of the most remarkable people in any historical period, and it is one of the triumphs of false reasoning to prove this, in England, to have been the result of the separation from the Catholic Church. For centuries the Church had organized and prepared the ground in which this tree of the world’s knowledge was planted, had pruned, cut back, nursed the tree, until gradually it flowered, its branches spread over Christian Europe, and when the flowering branch hanging over England gave forth its first-fruits, those men who ate of the fruit and benefited by the shade were the first to quarrel with the gardeners.
In these days there lived and died Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Dürer, Erasmus, Holbein, Copernicus, Luther, Rabelais, and Michael Angelo, to mention a few men ofevery shade of thought, and in this goodly time came Henry to the English throne, to leave, at his death, instead of the firm progress of order instituted by his father, a bankrupt country with an enormously rich Government.
You may see for the later pictures of his reign a great bloated mass of corpulence, with running ulcers on his legs and the blood of wives and people on his hands, striding in his well-known attitude over the festering slums his rule had produced in London. Harry,Grace à Dieu!
The mental picture from our—costume—point of view is widely different from that of the last reign. No longer do we see hoods and cowls, brown, gray, white, and black in the streets, no longer the throngs of fine craftsmen, of church-carvers, gilders, embroiderers, candle-makers, illuminators, missal-makers; all these served but to swell the ranks of the unemployed, and caused a new problem to England, never since solved, of the skilled poor out of work. The hospitals were closed—that should bring a picture to your eyes—where the streets had been thronged with the doctors of the poor and of the rich in their habits, no monks or lay brothers were to be seen. The sick, theblind, the insane had no home but the overhung back alleys where the foulest diseases might accumulate and hot-beds of vice spring up, while in the main streets Harry Tudor was carried to his bear-baiting, a quivering mass of jewels shaking on his corrupt body, on his thumb that wonderful diamond the Regale of France, stolen by him from the desecrated shrine of St. Thomas à Becket.
A man of the time of Henry VIII.; collar; ruff
A MAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY VIII. (1509-1547)
He wears the club-toed shoes, the white shirt embroidered in black silk, the padded shoulders, and the flat cap by which this reign is easily remembered.
A man of the time of Henry VIII.; breeches
There are two distinct classes of fashion to be seen, the German-Swiss fashion and the English fashion, a natural evolution of the national dress. The German fashion is that slashed, extravagant-looking creation which we know so well from the drawings of Albert Dürer and the more German designs of Holbein. The garments which were known as ‘blistered’ clothes are excessive growths on to the most extravagant designs of the Henry VII. date. The shirt cut low in the neck, and sewn with black embroidery; the little waistcoat ending at the waist and cut straight across fromshoulder to shoulder, tied with thongs of leather or coloured laces to the breeches, leaving a gap between which showed the shirt; the universal pouch on the breeches often highly decorated and jewelled. From the line drawings you will see that the sleeves and the breeches took every form, were of any odd assortment of colours, were cut, puffed, and splashed all over, so that the shirt might be pushed through the holes, looking indeed ‘blistered.’
A man of the time of Henry VIII.
The shoes were of many shapes, as I have shown, agreeing in one point only—that the toes should be cut very broad, often, indeed, quite square.
Short or hanging hair, both were the fashion, and little flat caps with the rim cut at intervals, or the large flat hats of the previous reign, covered with feathers and curiously slashed, were worn with these costumes.
Cloaks, as you may see, were worn over the dress, and also those overcoats shaped much like the modern dressing-gown.
It is from these ‘blistered,’ padded breeches that we derive the trunks of the next reign, the slashings grown into long ribbon-like slits, the hose puffed at the knee.
Separate pairs of sleeves were worn with the waistcoats, or with the petti-cotes, a favourite sleeve trimming being broad velvet bands.
The invention sprang, as usual, from necessity, by vanity to custom. In 1477 the Swiss beat and routed the Duke of Burgundy at Nantes, and the soldiers, whose clothes were in rags, cut and tore up his silk tents, his banners, all material they could find, and made themselves clothes of these odd pieces—clothes still so torn and ragged that their shirts puffed out of every hole and rent. The arrival of the victorious army caused all the non-fighters to copy this curious freak in clothes, and the courtiers perpetuated the event by proclaiming blistering as the fashion.
The other and more usual fashion springs from the habit of clothes in bygone reigns.
Let us first take the shirt A. It will be seen how, in this reign, the tendency of the shirt was to come close about the neck. The previous reign showed us, as a rule, a shirt cut very low in theneck, with the hem drawn together with laces; these laces pulled more tightly together, thus rucking the material into closer gathers, caused the cut of the shirt to be altered and made so that the hem frilled out round the neck—a collar, in fact. That this collar took all forms under certain limitations will be noticed, also that thick necked gentlemen—Henry himself must have invented this—wore the collar of the shirt turned down and tied with strings of linen. The cuffs of the shirt, when they showed at the wrist, were often, as was the collar, sewn with elaborate designs in black thread or silk.
Now we take the waistcoat B. As you may see from the drawing showing the German form of dress, this waistcoat was really a petti-cote, a waistcoat with sleeves. This waistcoat was generally of richly ornamented material (Henry in purple satin, embroidered with his initials and the Tudor rose; Henry in brocade covered with posies made in letters of fine gold bullion). The material was slashed and puffed or plain, and dependent for its effect on the richness of its embroidery or design of the fabric. It was worn with or without sleeves; in most cases the sleeves were detachable.
Two types of sleeve; eight hats for men
The coat C. This coat was made with bases like a frock, a skirted coat, in fact; the material used was generally plain, of velvet, fine cloth, silk, or satin. The varieties of cut were numerous, and are shown in the drawings—open to the waist, open all the way in front, close to the neck—every way; where the coat was open in front it generally parted to show the bragetto, or jewelled pouch. It was a matter for choice spirits to decide whether or no they should wear sleeves to their coats, or show the sleeves of their waistcoats. No doubt Madame Fashion saw to it that the changes were rung sufficiently to make hay while the sun shone on extravagant tastes. The coat was held at the waist with a sash of silk tied in a bow with short ends. Towards the end of the reign, foreshadowing the Elizabethan jerkin or jacket, the custom grew more universal of the coat with sleeves and the high neck, the bases were cut shorter to show the full trunks, and the waistcoat was almost entirely done away with, the collar grew in proportion, and spread, like the tail of an angry turkey, in ruffle and folded pleat round the man’s neck.
A MAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY VIII. (1509-1547)
This is the extreme German-English fashion. In Germany and Switzerland this was carried to greater lengths.
The overcoat D is the gown of the previous reign cut, for the dandy, into a shorter affair,reaching not far below the knee; for the grave man it remained long, but, for all, the collar had changed to a wide affair stretching well over the shoulders. It was made, this collar, of such stuff as lined the cloak, maybe it was of fur, or of satin, of silk, or of cloth of gold. The tremendous folds of these overcoats gave to the persons in them a sense of splendour and dignity; the short sleeves of the fashionable overcoats, puffed and swollen, barred with richappliquédesigns or bars of fur, reaching only to the elbow, there to end in a hem of fur or some rich stuff, the collar as wide as these padded shoulders, all told in effect as garments which gave a great air of well-being and richness to their owner.
A man of the time of Henry VIII.
Of course, I suppose one must explain, the sleeves varied in every way: were long, short, full, medium full, according to taste. Sometimesthe overcoats were sleeveless. Beneath these garments the trunks were worn—loose little breeches, which, in the German style, were bagged, puffed, rolled, and slashed in infinite varieties. Let it be noticed that the cutting of slashes was hardly ever a straight slit, but in the curve of an elongatedSor a doubleScurve. Other slashes were squared top and bottom.
Three men of the time of Henry VIII.
All men wore tight hose, in some cases puffed at the knee; in fact, the bagging, sagging, and slashing of hose suggested the separate breeches or trunks of hose.
A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY VIII. (1509-1547)
A plain but rich looking dress. The peculiar head-dress has a pad of silk in front to hold it from the forehead. The half-sleeves are well shown.
The shoes were very broad, and were sometimes stuffed into a mound at the toes, were sewn withprecious stones, and, also, were cut and puffed with silk.
A man of the time of Henry VIII.
The little flat cap will be seen in all its varieties in the drawings.
The Irish were forbidden by law to wear a shirt, smock, kerchor, bendel, neckerchor, mocket (a handkerchor), or linen cap coloured or dyed with saffron; or to wear in shirts or smocks above seven yards of cloth.
To wear black genet you must be royal; to wear sable you must rank above a viscount; to wear marten or velvet trimming you must be worth over two hundred marks a year.
Short hair came into fashion about 1521.
Three men of the time of Henry VIII. (torso only); three types of shoe; two types of boot; a cod-piece
So well known is the story of Sir Philip Calthrop and John Drakes the shoemaker of Norwich, who tried to ape the fashion, that I must here allude to this ancestor of mine who was the first of the dandies of note, among persons not of the royal blood. The story itself, retold in every history of costume, is to thiseffect: Drakes, the shoemaker, seeing that the county talked of Sir Philip’s clothes, ordered a gown from the same tailor. This reached the ears of Sir Philip, who then ordered his gown to be cut as full of slashes as the shears could make it. The ruin of cloth so staggered the shoemaker that he vowed to keep to his own humble fashion in future. No doubt Sir Philip’s slashes were cunningly embroidered round, and the gown made rich and sparkling with the device of seed pearls so much in use. This man’s son, also Sir Philip, married Amy, daughter of Sir William Boleyn, of Blickling, Norfolk. She was aunt to Queen Anne Boleyn.
One cannot call to mind pictures of this time without, in the first instance, seeing the form of Henry rise up sharply before us followed by his company of wives. The fat, uxorious giant comes straight to the front of the picture, he dominates the age pictorially; and, as a fitting background, one sees the six women who were sacrificed on the political altar to pander to his vanity. Katherine of Aragon—the fine and noble lady—a tool of political desires, cast off after Henry had searched his precious conscience, after eighteen years of married life, to find that he had scruples as to the spirituality of the marriage. Anne Boleyn, tainted with the life of the Court, a pitiful figure in spite of all her odious crimes; how often must a ghost, in a black satin nightdress edged with black velvet, have haunted the royal dreams. And the rest of them, clustered round the vain king, while in the background the great figures of the time loom hugely as they play with the crowned puppets.
Eight stages in the evolution of the hood
The note of the time, as we look at it with our eyes keen on the picture, is the final evolutionof the hood. Bit by bit, inch by inch, the plain fabric has become enriched, each succeeding step in an elaboration of the simple form; the border next to the face is turned back, then the hood is lined with fine stuff and the turnover shows this to advantage; then the sides are split and the back is made more full; then a tag is sewn on to the sides by which means the cut side maybe fastened off the shoulders. The front is now stiffened and shaped at an angle, this front is sewn with jewels, and, as the angle forms a gap between the forehead and the point of the hood, a pad is added to fill in the vacant space. At last one arrives at the diamond-shaped head-dress worn in this reign, and, in this reign, elaborated in every way, elaborated, in fact, out of existence. In order to make the head-dress in its 1509 state you must make the white lining with the jewelled turnover as a separate cap. However, I think that the drawings speak for themselves more plainly than I can write.
Four types of head-dress for women
Every device for crowding jewels together was used, criss-cross, in groups of small numbers, in great masses. Pendants were worn, hung upon jewelled chains that wound twice round the neck, once close to the neck, the second loop looseand passed, as a rule, under the lawn shift. Large brooches decorated the bodices, brooches with drop ornaments, the body of the brooch of fine gold workmanship, many of them wrought in Italy. The shift, delicately embroidered with black silk, had often a band of jewellery upon it, and this shift was square cut, following the shape of the bodice.
The bodice of the gown was square cut and much stiffened to a box-like shape. The sleeves of the gown were narrow at the shoulders, and after fitting the arm for about six inches down from the shoulders, they widened gradually until, just below the elbow, they became square and very full; in this way they showed the false under-sleeve. This under-sleeve was generally made of a fine rich-patterned silk or brocade, the same stuff which formed the under-gown; the sleeve was a binding for the very full lawn or cambric sleeve which showed in a ruffle at the wrist and in great puffs under the forearm. The under-sleeve was really more like a gauntlet, as it was generally held together by buttoned tags; it was puffed with other coloured silk, slashed to show the shift, or it might be plain.
Now the sleeve of the gown was subject to much alteration. It was, as I have described, made very square and full at the elbow, and over this some ladies wore a false sleeve of gold net—you may imagine the length to which net will go, studied with jewels, crossed in many ways, twisted into patterns, sewn on to the sleeve in sloping lines—but, besides this, the sleeve was turned back to form a deep square cuff which was often made of black or coloured velvet, or of fur.
A woman of the time of Henry VIII.; a head-dress
In all this I am taking no account of the German fashions, which I must describe separately. Look at the drawings I have made of the German fashion. I find that they leave me dumb—mere man has but a limited vocabulary when the talk comes to clothes—and these dresses that look like silk pumpkins, blistered and puffed and slashed,sewn in ribs, swollen, and altogether so queer, are beyond the furious dashes that my pen makes at truth and millinery. The costumes of the people of this age have grown up in the minds of most artists as being inseparable from the drawings of Holbein and Dürer.
Two women of the time of Henry VIII.
Surely, I say to myself, most people who will read this will know their Holbein and Dürer, between whom there lies a vast difference, but who between them show, the one, the estate of England, and the other, those most German fashions which had so powerful an influence upon our own. Both these men show the profusion of richness, the extravagant follies of the dress of their time, how, to use the words of Pliny: ‘We penetrate into the bowels of the earth, digging veins of gold and silver, and ores of brass and lead; we seek also for gems and certain little pebbles. Driving galleries into the depths, we draw out thebowels of the earth, that the gems we seek may be worn on the finger. How many hands are wasted in order that a single joint may sparkle! If any hell there were, it had assuredly ere now been disclosed by the borings of avarice and luxury!’
A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY VIII. (1509-1547)
Notice the wide cuffs covered with gold network, and the rich panel of the under-skirt.
A woman of the time of Henry VIII.; three types of sleeve
Or in the writings of Tertullian, called by Sigismund Feyerabendt, citizen and printer of Frankfort, a ‘most strict censor who most severely blames women:’ ‘Come now,’ says Tertullian, ‘if from the first both the Milesians sheared sheep, and the Chinese spun from the tree, and the Tyrians dyed and the Phrygians embroidered, and the Babylonians inwove; and if pearls shone and rubies flashed, if gold itself, too, came up from the earth with the desire for it; and if now, too, no lying but the mirror’s were allowed, Eve, Isuppose, would have desired these things on her expulsion from Paradise, and when spiritually dead.’
One sees by the tortured and twisted German fashion that the hair was plaited, and so, in curves and twists, dropped into coarse gold-web nets, thrust into web nets with velvet pouches to them, so that the hair stuck out behind in a great knob, or at the side in two protuberances; over all a cap like to the man’s, but that it was infinitely more feathered and jewelled. Then, again, they wore those hideous barbes or beard-like linen cloths, over the chin, and an infinite variety of caps of linen upon their heads—caps which showed always the form of the head beneath.
A woman of the time of Henry VIII.; three types of hat for women
In common with the men, their overcoats and cloaks were voluminous, and needed to be so if those great sleeves had to be stuffed into them; fur collars or silk collars, with facings to match,were rolled over to show little or great expanses of these materials.
Here, to show what dainty creatures were our lady ancestors, to show from what beef and blood and bone we come, I give you (keep your eye meanwhile upon the wonderful dresses) the daily allowance of a Maid of Honour.
Every morning at breakfast one chyne of beef from the kitchen, one chete loaf and one maunchet at the pantry bar, and one gallon of ale at the buttery bar.For dinner a piece of beef, a stroke of roast and a reward from the kitchen. A caste of chete bread from the pantry bar, and a gallon of ale at the buttery bar.Afternoon—should they suffer the pangs of hunger—a maunchet of bread from the pantry bar, and a gallon of ale at the buttery bar.Supper, a messe of pottage, a piece of mutton and a reward from the kitchen. A caste of chete bread from the pantry bar, and a gallon of ale at the buttery bar.After supper—to insure a good night’s rest—a chete loaf and a maunchet from the pantry bar, and half a gallon of ale from the seller bar.
Every morning at breakfast one chyne of beef from the kitchen, one chete loaf and one maunchet at the pantry bar, and one gallon of ale at the buttery bar.
For dinner a piece of beef, a stroke of roast and a reward from the kitchen. A caste of chete bread from the pantry bar, and a gallon of ale at the buttery bar.
Afternoon—should they suffer the pangs of hunger—a maunchet of bread from the pantry bar, and a gallon of ale at the buttery bar.
Supper, a messe of pottage, a piece of mutton and a reward from the kitchen. A caste of chete bread from the pantry bar, and a gallon of ale at the buttery bar.
After supper—to insure a good night’s rest—a chete loaf and a maunchet from the pantry bar, and half a gallon of ale from the seller bar.
Four and a half gallons of ale! I wonder did they drink it all themselves? All this, and down in the mornings in velvets and silks, with faces as fresh as primroses.
It is the fate of all articles of clothing or adornment, naturally tied or twisted, or folded and pinned by the devotees of fashion, to become, after some little time, made up, ready made, into the shapes which had before some of the owner’s mood and personality about them. These hoods worn by the women, these wide sleeves to the gowns, these hanging sleeves to the overcoats, the velvet slip of under-dress, all, in their time, became falsified into ready-made articles. With the hoods you can see for yourselves how they lend themselves by their shape to personal taste; they were made up, all ready sewn; where pins had been used, the folds of velvet at the back were made steadfast, the crimp of the white linen was determined, the angle of the side-flap ruled by some unwritten law of mode. In the end, by a process of evolution, the diamond shape disappeared, and the cap was placed further back on the head, the contour being circular where it had previously been pointed. The velvet hanging-piece remained at the backof the head, but was smaller, in one piece, and was never pinned up, and the entire shape gradually altered towards, and finally into, the well-known Mary Queen of Scots head-dress, with which every reader must be familiar.
Two women of the time of Henry VIII.
It has often occurred to me while writing this book that the absolute history of one such head-dress would be of more help than these isolated remarks, which have to be dropped only to be taken up in another reign, but I have felt that, after all, the arrangement is best as it stands, because we can follow, if we are willing, the complete wardrobe of one reign into the next, without mixing the two up. It is difficult to keep two interests running together, but I myself have felt, when reading other works on the subject, that the way in which the various articlesof clothing are mixed up is more disturbing than useful.
The wide sleeve to the gown, once part and parcel of the gown, was at last made separate from it—as a cuff more than a sleeve naturally widening—and in the next reign, among the most fashionable, left out altogether. The upper part of the dress, once cut low and square to show the under-dress, or a vest of other stuff, was now made, towards the end of the reign, with a false top of other stuff, so replacing the under-dress.
Lacing was carried to extremes, so that the body was pinched into the hard roll-like appearance always identified with this time; on the other hand, many, wiser women I should say, were this the place for morals, preferred to lace loose, and show, beneath the lacing, the colour of the under-dress.
Many were the varieties of girdle and belt, from plain silk sashes with tasselled ends to rich jewelled chain girdles ending in heavy ornaments.
For detail one can do no better than go to Holbein, the master of detail, and to-day, when photographs of pictures are so cheap, and lives of painters, copiously illustrated, are so easilyattainable at low prices, it is the finest education, not only in painting, but in Tudor atmosphere and in matters of dress, to go straightway and study the master—that master who touched, without intention, on the moral of his age when he painted a miniature of the Blessed Thomas More on the back of a playing card.
Reigned six years: 1547-1553.
Born, 1537.
A man of the time of Edward VI.; a type of hat
Here we have a reign which, from its very shortness, can hardly be expected to yield us much in the way of change, yet it shows, by very slight movements, that form of growth which preludes the great changes to come.
I think I may call a halt here, and proceed to tell you why this volume is commenced with Henry VII., called the Tudor and Stuart volume, and ends with the Cromwells. It is because, between these reigns, the tunic achieves maturity, becomes a doublet, and dies,practically just in the middle of the reign of Charles II. of pungent memory. The peculiar garment, or rather, this garment peculiar to a certain time, runs through its various degrees of cut. It is, at first, a loose body garment with skirts; the skirts become arranged in precise folds, the folds on the skirt are shortened, the shorter they become the tighter becomes the coat; then we run through with this coat in its periods of puffings, slashings, this, that, and the other sleeve, all coats retaining the small piece of skirt or basque, and so to the straight, severe Cromwellian jerkin with the piece of skirt cut into tabs, until the volume ends, and hey presto! there marches into history a Persian business—a frock coat, straight, trim, quite a near cousin to our own garment of afternoon ceremony.
For a sign of the times it may be mentioned that a boy threw his cap at the Host just at the time of the Elevation.
To Queen Elizabeth has been given the palm for the wearing of the first silk stockings in England, but it is known that Sir Thomas Gresham gave a pair of silk stockings to Edward VI.
We now see a more general appearance in thestreets of the flat cap upon the heads of citizens. The hood, that eminently practical head-gear, took long to die, and, when at last it went out of fashion, except among the labouring classes, there came in the cap that now remains to us in the cap of the Beefeaters at the Tower of London.