FOOTNOTES:

“Sir,” quoth Count Bongars, “war’s disastrous hourHath cast my lot within my foeman’s power.Name ransome as you list; gold, silver bright,Palfreys, or dogs, or falcons train’d to flight;Or choose yousumptuous furs, of vair or gray;I plight my faith the destin’d price to pay.”[97]

Certain German nobles who had slain a bishop were enjoined, amongst other acts of penance, “ut varium, griseum, ermelinum, et pannos coloratos, non portent.”

The skin of the wild cat was much used by the clergy. Bishop Wolfstan preferred lambskin; saying in excuse, “Crede mihi, nunquam audivi, in ecclesia, cantaricatusDei, sedagnusDei; ideo calefieri agno volo.”

The monk of Chaucer had

“———his sleeves purfiled, at the hond,With gris, and that the finest of the lond.”

It is not till about the year 1204 that there is any specific enumeration of the royal apparel for festival occasions. The proper officers are appointed to bring for the king on this occasion “a golden crown, a red satin mantle adorned with sapphires and pearls, a robe of the same, a tunic of white damask; and slippers of red satin edged with goldsmith’swork; a balbrick set with gems; two girdles enamelled and set with garnets and sapphires; white gloves, one with a sapphire and one with an amethist; various clasps adorned with emeralds, turquois, pearls, and topaz; and sceptres set with twenty-eight diamonds.”[98]

So much for the king:—And for the queen—oh! ye enlightened legislators of the earth, ye omnipotent and magisterial lords of creation, look on that picture—and on this.

“For our lady the queen’s use, sixty ells of fine linen cloth, forty ells of dark green cloth, a skin of minever, asmall brass pan, andeight towels.”

But John, who in addition to his other amiable propensities was the greatest and most extravagant fop in Europe, was as parsimonious towards others as selfish and extravagant people usually are. Whilst even at the ceremony of her coronation he only afforded his Queen “three cloaks of fine linen, one of scarlet cloth, and one grey pelisse, costing together 12l.5s.4d.;” he himself launched into all sorts of expenditure. He ordered the minutest articles for himself and the queen; but the wardrobe accounts of the sovereigns of the middle ages prove that they kept a royal warehouse of mercery, haberdashery, and linen, from whence their officers measured out velvets, brocades, sarcenets, tissue, gauzes, and trimmings, of all sorts. A queen, says Miss Strickland, had not the satisfaction of ordering her own gown when she obtained leave to have a new one; the warlike hand of her royal lord signed the order forthe delivery of the materials from his stores, noting down with minute precision the exact quantity to a quarter of a yard of the cloth, velvet, or brocade, of which the garment was composed.

“Blessed be the memory of King Edward III. and Philippa of Hainault his queen, who first invented clothes,” was, we are told, the grateful adjuration of a monkish historian, who referred probably not to the first assumption of apparel, but to the charter which was granted first by that monarch to the “cutters and linen armourers,” subsequently known as the merchant-tailors, who at that period were usually the makers of all garments, silk, linen, or woollen. Female fingers had sufficient occupation in the finer parts of the work; in the “silke broiderie” with which every garment of fashion was embellished; in the tapestry; in the spinning of wool and flax, every thread of which was drawn by female hands, and in the weaving of which a great portion was also executed by them.

In the forty-fourth year of this king, “as the book of Worcester reporteth, they began to use cappes of divers coloures, especially red, with costly lynings; and in the year 1372, the forty-seventh of the above prince, they first began to wanton it in a new round curtall weede, which they call a cloake, and in Latinarmilausa, as only covering the shoulders, and this notwithstanding the king had endeavoured to restrain all these inordinances and expenses in clothing; as appears by the law by Parliament established in the thirty-sixth year of his reign. All ornaments of gold or silver, either on the daggers, girdles, necklaces, rings, or other ornaments for thebody, were forbid to all that could not spend ten pounds a-year; and farther, that no furre or pretious and costly apparel, should be worne by any but men possessed of 100l.a year.”

Besides the rigid enactments of the law, and the anathemas of divines, other and gentler means were from time to time resorted to as warnings from that sin of dress which seems inherent in our nature, or as inducements to a more becoming one. We quote a specimen of both:—

“There was a lady whiche had her lodgynge by the chirche. And she was alweye accustomed for to be longe to araye her, and to make her freshe and gay, insomuch that it annoyed and greued moche the parson of the chirche, and the parysshens. And it happed on a Sonday that she was so longe, that she sent to the preeste that he shod tarye for her, lyke as she had been accustomed. And it was thenne ferforthe on the day. And it annoyed the peple. And there were somme that said, How is hit? shall not this lady this day be pynned ne wel besene in a Myrroure? And somme said softely, God sende to her an evyll syght in her myrroure that causeth us this day and so oftymes to muse and to abyde for her. And thene as it plesyd God for an ensample, as she loked in the myrroure she sawe therein the Fende, whiche shewed hymselfe to her so fowle and horryble, that the lady wente oute of her wytte, and was al demonyak a long tyme. And after God sente to her helthe. And after she was not so longe in arayeng but thanked God that had so suffered her to be chastysed.”[99]

The ‘Garment of Gude Ladyis’ is a lecture of a most beguiling kind, and an exquisite picture.

“Wald my gud lady lufe me best,And wirk after my will,I suld ane garment gudliestGar mak hir body till.“Of he honour suld be her hud,Upoun hir heid to weir,Garneist with governance so gud,Na demyng[100]suld hir deir.[101]“Hir kirtill suld be of clene constance,Lasit with lesum lufe,The mailyeis[102]of continwanceFor nevir to remufe.“Her gown suld be of gudliness,Weill ribband with renowne,Purfillit[103]with plesour in ilk place,Furrit with fyne fassoun.[104]“Her belt suld be of benignitie,About hir middill meit;Hir mantill of humilitie,To tholl[105]bayth wind and weit.“Hir hat suld be of fair having[106],And her tepat of trewth,Hir patelet[107]of gude pansing,Hir hals-ribbane of rewth.“Hir slevis suld be of esperance,To keip hir fra dispair;Hir gluvis of the gud govirnance,To hyd hir fingearis fair.“Hir schone suld be of sickernes[108]In syne that scho nocht slyd;Hir hois of honestie, I ges,I suld for hir provyd.“Wald scho put on this garmond gay,I duret sweir by my seill,That scho woir nevir grene nor grayThat set hir half so weill.”

“Wald my gud lady lufe me best,And wirk after my will,I suld ane garment gudliestGar mak hir body till.

“Of he honour suld be her hud,Upoun hir heid to weir,Garneist with governance so gud,Na demyng[100]suld hir deir.[101]

“Hir kirtill suld be of clene constance,Lasit with lesum lufe,The mailyeis[102]of continwanceFor nevir to remufe.

“Her gown suld be of gudliness,Weill ribband with renowne,Purfillit[103]with plesour in ilk place,Furrit with fyne fassoun.[104]

“Her belt suld be of benignitie,About hir middill meit;Hir mantill of humilitie,To tholl[105]bayth wind and weit.

“Hir hat suld be of fair having[106],And her tepat of trewth,Hir patelet[107]of gude pansing,Hir hals-ribbane of rewth.

“Hir slevis suld be of esperance,To keip hir fra dispair;Hir gluvis of the gud govirnance,To hyd hir fingearis fair.

“Hir schone suld be of sickernes[108]In syne that scho nocht slyd;Hir hois of honestie, I ges,I suld for hir provyd.

“Wald scho put on this garmond gay,I duret sweir by my seill,That scho woir nevir grene nor grayThat set hir half so weill.”

FOOTNOTES:[95]Lady’s Magazine.[96]Bugg—buge, lamb’s furr.—Dr. Jamieson.[97]Ancassin and Nicolette.[98]The first instance in which the name of this stone is found.—Miss Lawrence.[99]The Knyght of the Toure.[100]Demyng—censure.[101]Deir—dismay.[102]Mailyeis—network.[103]Purfillit—furbelowed.[104]Fassoun—address, politeness.[105]Tholl—endure.[106]Having—behaviour.[107]Patelet—run.[108]Sickernes—steadfastness.

[95]Lady’s Magazine.

[96]Bugg—buge, lamb’s furr.—Dr. Jamieson.

[97]Ancassin and Nicolette.

[98]The first instance in which the name of this stone is found.—Miss Lawrence.

[99]The Knyght of the Toure.

[100]Demyng—censure.

[101]Deir—dismay.

[102]Mailyeis—network.

[103]Purfillit—furbelowed.

[104]Fassoun—address, politeness.

[105]Tholl—endure.

[106]Having—behaviour.

[107]Patelet—run.

[108]Sickernes—steadfastness.

“And the short French breeches make such a comelie vesture that, except it were a dog in a doublet, you shall not see anie so disguised as are my countriemen of England.”—Holinshed.

“Out from the Gadis to the eastern morne,Not one but holds his native state forlorne.When comelie striplings wish it were their chanceFor Cenis’ distaffe to exchange their lance;And weare curl’d periwigs, and chalk their face,And still are poring on their pocket glasse;Tyr’d with pinn’d ruffs, and fans, and partlet strips,And buskes and verdingales about their hips:And tread on corked stilts a prisoner’s pace.”Bp. Joseph Hall.

“They brought in fashions strange and new,With golden garments bright;The farthingale and mighty ruff,With gowns of rich delight.”A Warning-Piece to England.

The queen (Anne Neville) of Richard III. seems to have been somewhat more regally accoutred than those of her royal predecessors to whom we referred in the last chapter. Among “the stuff delivered to the queen at her coronation are twenty-seven yards of white cloth of gold for a kirtle and train, and amantle of the same, richly furred with ermine. This was the dress in which she rode in her litter from the Tower to the palace of Westminster. This was an age of long trains, and the length was regulated by the rank of the wearer; Anne, for her whole purple velvet suit, had fifty-six yards. From the entries of scarlet cloth given to the nobility for mantles on this occasion, we find that duchesses had thirteen yards, countesses ten, and baronesses eight.”

The costume of Henry VII.’s day differed little from that of Edward IV., except in the use of shirts bordered with lace and richly trimmed with ornamental needlework, which continued a long time in vogue amongst the nobility and gentry.

A slight inspection of the inventories of Henry VIII.’s apparel will convince us of a truth which we should otherwise, readily have guessed, viz., that no expense and no splendour were spared in the “swashing costume” of his day. Its general aspect is too familiar to us to require much comment. We may remark, however, that four several acts were passed in his reign for the reformation of apparel, and that all but the royal family were prohibited from wearing “any cloth of gold of purpure colour, or silk of the same colour,” upon pain of forfeiture of the same and £20 for every offence. Shirt bands and ruffles of gold were worn by the privileged, but none under the degree of knight were permitted to decorate their shirts with silk, gold, or silver. Henry VIII.’s “knitte gloves of silk” are particularly referred to, and also his “handkerchers” edged with gold, silver, or fine needlework. These handkerchiefs, wrought with gold and silver, were not uncommon in theafter-times. In the ballad of George Barnwell, it is said of Milwood—

“A handkerchief she had,All wrought with silk and gold,Which she, to stay her trickling tears,Before her eyes did hold.”

In the east these handkerchiefs are common, and it is still a favourite occupation of the Egyptian ladies to embroider them.

We are surprised now to find to what minute particulars legal enactments descended. “No husbandman, shepherd, or common labourer to any artificer, out of cities or boroughs (having no goods of their own above the value of £10), shall use or wear any cloth the broad yard whereof passeth 2s.4d., or any hose above the price of 12d.the yard, upon pain of imprisonment in the stocks for three days.”

It was in a subsequent reign, that of Mary, that a proclamation was issued that no man should “weare his shoes above sixe inchessquareat the toes.” We have before seen that the attention of the grave and learned members of the Senate, the “Conscript Fathers” of England, was devoted to the due regulation of this interesting part of apparel, when the shoe-toes were worn so long that they were obliged to be tied up to the waist ere the happy and privileged wearer could set his foot on the ground. Now, however, “a change came o’er the spirit of the day,” and it became the duty of those who exercised a paternal surveillance over the welfare of the community at large to legislate regarding thebreadthof the shoe-toes, that they should not be above “sixe inches square.”

“Great,” was anciently the cry—“Great is Diana ofthe Ephesians;” but how immeasurably greater and mightier has been, through that and all succeeding ages, the supreme potentate who with a mesh of flimsy gauze or fragile silk has constrained nations as by a shackle of iron, that shadowy, unsubstantial, ever-fleeting, yet ever-exacting deity—Fashion! At her shrine worship all the nations of the earth. The savage who bores his nose or tattooes his tawny skin is impelled by the same power which robes the courtly Eastern in flowing garments; and the dark-hued beauty who smears herself with blubber is influenced by the selfsame motive which causes the fair-haired daughter of England to tint her delicate cheek with the mimic rose.

And it is not merely in the shape and form of garments that this deity exercises her tyrannic sway, transforming “men into monsters,” and women likewise—if it were possible: her vagaries are infinite and unaccountable; yet, how unaccountable soever, have ever numberless and willing votaries. It was once thefashionfor people who either were or fancied themselves to be in love to prove the sincerity of their passion by the fortitude with which they could bear those extremes of heat and cold from which unsophisticatednaturewould shrink. These “penitents of love,” for so the fraternity—and a pretty numerous one it was—was called, would clothe themselves in the dog-days in the thickest mantles lined throughout with the warmest fur: when the winds howled, the hail beat, and snow invested the earth with a freezing mantle, they wore the thinnest and most fragile garments. It was forbidden to wear fur on a day of the most piercing cold, or to appear with a hood, cloak, gloves, or muff. Theysupposed or pretended that the deity whom they thus propitiated wasLove: we aver that the autocrat under whose irreversible decrees they thus succumbed—wasFashion.

And, after all, who is this all-powerful genius? What is her appearance? Whence does she arise? Did she alight from the skies, while rejoicing stars sang Pæans at her birth? Was she born of the Sunbeams while a glittering Rainbow cast a halo of glory around her? or did she spring from Ocean while Nereids revelled around, and Mermaids strung their Harps with their own golden locks, soft melodies the while floating along the glistering waves, and echoing from the Tritons’ booming shells beneath? No. Alas, no! She is subtle as the air; she is evanescent as a sunbeam, and unsubstantial as the ocean’s froth;—but she is none of these. She is—but we will lay aside our own definition in order that the reader may have the advantage of that of one of the greatest and wisest of statesmen.

“Quelqu’un qui voudrait un peu étudier d’où part en première source ce qu’on appelleles Modesverrait, à notre honte, qu’un petit nombre de gens, de la plus méprisable espèce qui soit dans une ville, laquelle renferme tout indifféremment dans son sein; pour qui, si nous les connaissions, nous n’aurions que le mépris qu’on a pour les gens sans mœurs, ou la pitié qu’on a pour les fous, disposent pourtant de nos bourses, et nous tiennent assujettis à tous leurs caprices.”

Can this indeed be that supereminent deity for whom so “many do shipwrack their credits,” and make themselves “ridiculous apes, or at best butlike the cynnamon-tree, whose bark is more worth than its body.”

“Clothes” writes a venerable historian, “are for necessity; warm clothes for health; cleanly for decency; lasting for thrift; and rich for magnificence. Now, there may be a fault in their number, if too various; making, if too vain; matter, if too costly; and mind of the wearer, if he takes pride therein.

“He that is proud of the russling of his silks, like a madman laughs at the rattling of his fetters.For, indeed, clothes ought to be our remembrancers of our lost innocency. Besides, why should any brag of what’s but borrowed? Should the Estrige snatch off the Gallant’s feather, the Beaver his hat, the Goat his gloves, the Sheep his sute, the Silkworm his stockings, and Neat his shoes (to strip him no farther than modesty will give leave), he would be left in a cold condition. And yet ’tis more pardonable to be proud, even of cleanly rags, than (as many are) of affected slovennesse. The one is proud of a molehill, the other of a dunghill.”

But the worthy Fuller’s ideal picture of suitable dress was the very antipodes of the reality of Elizabeth’s day, when that rage for foreign fashions existed which has since frequently almost inundated the island, and our ancestors masked themselves

“———in garish gauderyTo suit a fool’s far-fetched livery.A French hood join’d to neck Italian,The thighs from Germany and breast from Spain.An Englishman in none, a fool in all,Many in one, and one in several.”

And Shakspeare, who has perhaps suffered no peculiarity of his time to escape observation, makes Portia satirize this affectation in her English admirer:—“How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere.”

A reverend critic thus remarks on the luxurious modes of his time: “These tender Parnels must have one gown for the day, another for the night; one long, another short; one for winter, another for summer. One furred through, another but faced; one for the workday, another for the holiday. One of this colour, another of that. One of cloth, another of silk or damask. Change of apparel; one afore dinner, another at after: one of Spanish fashion, another of Turkey. And to be brief, never content with enough, but always devising new fashions and strange. Yea, a ruffian will have more in his ruff and his hose than he should spend in a year. He which ought to go in a russet coat spends as much on apparel for him and his wife as his father would have kept a good house with.”

The following is of later date, and seems, somewhat unjustly we think, to satirize the fair sex alone.

“Why do women array themselves in such fantastical dresses and quaint devices; with gold, with silver, with coronets, with pendants, bracelets, earrings, chains, rings, pins, spangles, embroideries, shadows, rebatoes, versicoloured ribbons, feathers, fans, masks, furs, laces, tiffanies, ruffs, falls, calls, cuffs, damasks, velvets, tassels, golden cloth, silvertissue, precious stones, stars, flowers, birds, beasts, fishes, crisped locks, wigs, painted faces, bodkins, setting sticks, cork, whalebone, sweet odours, and whatever else Africa, Asia, and America can produce; flaying their faces to produce the fresher complexion of a new skin, and using more time in dressing than Cæsar took in marshalling his army,—but that, like cunning falconers, they wish to spread false lures to catch unwary larks, and lead by their gaudy baits and dazzling charms the minds of inexperienced youth into the traps of love?”

Though the costume of Elizabeth’s day, especially at the period of her coronation was, splendid, it had not attained to the ridiculous extravagance which at a later period elicited the above-quoted strictures; and we are told that her own taste at an early period of life was simple and unostentatious. Her dress and appearance are thus described by Aylmer, Lady Jane Grey’s tutor, and afterwards Bishop of London.

“The king (Henry VIII.) left her rich clothes and jewels; and I know it to be true, that, in seven years after her father’s death, she never in all that time looked upon that rich attire and precious jewels but once, and that against her will. And that there never came gold or stone upon her head, till her sister forced her to lay off her former soberness, and bear her company in her glittering gayness. And then she so wore it as every man might see that her body carried that which her heart misliked. I am sure that her maidenly apparel, which she used in King Edward’s time, made noblemen’s daughters and wives to be ashamed to be dressedand painted like peacocks; being more moved with her most virtuous example than with all that ever Paul or Peter wrote touching that matter. Yea, this I know, that a great man’s daughter (Lady Jane Grey) receiving from Lady Mary, before she was queen, good apparel of tinsel, cloth of gold and velvet, laid on with parchment-lace of gold, when she saw it, said, ‘What shall I do with it?’ ‘Marry!’ said a gentlewoman, ‘wear it.’ ‘Nay,’ quoth she, ‘that were a shame, to follow my Lady Mary against God’s Word, and leave my Lady Elizabeth, which followeth God’s Word.’ And when all the ladies, at the coming of the Scots’ Queen Dowager, Mary of Guise, (she who visited England in Edward’s time), went with their hair frownsed, curled, and double-curled, she altered nothing, but kept her old maidenly shame-facedness.”

And there is a print from a portrait of her when young, in which the hair is without a single ornament, and the whole dress remarkably simple.

Yet this is the lady whose passion for dress in after life could not be sated; to whom, or at least before whom (and the Queen was not slow in appropriating and resenting the hint[109]), Latimer, Bishop of London, thought it necessary to preach on the vanity of decking the body too finely; and who finally left behind her a wardrobe containing three thousand dresses. A modern fair one may wonder how such a profusion of dresses could beaccommodated at all, even in a royal wardrobe, with fitting respect to the integrity of puffs and furbelows. But clothes were not formerly kept in drawers, where but few can be laid with due regard to the safety of each, but were hung up on wooden pegs, in a room appropriated to the sole purpose of receiving them; and though such cast-off things as were composed of rich substances were occasionallyrippedfor domestic uses (viz., mantles for infants, vests for children, and counterpanes for beds), articles of inferior quality were suffered tohang by the wallstill age and moths had destroyed what pride would not permit to be worn by servants or poor relations. To this practice, also, does Shakspeare allude: Imogen exclaims, in ‘Cymbeline,’—

“Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion;And, for I am richer than to hang by the walls,I must be ripp’d—”

The following regulations may be interesting; and the knowledge of them will doubtless excite feelings of joy and gratitude in our fair readers that they are born in an age where “will is free,” and the dustman’s wife may, if it so please her, outshine the duchess, without the terrors of Parliament before her eyes:—

“By the Queene.“Whereas the Queene’s Maiestie, for avoyding of the great inconvenience that hath growen and dayly doeth increase within this her Realme, by the inordinate excesse in Apparel, hath in her Princely wisdome and care for reformation thereof, by sundryformer Proclamations, straightly charged and commanded those in Authoritie under her to see her Lawes provided in that behalfe duely executed; Whereof notwithstanding, partly through their negligence, and partly by the manifest contempt and disobedience of the parties offending, no reformation at all hath followed; Her Maiestie, finding by experience that by Clemencie, whereunto she is most inclinable, so long as there is any hope of redresse, this increasing evill hath not beene cured, hath thought fit to seeke to remedie the same by correction and severitie, to be used against both these kindes of offenders, in regard of the present difficulties of this time; wherein the decay and lacke of hospitalitie appeares in the better sort in all countreys, principally occasioned by the immeasurable charges and expenses which they are put to in superfluous apparelling their wives, children, and families, the confusion also of degrees in all places being great; where the meanest are as richly apparelled as their betters, and the pride that such inferior persons take in their garments, driving many for their maintenance to robbing and stealing by the hieway, &c. &c.“Her Maiestie doth straightly charge and command—“That none under the degree of a Countess wear:Cloth of gold or silver tissued;Silke of coulor purple.“Under the degree of a Baronesse:—Cloth of golde;Cloth of silver;Tinselled satten;Sattens branched with silver or golde;Sattens striped with silver or golde;Taffaties brancht with silver or golde;Cipresses flourisht with silver or golde;Networks wrought in silver or golde;Tabines brancht with silver or golde;Or any other silke or cloth mixt or embroidered with pearle, golde, or silver.“Under the degree of a Baron’s eldest sonne’s wife:Any embroideries of golde or silver;Passemaine lace, or any other lace, mixed with golde, silver, or silke;Caules, attires, or other garnishings for the head trimmed with pearle.“Under the degree of a Knighte’s wife:—Velvet in gownes, cloakes, savegards, or other uppermost garments;Embroidery with silke.“Under the degree of a Knighte’s eldest sonne’s wife:—Velvet in kirtles and petticoates;Sattens in gownes, cloakes, savegards, or other uppermost garments.“Under the degree of a Gentleman’s wife, bearing armes:—}Satten in kirtles,Damaske,Tuft taffetie,in gownes.”Plaine taffetie,Grograine

“By the Queene.

“Whereas the Queene’s Maiestie, for avoyding of the great inconvenience that hath growen and dayly doeth increase within this her Realme, by the inordinate excesse in Apparel, hath in her Princely wisdome and care for reformation thereof, by sundryformer Proclamations, straightly charged and commanded those in Authoritie under her to see her Lawes provided in that behalfe duely executed; Whereof notwithstanding, partly through their negligence, and partly by the manifest contempt and disobedience of the parties offending, no reformation at all hath followed; Her Maiestie, finding by experience that by Clemencie, whereunto she is most inclinable, so long as there is any hope of redresse, this increasing evill hath not beene cured, hath thought fit to seeke to remedie the same by correction and severitie, to be used against both these kindes of offenders, in regard of the present difficulties of this time; wherein the decay and lacke of hospitalitie appeares in the better sort in all countreys, principally occasioned by the immeasurable charges and expenses which they are put to in superfluous apparelling their wives, children, and families, the confusion also of degrees in all places being great; where the meanest are as richly apparelled as their betters, and the pride that such inferior persons take in their garments, driving many for their maintenance to robbing and stealing by the hieway, &c. &c.

“Her Maiestie doth straightly charge and command—

“That none under the degree of a Countess wear:

Cloth of gold or silver tissued;Silke of coulor purple.

Cloth of gold or silver tissued;

Silke of coulor purple.

“Under the degree of a Baronesse:—

Cloth of golde;Cloth of silver;Tinselled satten;Sattens branched with silver or golde;Sattens striped with silver or golde;Taffaties brancht with silver or golde;Cipresses flourisht with silver or golde;Networks wrought in silver or golde;Tabines brancht with silver or golde;Or any other silke or cloth mixt or embroidered with pearle, golde, or silver.

Cloth of golde;

Cloth of silver;

Tinselled satten;

Sattens branched with silver or golde;

Sattens striped with silver or golde;

Taffaties brancht with silver or golde;

Cipresses flourisht with silver or golde;

Networks wrought in silver or golde;

Tabines brancht with silver or golde;

Or any other silke or cloth mixt or embroidered with pearle, golde, or silver.

“Under the degree of a Baron’s eldest sonne’s wife:

Any embroideries of golde or silver;Passemaine lace, or any other lace, mixed with golde, silver, or silke;Caules, attires, or other garnishings for the head trimmed with pearle.

Any embroideries of golde or silver;

Passemaine lace, or any other lace, mixed with golde, silver, or silke;

Caules, attires, or other garnishings for the head trimmed with pearle.

“Under the degree of a Knighte’s wife:—

Velvet in gownes, cloakes, savegards, or other uppermost garments;Embroidery with silke.

Velvet in gownes, cloakes, savegards, or other uppermost garments;

Embroidery with silke.

“Under the degree of a Knighte’s eldest sonne’s wife:—

Velvet in kirtles and petticoates;Sattens in gownes, cloakes, savegards, or other uppermost garments.

Velvet in kirtles and petticoates;

Sattens in gownes, cloakes, savegards, or other uppermost garments.

“Under the degree of a Gentleman’s wife, bearing armes:—

}Satten in kirtles,Damaske,Tuft taffetie,in gownes.”Plaine taffetie,Grograine

Venice and Paris seem to have been the chief sources of fashion; from these depôts of taste were derived the flaunting head-dresses, the “shiptire,” the “tire valiant,” &c., which were commonly worn in these days of gorgeous finery, and which were rendered still moreoutréand unnatural by thedyedlocks which they surmounted. The custom of dyeing the hair is of great antiquity, and was very prevalent in the East. Mohammed dyed his hair red; Abu Bekr his successor did the same, and it is a custom among the Scenite Arabs even to this day.

The ancients often mixed gold dust in their hair, and the Gauls used to wash the hair with a liquid which had a tendency to redden it. It was doubtless in personal compliment to Queen Elizabeth, that all the fashionables of her day dyed their locks of a hue which is generally considered the reverse of attraction. Periwigs, which were introduced into England about 1572, were to be had ofall colours. It is in allusion to this absurd fashion that Benedick says of the lady whom he might chuse to marry:—“Her hair shall be of what colour it please God.”

Men first wore wigs in Charles the Second’s time; and these were gradually increased in size, until they reached the acme of their magnificence in the reign of William and Mary, when not only men, but even young lads and children were disguised in enormous wigs. And though in the reign of Queen Anne this latter custom was not so common, yet the young men had the want of wigs supplied by artificial curlings, and dressing of the hair, which was then only performed by the women.

One Bill preserved amongst the Harl. MSS. runs thus:—

“Next door to the Golden Ball, in St. Bride’s Lane, Fleet Street, Lyveth Lidia Beercraft. Who cutteth and curleth ladies, gentlemen, and children’s hair. She sells a fine pomatum, which is mixed with ingredients of her own making, that if the hair be never so thin, it makes it grow thick; and if short, it makes it grow long. If any gentleman’s or children’s hair be never so lank, she makes it curle in a little time, and to look like a periwig.”

And this, indeed, the looking like a periwig, seems to have been then the verybeau idealof all beauty and perfection, for another fair tonsoress advertises to cut and curl hair after the French fashion, “after so fine a manner, thatyou shall not know it to be their own hair.”

How applicable to these absurdities are the lines of an amiable censor of a later day!—

“We have runThrough ev’ry change, that Fancy, at the loomExhausted, has had genius to supply;And, studious of mutation still, discardA real elegance, a little us’d,For monstrous novelty and strange disguise.”

To return to Elizabeth:—

The best known, and most distinguishing characteristic of the costume of her day was the ruff; which was worn of such enormous size that a lady in full dress was obliged to feed herself with a spoon two feet long. In the year 1580, sumptuary laws werepublished by proclamation, and enforced with great exactness, by which the ruffs were reduced to legal dimensions. Extravagant prices were paid for them, and they were made at first of fine holland, but early in Elizabeth’s reign they began to wear lawn and cambric, which were brought to England in very small quantities, and sold charily by the yard or half yard; for there was then hardly one shopkeeper in fifty who dared to speculate in a whole piece of either. So “strange and wonderful was this stuff,” says Stowe, speaking of lawn, “that thereupon rose a general scoff or byeword, that shortly they would wear ruffs of a spider’s web.” And another difficulty arose; for when the Queen had ruffs made of this new and beautiful fabric, there was nobody in England who could starch or stiffen them; but happily Her Grace found a Dutchwoman possessed of that knowledge which England could not supply, and “Guillan’s wife was the first starcher the Queen had, as Guillan himself was the first coachman.”

“Afterward, in 1564, (16th of Elizabeth), one Mistress Dinghen Vauden Plasse, born at Teenen in Flanders, daughter of a worshipful knight of that province, with her husband, came to London, and there professed herself a starcher, wherein she excelled; unto whom her own nation presently repaired and employed her, rewarding her very liberally for her work. Some of the curious ladies of that time, observing the neatness of the Dutch, and the nicety of their linen, made them cambric ruffs, and sent them to Mistress Dinghen to starch; soon after they began to send their daughters and kinswomen to Mistress Dinghen, to learn how to starch; her usualprice was, at that time, 4l.or 5l.to teach them to starch, and 20s.to learn them to see the starch. This Mrs. Dinghen was the first that ever taught starching in England.”

TheRUFFSwere adjusted by poking sticks of iron, steel, or silver, heated in the fire—(probably something answering to our Italian iron), and in May 1582 a lady of Antwerp, being invited to a wedding, could not, although she employed two celebrated laundresses, get her ruff plaited according to her taste, upon which “she fell to sweare and teare, to curse and ban, casting the ruffes under feete, and wishing that the devill might take her when shee did wear any neckerchers againe.” This gentleman, whom it is said an invocation will always summon, now appeared in the likeness of a favoured suitor, and inquiring the cause of her agitation, he “took in hande the setting of her ruffes, which he performed to her great contentation and liking; insomuch, as she, looking herself in a glasse (as the devill bade her) became greatly enamoured with him. This done, the young man kissed her, in the doing whereof, he writhed her neck in sunder, so she died miserably.”

But here comes the marvel: four men tried in vain to lift her “fearful body” when coffined for interment; six were equally unsuccessful; “whereat the standers-by marvelling, caused the coffin to be opened to see the cause thereof: where they found the body to be taken away, and a blacke catte, very leane and deformed, sitting in the coffin,setting of great ruffes and frizling of haire, to the great feare and woonder of all the beholders.”

The large hoop farthingales were worn now, but they were said to be adopted by the ladies from a laudable spirit of emulation, a praiseworthy desire on their parts to be of equal standing with the “nobler sex,” who now wore breeches, stuffed with rags or other materials to such an enormous size, that a bench of extraordinary dimension was placed round the parliament house, (of which the traces were visible at a very late period) solely for their accommodation.

Strutt quotes an instance of a man whom the judges accused of wearing breeches contrary to the law (for a law was made against them): he, for his excuse, drew out of his slops the contents; at first a pair of sheets, two table-cloths, ten napkins, four shirts, a brush, a glass, and a comb; with nightcaps and other things of use, saying, “Your worship may understand, that because I have no safer a storehouse, these pockets do serve me for a room to lay up my goods in,—and, though it be a strait prison, yet it is big enough for them, for I have many things of value yet within it.” His excuse was heartily laughed at and accepted.

This ridiculous fashion was for a short time disused, but revived again in 1614. The breeches were then chiefly stuffed with hair. Many satirical rhymes were written upon them; amongst others, “A lamentable complaint of the poore Countrye Men agaynst great hose, for the loss of their cattelles tales.” In which occur these:—

“What hurt, what damage doth ensue,And fall upon the poore,For want of wool and flaxe, of late,Whych monstrous hose devoure.“But haire hath so possess’d, of late,The bryche of every knave,That no one beast, nor horse can tell,Whiche way his taile to save.”

“What hurt, what damage doth ensue,And fall upon the poore,For want of wool and flaxe, of late,Whych monstrous hose devoure.

“But haire hath so possess’d, of late,The bryche of every knave,That no one beast, nor horse can tell,Whiche way his taile to save.”

Henry VIII. had received a few pairs of silk stockings from Spain, but knitted silk ones were not known until the second year of Elizabeth, when her silk-woman, Mrs. Montague, presented to Her Majesty a pair of black knit silk stockings, for a new-year’s gift, with which she was so much pleased that she desired to know if the donor could not help her to any more, to which Mrs. Montague answered, “I made them carefully on purpose for your Majestie; and seeing they please you so well, I will presently set more in hand.” “Do so (said the Queen), for I like silk stockings so well, that I will not henceforth wear any more cloth hose.” These shortly became common; though even over so simple an article as a stocking, Fashion asserted her supremacy, and at a subsequent period they were two yards wide at the top, and made fast to the “petticoat breeches,” by means of strings through eyelet holes.

But Elizabeth’s predilection for rich attire is well known, and if the costume of her day was fantastic, it was still magnificent. A suit trimmed with sables was considered the richest dress worn by men; and so expensive was this fur, that, it is said a thousand ducats were sometimes given for “a face of sables.” It was towards the close of her reign that the celebrated Gabrielle d’Estrées wore on a festive occasion a dress of black satin, so ornamented withpearls and precious stones, that she could scarcely move under its weight. She had a handkerchief, for the embroidering of which she engaged to pay 1900 crowns. And such it was said was the influence of her example in Paris, that the ladies ornamented even their shoes with jewels.

Yet even this costly magnificence was afterwards surpassed by that of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, with whom it was common, even at an ordinary dancing, to have his clothes trimmed with great diamond buttons, and to have diamond hatbands, cockades, and earrings, to be yoked with great and manifold ropes and knots of pearl; in short, to be manacled, fettered, and imprisoned in jewels: insomuch that at his going to Paris in 1625, he had twenty-seven suits of clothes made, the richest that embroidery, lace, silk, velvet, gold, and gems could contribute; one of which was a white uncut velvet set all over, both suit and cloak, with diamonds valued at fourscore thousand pounds, besides a great feather, stuck all over with diamonds, as were also his sword, girdle, hatband, and spurs.[110]

It would but weary our readers were we to dwell on the well-known peculiarities of the “Cavalier and Roundhead” days; and tell how the steeple-crowned hat was replaced at the Restoration by the plumed and jewelled velvet; the forlorn, smooth, methodistical pate, by the curled ringlets and flowing lovelock; the sober, sombre, “sad” coloured garment, with its starched folds, by the gay, varied, flowing drapery of all hues. Then, how the plumeof feathers gave way to the simpler band and buckle, and the thick large curling wig and full ruffle, to the bagwig, the tie, and stock.

The dashing cloak and slashed sleeves were succeeded by the coat of ample dimensions, and the waistcoat with interminable pockets resting on the knees; the “breeches” were in universal use, though they were not of the universal “black” which Cowper immortalises; but “black breeches” and “powder” have had their reign, and are succeeded by the “inexpressible” costume of the present day. We will conclude a chapter, which we fear to have spun out tediously, by Lady Morgan’s animated account of the introduction, in France, of that universally-coveted article of dress—a Cashmir shawl:—

“While partaking of a sumptuous collation (at Rouen), the conversation naturally turned on the splendid views which the windows commanded, and on the subjects connected with their existence. The flocks, which were grazing before us had furnished the beautiful shawls which hung on the backs of the chairs occupied by our fair companions, and which might compete with the turbans of the Grand Signor. It would be difficult now to persuade a Parisianpetite maitressethat there was a time when French women of fashion could exist without a cashmir, or that such an indispensable article of the toilet andsultanwas unknown even to the most elegant. ‘The first cashemir that appeared in France,’ said Madame D’Aubespine, (for an educated French woman has always something worth hearing to say on all subjects,) ‘was sent over byBaron de Tott, then in the service of the Porte, to Madame de Tessé. When they were produced in her society, every body thought them very fine, but nobody knew what use to make of them. It was determined that they would make prettycouvre-piedsand veils for the cradle; but the fashion wore out with the shawls, and ladies returned to their eider-down quilts.’

“Monsieur Ternaux observed that ‘though the produce of the Cashmerian looms had long been known in Europe, they did not become a vogue until after Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt; and that even then they took, in the first instance, but slowly.’ The shawl was still a novelty in France, when Josephine, as yet but the wife of the First Consul, knew not how to drape its elegant folds, and stood indebted to thebrusqueRapp for the grace with which she afterwards wore it.

“‘Permettez que je vous fasse l’observation,’ said Rapp, as they were setting off for the opera; ‘que votre schall n’est pas mis avec cette grâce qui vous est habituelle.’

“Josephine laughingly let him arrange it in the manner of the Egyptian women. This impromptu toilette caused a little delay, and the infernal machine exploded in vain!

“What destinies waited upon the arrangement of this cashemir! A moment sooner or later, and the shawl might have given another course to events, which would have changed the whole face of Europe.”[111]

The Empress Josephine (says her biographer) had quite a passion for shawls, and I question whether any collection of them was ever as valuable as hers. At Navarre she had one hundred and fifty, all extremely beautiful and high-priced. She sent designs to Constantinople, and the shawls made after these patterns were as beautiful as they were valuable. Every week M. Lenormant came to Navarre, and sold her whatever he could obtain that was curious in this way. I have seen white shawls covered with roses, bluebells, perroquets, peacocks, &c., which I believe were not to be met with any where else in Europe; they were valued at 15,000 and 20,000 francs each.

The shawls were at length soldby auctionat Malmaison, at a rate much below their value. All Paris went to the sale.

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