Chapter XVI (4)

The houses were still built round a court or quadrangle, and adorned with outer and inner gateways, while groined roofs and rich oriels still demonstrated the connecting link of descent from the Gothic. In fact, the architecture of the Tudor period is a singular yet often superb mixture of the Gothic and the Italian, with profusion of ornaments and ingraftment of parts which tell strongly of a more Eastern origin. Nor does it appear that these foreign elements were introduced at the latter portion of this period only--they stand forth conspicuously in the very commencement of it. In the later years of the reign of Elizabeth we can point to noble houses which are more allied to the ancient Tudor, with its small windows and simple towers and roofs, than those of the Henrys VII. and VIII., who in their earlier days had a gorgeous and even fantastic taste for palatial architecture. For example, Hampton Court is far more simple and chaste than Richmond Palace (_see_ p. 341), built by Henry VII., or Nonsuch, built by Henry VIII. In family mansions, Wimbledon House, built in 1588, with its open court, its two terraces, clearly Italian in character, is yet so chaste and simple, with its flat roof, its square slated towers, and mixture of small and large windows, that, compared to Nonsuch, as it has been, you at once see the violent contrast of the fanciful and the grave. Again, in Charlton House, in Kent, with its central entrance of Italian character, with two tiers of engaged columns, its ornamented parapets just verging into scroll-work, its turret windows of medium size, and its turret domes simple, and still plainer chimneys; or in Holland House (_see_ p. 380), built in 1607, without domes, but with ogee-gables; or in Campden House, as it was built in 1612, with roof of plainest character, and pilastered entrance, we mark a far less ornate style than in the days of the Henrys. The whole of this period was one of a mixed style, in which different architects indulged themselves in employing more or less of one or other of the prevailing elements, according to their tastes. What is more strictly called Elizabethan may be seen in such houses as Wollaton or Hardwicke, in which the ample square windows, the square towers superseding the octagon ones of Nonsuch, the absence of the Eastern-looking domes, and the presence of superb scroll-work, give a fine distinctive style.

The Palace of Richmond, as built by Henry VII., with its projecting towers occupied almost entirely with windows, and its roof presenting an immense number of double domes, a smaller one surmounting a lantern placed on the larger domes, had an air more Saracenic than English; but the Palace of Nonsuch, built by Henry VIII., outdid that in the singularity of its style, and was the wonder of its age. It was built round a quadrangle; the front was flanked by octagonal towers which, at the height of the ordinary roof, rose, by a demi-arch expanding over the lower one, into three more storeys, and upon these were lesser towers of two storeys, surmounted by domes and fanes. All the lower storeys were divided into compartments by pilasters and bands, these compartments embellished by figures and groups in bas-relief. The lower part of this palace was of stone, the upper of wood. Hentzner, the German traveller, became quite enthusiastic in describing it as a palace in which everything that architecture could perform seemed to have been accomplished; and says that it was "so encompassed with parks full of deer, delicious gardens, groves ornamented with trellis-work, cabinets of verdure, and walks so embowered by trees, that it seemed to be a place pitched upon by Pleasure herself to dwell in along with Health."

But there were two men in the reign of Henry VIII. who drew him off from this more florid and fanciful style to others of a very different, but equally imposing character, and full of rich detail. These were Wolsey and John of Padua. Wolsey appeared to have an especial fondness for brick-work, and Hampton and the gatehouse of his mansion at Esher remain as proofs of the admirable masonry which he used. In Hampton Court (_see_ p. 121) we go back from the barbaric pomp of Nonsuch to the castellated style; to small windows, pointed archways, castellated turrets and battlements, mingled with rich oriel windows over the entrances, rich groined roofs in the archways, but a very sparing use of the ordinary aid of the bulbous dome. In this and the other buildings of this class, as Hengrave in Suffolk, the richly cross-banded chimneys are a conspicuous ornament. John Thorpe, or John of Padua, who became chief architect to Henry VIII., and afterwards built Somerset House for the Protector, seems to have been unknown in his own country, but originated a modified Italian style here which bears his name, possessing great grace and dignity, and of which Stoneyhurst College in Lancashire, Longleat in Wiltshire, and Kirby Hall in Northamptonshire (built for Sir Christopher Hatton), are fine examples.

In the smaller houses of town and country there continued to be little change. They were chiefly of timber, and displayed much more picturesqueness than they afforded comfort. In towns the different storeys, one over-hanging another till the inhabitants could almost shake hands out of the attic windows across the narrow streets, and their want of internal cleanliness and ventilation, caused the plague periodically to visit them. The Spaniards who accompanied Philip, in Mary's reign, were equally amazed at the good living of the English people and the dirt about their houses. One great improvement about this time was the introduction of chimneys; and in good country-houses the ample space of their staircases, often finely ornamented with balustrade work, diffused a pure atmosphere through them.

In other arts, however, the sixteenth century in England was almost destitute of native talent. In Statuary and Carving the preceding century had made great progress, but the destruction of the churches, and the outcry raised against images and carving on tombs as idolatry and vain-glory, gave a decided check to their development. As for Painting, it had never, except in illumination, flourished much among the English, and now that the Italian and Flemish schools had taken so high a position, it became the fashion of the princes and nobility, not to call forth the skill of natives, but to import foreign art and artists. In the reign of Henry VII. a Holbein, supposed to be the uncle of the great Hans Holbein, visited England, but we know little of his performance here. There is a picture at Hampton Court, called a Mabuse, of the Children of Henry VII.--Prince Arthur, Prince Henry, and the Princess Margaret. As Prince Henry appears to be about seven years old, that would fix the painting of the picture about 1499. But its authenticity is doubtful, as, according to some, Mabuse was born that year. In Castle Howard there is a painting by him of undoubted authority, "The Offering of the Magi," containing thirty principal figures. It is in the highest state of preservation, and Dr. Waagen, who was well acquainted with the productions of this artist in the great galleries of the Continent, pronounced it of the highest excellence. He is said to have painted the children of Henry VIII., but if he did so, the picture has perished. The date of his visit is quite uncertain, and the attribution to him of portraits is at the best no more than conjectural. Mabuse was a very dissipated man, and had fled from Flanders on account of his debts or delinquencies, yet the character of his performances is that of the most patient industry and painstaking. His works done in England could not have been many, as his abode here is supposed to have been only a year. He died in 1532.

Besides Mabuse, the names of several other foreign artists are known as having visited England; but little or nothing is known of the works of Toto del Nunziata, an Italian, or of Corvus, Fleccius, Horrebout or Horneband, or of Cornelius, Flemish artists; but another Fleming was employed, in the early part of the reign of Henry VIII., by Bishop Sherbourne, in painting a series of English kings and bishops in Chichester Cathedral.

Of the celebrated Hans Holbein, the case is better authenticated. He resided in England nearly thirty years, and died in London of the plague in 1543. There is an obscurity about both the time and place of his birth, but the latter appears now to be settled to be Grünstadt, formerly the residence of the Counts of Leiningen-Westerburg. He accompanied his father to Basle, receiving from him instructions in his art. There he became acquainted with Erasmus, who gave him letters to Sir Thomas More. He arrived in England in 1526, and lived and worked in the house of his noble patron, Sir Thomas, for three years. The learned chancellor invited Henry VIII. to see his pictures, who was so much delighted with them, that he took him instantly into his service. It is related of him that while busily engaged with his works for the king, he was so much annoyed and interrupted by a nobleman of the court, that he ordered him to quit his studio, and on his refusing, pushed him downstairs. When the nobleman complained to Henry of this rudeness, Henry bluntly told him that the painter had served him right, and warned him to beware of seeking any revenge. "For," added he, "remember you now have not Holbein to deal with, but me: and I tell you, that of seven peasants I can make as many lords, but I cannot make one Holbein."

The demand of portraits from Holbein by the Court and nobility was so constant and extensive, that he completed comparatively few historical compositions. He has left us various portraits of Henry, and adorned the walls of a saloon at Whitehall with two large paintings representing the triumphs of riches and poverty. He also painted Henry as delivering the charter of the barber-surgeons, and Edward VI. delivering that for the foundation of Bridewell Hospital. The former piece is still at the hall of that guild. Amongst the finest of Holbein's paintings on the Continent is that of "The Burgomaster and his Family" in the gallery at Dresden. There is less of the stiffness of his manner in that than in most of his pieces; but in spirited design, clearness and brilliancy of tone, and perfection of finish, few painters excel Holbein; he wanted only a course of study in the Italian school to have placed him among the greatest masters of any age.

(_From a Photograph by Carl Norman and Co., Tunbridge Wells._)]

In the reign of Mary, Sir Antonio More, a Flemish artist, was the great portrait-painter. In that of Elizabeth, though she was not more liberal to the arts than to literature, yet her personal vanity led her to have her own portrait repeatedly painted, and the artists, chiefly Flemings, were much employed by the nobility in the same department. Some of the foreign artists also executed historical and other pieces. Among these artists may be named Frederic Zuccaro, an Italian portrait-painter; Luke van Heere, who executed a considerable number of orders here, including a series of representations of national costume for the Earl of Lincoln; and Cornelius Vroom, who designed the defeat of the Spanish Armada, for the tapestry which adorned the walls of the House of Lords, and which was destroyed by the fire in 1834. In Elizabeth's reign also two native artists distinguished themselves: Nicolas Hilliard, a miniature-painter; and Isaac Oliver (_b._ 1556, _d._ 1617), his pupil, who surpassed his master in portraits, and also produced historical works of merit.

Among the sculptors were Pietro Torregiano, from Florence, who, assisted by a number of Englishmen, executed the bronze monument of Henry VII., and is supposed also to be the author of the tomb of Henry's mother in his chapel. John Hales, who executed the tomb of the Earl of Derby at Ormskirk, was one of Torregiano's English assistants. Benedetto Rovezzano designed the splendid bronze tomb of Henry VIII., which was to have exhibited himself and Jane Seymour, as large as life, in effigy, an equestrian statue, figures of the saints and prophets, the history of St. George, amounting to 133 statues and forty bas-reliefs. This monument of Henry's egotism none of his children or successors respected him enough to complete; and Parliament, in 1646, ordered the portion already executed to be melted down.

In Scotland during this period the arts were still less cultivated. The only monarch who had evinced a taste for their patronage was James V., who improved and adorned the royal palaces, by the aid of French architects, painters, and sculptors whom he procured from France, with which he was connected by marriage and alliance. His chief interest and expenditure were, however, devoted to the palace at Linlithgow, which he left by far the noblest palace of Scotland, and worthy of any country in Europe.

The furniture of noble houses in the sixteenth century was still quaint; but in many instances rich and picturesque. The walls retained their hangings of tapestry, on which glowed hunting-scenes, with their woodlands, dogs, horsemen, and flying stags, or resisting boars, or lions; scenes mythological or historical. In one of the finest preserved houses of that age, Hardwicke, in Derbyshire, the state-room is hung with tapestry representing the story of Ulysses; and above this are figures, rudely executed in plaster, of Diana and her nymphs. The hall is hung with very curious tapestry, of the fifteenth century, representing a boar-hunt and an otter-hunt. The chapel in this house gives a very vivid idea of the furniture of domestic chapels of that age; with its brocaded seats and cushions, and its curious altar-cloth, thirty feet long, hung round the rails of the altar, with figures of saints, under canopies, wrought in needlework. You are greatly struck as you pass along this noble old hall, which has had its internal decorations and furniture carefully retained, with the air of rude abundance, and what looks now to us nakedness and incompleteness, mingled with old baronial state, and rich and precious articles of use and show. There are vast and long passages, simply matted; with huge chests filled with coals, which formerly were filled with wood, and having ample crypts in the walls for chips and firewood. There are none of the modern contrivances to conceal these things; yet the rooms, which were then probably uncarpeted, or only embellished in the centre with a small Turkey carpet bearing the family arms, or perhaps merely with rushes, are still abounding with antique cabinets, massy tables, and high chairs covered with crimson velvet, or ornamental satin. You behold the very furniture used by the Queen of Scots; the very bed, the brocade of which she and her maidens worked with their own fingers. In the entrance hall the old feudal mansion still seems to survive with its huge antlers, its huge escutcheons, and carved arms thrust out of the wall, intended to hold lights. But still more does its picture gallery, extending along the whole front of the house, give you a feeling of the rude and stately grandeur of those times. This gallery is nearly 200 feet long, of remarkable loftiness, and its windows are stupendous, comprising nearly the whole front, rattling and wailing as the wind sweeps along them, whilst the walls are covered with the portraits of the most remarkable personages of that and prior times. You have Henry VIII., Elizabeth, the Queen of Scots, with many of the statesmen and ladies of the age.

In such old houses we find abundance of furniture of the period. The chairs are generally high-backed, richly carved, and stuffed and covered with superb velvet or satin. At Charlcote House, near Stratford-on-Avon, the seat of the Lucys, there are eight fine ebony chairs, inlaid with ivory, two cabinets, and a couch of the same, which were given by Queen Elizabeth to Leicester, and made part of the furniture of Kenilworth. At Penshurst, Kent, the seat of the Sidneys, in the room called Elizabeth's room, remain the chairs which it is said she herself presented, with the rest of the furniture. They are fine, tall, and capacious; the frames are gilt, the drapery is yellow and crimson satin, richly embroidered, and the walls of each end of the room are covered with the same embroidered satin. In the Elizabethan room at Greenwich Court are chairs as well as other articles of that age. In Winchester Cathedral is yet preserved the chair, a present from the Pope, in which Queen Mary was crowned and married.

At Penshurst we have, in the old banqueting-hall, the furniture and style which still prevailed in many houses in Sir Philip Sidney's time: the dogs for the fire in the centre of the room, from which the smoke ascended through a hole in the roof, the rude tables, the raised daïs, and the music gallery, such as Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Bacon, as well as the Royal Elizabeth, witnessed them. In this house is also preserved a manuscript catalogue of all the furniture of Kenilworth in Leicester's time, a document which throws much light on the whole paraphernalia of a great house and household of that day.

Looking-glasses were now superseding mirrors of polished steel. Sir Samuel Meyrick had a fine specimen of the looking-glass of this age at Goodrich, as well as a German clock, fire-dogs, a napkin-press, and an "arriere-dos" or "rere-dosse," and a small brass fender of that age. He also possessed the box containing the original portraits of Henry VIII. and Anne of Cleves. The clock, like the large one over the entrance at Hampton Court, had the Italian face, with two sets of figures, twelve each, thus running the round of the twenty-four hours, such as Shakespeare alludes to in "Othello:"--

"He'll watch the horologe _a double set_,
If drink rock not his cradle."

Richly carved wardrobes and buffets adorned the Tudor rooms: some of these buffets were of silver and of silver gilt. Engravings of these, as well as of tables with folding tops, round tables with pillar and claw, and many beds of that period may still be seen in old houses, and are represented in engravings in Montfaucon, Shaw, and Willemin. The beds at Hardwicke, the great bed at Ware, a bedstead of the time of Henry VIII. at Lovely Hall, near Blackburn, are good specimens. Forks, though known, were not generally used yet at table, and spoons of silver and gold were made to fold up, and were carried by great people in their pockets for their own use. Spoons of silver--apostle-spoons, having the heads of the twelve apostles on the handles--were not unfrequent, but spoons of horn or wood were more common.

The armour of every period bears a coincident resemblance to the civil costume of the time, and is in this period rather noticeable by its fashion than by any material change of another kind. The breastplate was still globose, as in the reign of Edward IV., but was beautifully fluted in that of Henry VII. In the reign of Henry VIII., the breastplate being still globose, the old fashion revived of an edge down the centre, called a tapul; and in this reign puffed and ribbed armour, in imitation of the slashed dresses of the day, was introduced. In the reign of Elizabeth the breastplate was thickened to resist musket-balls. The helmet in all these reigns assumed the shape of the head, having movable plates at the back to guard the neck, and yet allow free motion to the head. In the reign of Elizabeth the morions were much ornamented by engraving. In the time of Henry VII. the panache which had appeared on the apex of the bassinets of Henry V. was changed for plumes, descending from the back of the helmet almost to the rider's saddle. A new feature in armour also came in with Henry VII., called "lamboys" from the French "lambeaux," being a sort of skirt or petticoat of steel, in imitation of the puckered skirts of cloth or velvet worn at that time, and this fashion, with variations in form, continued through the whole period. In the reign of Henry VIII. the armour altogether became very showy and rich, in keeping with the ostentation of that monarch. A magnificent suit of the armour of Henry is preserved in the Tower, which was presented to him by the Emperor Maximilian, on his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, and is the fellow to a suit of Maximilian's preserved in the Little Belvedere Palace in Vienna. It covers both horse and man, and is richly engraved with legendary subjects, badges, mottoes, and the like. The seal of Henry presents a fine figure of him on horseback, in armour, with his tabard and crowned helmet, and its depending plumes.

The tilting helmet disappeared altogether in the time of Henry VIII., and a coursing-hat was worn instead, with a "mentonnière," or defence for the lower part of the face. In the reign of Mary we learn that the military force of the kingdom consisted of demi-lancers, who supplied the place of the men-at-arms; pikemen, who wore back and breast-plates, with tassets, gauntlets, and steel hats; archers, with steel skull-caps and brigandines; black-billmen or halberdiers, who wore armour called almain rivet and morions; and harquebussiers, similarly appointed. In Elizabeth's reign the armour was seldom worn on the legs and thighs, except in jousting, and not always then.

There were various changes in the shapes of swords and glaives; the battle-axe changed into the halberd in the time of Edward IV., which became general in that of Henry VII. In the reign of Henry VIII. was added the partisan, a kind of pike or spontoon; but the great change was in firearms, the hand-gun making several steps towards its modern termination in the musket and rifle, with detonating caps. The first improvement was to place a cock to the gun-barrel, to hold and apply the match instead of the soldier holding it in his hand. This was called an arc-a-bousa, thence corrupted into the arquebuse, much used by Henry VII. In his son's reign the wheel-lock was invented by the Italians, in which a wheel revolving against a piece of sulphuret of iron ignited the powder in the pan by its sparks. Pistols were also introduced now, and called pistols or dags, according to the shape of the butt-ends; the pistol finishing with a knob, the dag--or tacke--having its butt-end slanting. Pistols at first more resembled carabines in length, and the pocket pistol was of a considerable bulk. Cartridges were first used in pistols, and were carried in a steel case called a patron. In the reign of Elizabeth we hear of carabines, petronels, and dragons. Carabines were a sort of light, Spanish troops, who, probably, used this kind of arm; petronels were so called because their square butt-end was placed against the chest, or "poitrine;" and the dragon received its name from its muzzle being terminated with the head of that fabulous monster, and gave the name of "dragoon" to the soldiers who fought with them. Bandoliers, or leathern cases, each containing a complete charge of powder for a musket, were used till the end of the seventeenth century, when they gave way to the cartridge-box.

With the progress of firearms, it is almost needless to say that the famous art of archery, by which the English had won such fame in the world, was gradually superseded. During the reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII., bows were much used in their armies as well as firearms, but it was impossible long to maintain the bow and arrow in the presence of the hand-gun and powder. In vain did Henry VIII. pass severe laws against the disuse of the bow; by the end of his reign it had fallen, for the most part, from the hands of the warrior into that of the sportsman. In vain did Henry forbid the use even of the cross-bow to encourage the practice of archery, and Roger Ascham in his "Toxophilus" endeavour to prolong the date of the bow. By the end of the reign of Elizabeth, the endeavour to protract the existence of archery by statute was abandoned, and its long reign, except as a graceful amusement, was over.

The costumes of this age come down to us depicted by great masters, and are displayed to us in their full effect, at least this much can be said for those of the aristocracy. Looking at these ladies and gentlemen, they appear as little like plain matter-of-fact English people as possible. There is a length and looseness of robes about the men which has more the air of a holiday, gala garb, than the attire of people who had serious affairs to carry through, and you would scarcely credit them to be the ancestors of the present prosaic, buttoned-up, and busy generation. In a MS. called the "Boke of Custome," the chamberlain is commanded to provide against his master's uprising, "a clene sherte and breche, a pettycotte, a doublette, a long cotte, a stomacher, hys hosen, hys socks, and his shoen." And the "Boke of Kervynge," quoted by Strutt, says to the chamberlain, "Warme your soverayne his pettycotte, his doublette, and his stomacher, and then put on his hosen, and then his schone or slyppers, then stryten up his hosen mannerly, and tye them up, then lace his doublette hole by hole." Barclay, in the "Ship of Fools," printed by Pynson in 1508, mentions some who had their necks

"Charged with collars and chaines,
In golden withs, their fingers full of rings,
Their necks naked almost to the raines,
Their sleeves blazing like unto a crane's winges."

Their coats were generally loose and with broad collars, and turned back fronts, with loose hanging sleeves, often slashed, and sometimes without sleeves at all, but the sleeves of their doublets appearing through them, laced tight to the elbow and puffed out above. Hats and caps were of various fashions in the time of Henry VII. There was the square turned-up cap, a round hat something like the present wide-awake, but the more gay and assuming wore large felt hats, or bonnets of velvet, fur, or other materials, with great spreading plumes of party-coloured feathers. They wore the showy hats so much on one side, as to display under them close-fitting caps, often of gold network. Others, again, wore only the small cap, and let the large plumed hat hang on their shoulders.

The hose, when the dress was short enough to show them, were close-fitting, and of gay, often of two different colours; the long-toed shoes had given way to others, with toes called duck-bills, from their shape, being wider in front than they were long. Top-boots were worn for riding. The face was close shaven, except in the case of soldiers or old men, and the hair was suffered to hang long and flowing. The first mention of a collar of the garter occurs in this reign, and a collar is seen on the effigy of Sir George Daubeny, of this date.

In the costume of the ladies the sleeves were as wide as they were in that of the men, and have been imitated in modern times, being called "bishop's sleeves" in London. The gown was cut square in the neck, and they wore stomachers, belts, and buckles, girdles with long pendents in front, and hats and feathers. Others wore caps and cauls of gold net, or embroidery, from beneath which the hair hung down the shoulders half way to the ground. The morning dress was a full, loose, flowing robe, with cape and hood, and the extent and material of it was regulated by Royal ordinance.

Every one is familiar with the costume of the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. The ordinary costume of bluff Harry was a full-skirted jacket, or doublet, with large sleeves to the wrists; over which was worn a short but equally full cloak or coat, with loose, hanging sleeves, and a broad, rolling collar of fur. Many, however, still wore the doublet sleeves, as in the last reign: tight to the elbow, puffed out about the shoulders, and the coat sleeveless, allowing this to appear. The cap was square or round, and still worn somewhat side-ways, jewelled, and plumed with ostrich feathers. The hose were now often divided into hose and stockings, and the shoes, though sometimes square-toed, yet often resembling the modern shape. The Norman "chausses" were revived under the older name of "trousses," being close hose, fitting exactly to the limbs.

Henry VIII. was most extravagant in dress, and was followed with so much avidity by his subjects in his ostentation, that in the twenty-fourth year of his reign he was obliged to pass a sumptuary law to restrain them, and the style and quality of dress for every different rank was prescribed--as we may suppose with indifferent success. No person of less degree than a knight was to wear crimson or blue velvet or embroidered apparel, broched or guarded with goldsmith's work, except sons and heirs of knights and barons, who might use crimson velvet, and tinsel in their doublets. Velvet gowns, jackets and coats, furs of martens, &c., chains, bracelets, and collars of gold, were proscribed to all but persons possessing two hundred marks per annum; except the sons and heirs of such persons, who might wear black velvet doublets, coats of black damask, etc.

Henry's own dress was of the most gorgeous kind. He is described at a banquet at Westminster as arrayed in a suit of short garments of blue velvet and crymosine, with long sleeves all cut and lined with cloth of gold, and the outer garments powdered with castles and sheaves of arrows--the badges of Queen Catherine--of fine ducat gold; the upper part of the hose of like fashion, the lower parts of scarlet, powdered with timbrels of fine gold. His bonnet was of damask silver, flat, "woven in the stall," and therefore wrought with gold, and rich feathers on it. When he met Anne of Cleves he had tricked himself out in a frock of velvet embroidered all over with flatted gold of damask, mixed with a profusion of lace; the sleeves and breast being cut and lined with cloth of gold, and tied together with great buttons of diamonds, rubies, and orient pearls. The king was deemed to be the best dressed sovereign in the world, for he put on new clothes every holy day.

Henry ordered his subjects to cut off their long hair; beards and moustaches were now worn at pleasure.

The reigns of Edward and Mary did not vary much in the costume of the men. The dress worn now by the boys of Christ's Hospital (familiarly known as the Bluecoat School), founded by Edward, is very much that which was worn by the London apprentices of that period--blue coats and yellow stockings being also common to the citizens generally. The square-toed shoes were banished by proclamation in the reign of Queen Mary.

The costume of the ladies of the reign of Henry VIII. is extremely familiar, from the numerous portraits of his six wives, engravings of which are in Lodge's "Portraits." With the exception of the bonnet or coif--which, though worn by Catherine of Aragon, came to be called the Anne Boleyn cap--the dress of the ladies of this reign bears a striking resemblance to one of the later Victorian fashions, though differing of course in material. You find the gown fitting close to the bust of the natural length of waist, and cut square at the chest, where it is edged with narrow lace. The sleeves, tight at the shoulder, widened to the elbow, where they hung deep, showing an under-sleeve of fine lawn or lace extending to the wrist, and terminated by lace ruffles. On the neck was generally worn a pearl necklace, with a jewelled cross. The skirts were full, the train long, according to rank. Seven yards of purple cloth of damask gold were allowed for a kirtle for Queen Catherine, in a wardrobe account of the eighth year of Henry's reign. The sleeves of ladies' garments, like those of gentlemen's dresses, could be changed at pleasure, being separate and attached at will. They were extremely rich; and we find in one lady's inventory three pair of purple satin sleeves, one of linen paned with gold over the arms, quilted with black silk, and wrought with flounces between the panes and at the hands; one pair of purple gold tissue damask wire, each sleeve tied with aglets of gold; one pair of crimson satin, four buttons of gold on each sleeve, and in every button nine pearls.

The coif was of various materials, from simple linen to rich velvet and cloth of gold; either with the round front, as in Mary and Elizabeth as princesses, in Catherine Parr and Catherine Howard, or dipping in front, which came to be called the "Queen of Scots" bonnet; but the commonest shape was the five-cornered one. This last was indeed the hood of the time of Henry VII., in which we have a portrait of his queen, Elizabeth of York; the lappets of the hood depending on the bosom, embroidered and edged with pearls; the scarf behind hanging on the shoulders. In the portrait of Catherine of Aragon, the front, embroidered and jewelled, had become shorter, touching the neck only; but the scarf behind still spread on the shoulder. In Anne Boleyn's portrait the coif had reached its extreme of elegance; the frontlet, consisting of the five-pointed frame, is still shorter, only covering the ears, and is faced with a double row of pearls (_see_ p. 165). Her hair is scarcely seen, being concealed by an under-coif, which shows as a band in a slanting direction over the forehead. The back consists of a green velvet hood, with broad scarf lappets, of which one is turned up over the back of the head, and the other hangs on the left shoulder. Of the dress of the ladies of the citizen class we have a curious account in the bride of John of Winchcomb, the famous clothier, called "Jack of Newbury." "She was habited in a gown of sheep's russet, and a kirtle of fine worsted, her head attired with a billiment of gold, and her hair, as yellow as gold, hanging down behind her, which was curiously combed and plaited. She was led to church by two boys with bride laces and rosemary tied about their silken sleeves. When she in after years came out of her widow's weeds, she appeared in a fair train gown stuck full of silver pins, having a white cap on her head, with cuts of curious needlework under the same, and an apron before her as white as driven snow."

With Elizabeth came in a totally new fashion, not only of women's but of men's costumes. The large trunk hose made their appearance; the long-waisted doublet, the short cloak or mantle, with its standing collar, the ruff, the hat, the band and feather, the roses in the shoes, are all of this period. To such a degree did the fashion of puffed and stuffed breeches obtain, which had begun to swell in the prior reigns, that about the thirty-third of Elizabeth, over the seats in the Parliament House, were certain holes, some two inches square, in the walls, in which were placed posts to uphold scaffolds round about the house for those to sit upon who wore great breeches stuffed with hair, like woolsacks.

As to ruffs, Stubbs, in his "Anatomie of Abuses," tells us that sooner than go without them, men would mortgage their lands, or risk their lives at Tyburn; and he adds, "They have now newly (1595) found out a more monstrous kind of ruff of twelve, yea, sixteen lengths apiece, set three or four times double, thence called three steps and a half to the gallows." The French or Venetian hose, he tells us, cost often £100 a pair, probably from being cloth of gold and set with jewels. To these were added boot hose of the finest cloth, also splendidly embroidered with birds, beasts, and antiques. The doublets, he says, grew longer and longer in the waist, stuffed and quilted with four, five, or six pounds of bombast, the exterior being of silk, satin, taffeta, gold, or silver stuff, slashed, jagged, covered, pinched, and laced with all kinds of costly devices. Over these were their coats and jerkins, some with collars, some without, some close to the body, some loose, called mandilions; some buttoned down the breast, some under the arm, some down the back. They had cloaks also--white, red, tawny, yellow, green, violet--of cloth, silk, or taffeta, and of French, Spanish, or Dutch fashion, ornamented with costly lace of gold, silver, or silk. These cloaks were as costly inside as out. Their slippers or "pantoufles" were of all colours, and yet, says Stubbs, they were difficult to keep on, and went flap-flap up and down in the dirt, casting the mire up to their knees. Their hats, he states, were sharp at the crown, peaking up like the shaft of a steeple a quarter of a yard above the crown of their heads, some more, some less; others were flat and broad on the crown; some had round crowns and bands of all colours; and these hats or caps were of velvet, taffeta, or sarcenet, ornamented with big bunches of feathers; and finally we hear of _beaver hats_, costing from twenty to forty shillings apiece, brought from beyond seas.

But if such was the dress of gentlemen to please the strange taste of the maiden queen, that of this famous queen herself, as evinced by her numerous portraits, has nothing like it in all the annals of fashion. In an early portrait of Elizabeth we have her dressed in a costume very little different to that of a man. Over her gown or doublet she wore a coat with the enormous shoulder-points standing up six inches, and with a close upright collar completely enveloping her neck, and surmounted by a ruff; her coat cut and slashed all over, and on her head a round hat, pulled down to a peak in front, and thickly jewelled. Stubbs, alluding to this particular fashion, says, "The women have doublets and jerkins as the men have, buttoned up to the breast, and made with wings, welts, and pinions on the shoulder-points, as men's apparel in all respects.... Yet they blush not to wear it."

But it was about the middle of her reign that Elizabeth introduced that astounding style of dress in which she figures in most of her portraits, and in which the body was imprisoned in whalebone to the hips; the partlet or habit-shirt, which had for some time been in use, and covered the whole bosom to the chin, was removed, and an enormous ruff, rising gradually from the front of the shoulders to nearly the height of the head behind, encircled the wearer like the enormous wings of some nondescript butterfly. In fact, there was ruff beyond ruff; first, a crimped one round the neck like a collar; and then a round one standing up from the shoulders behind the head; and, finally, the enormous circular fans towering high and wide. The head of the queen is seen covered with one of her eighty sets of false hair, and hoisted above that a jaunty hat, jewelled and plumed.

In order to enable this monstrous expanse of ruff to support itself, it was necessary to resort to starch, and, as Stubbs tells us, also to a machinery of wires, "erected for the purpose, and whipped all over with gold thread, silver, or silk." This was called a "supportasse, or underpropper." The queen sent to Holland for women skilled in the art of starching; and one Mistress Dingham Vander Plasse came over and became famous in the mystery of tormenting pride with starch. "The devil," says Stubbs, "hath learned them to wash and dress their ruffs, which, being dry, will then stand inflexible about their necks."

From the bosom, now partly left bare, descended an interminable stomacher, and then the farthingale spread out its enormous breadth, like the Victorian crinoline. Stockings of worsted yarn and silk had now become common; and Mistress Montague presented Her Majesty, in the third year of her reign, with a pair of silk stockings knit in England; thereupon she would never wear any else. A fashion of both ladies and gentlemen of this time was to wear small looking-glasses hanging at their sides or inserted in the fan of ostrich feathers.

The history of the coinage from Henry VII. to the reign of Elizabeth is one of depreciation and adulteration, as it had been in the preceding century. Not till Elizabeth did it begin to return to a sound and honest standard.

Henry VII. made several variations in the money of the realm. He preserved the standard of Edward IV. and Richard III., coining 450 pennies from the pound of silver, or thirty-seven nominal shillings and sixpences. He introduced shillings as actual money, being before only nominal, and used in accounts. These shillings, struck in 1504--called at first large groats, and then testons, from the French "teste," or "tête," a head--bore the profile of the king instead of the full face; a thing unknown since the reign of Stephen, but ever after followed, except by Henry VIII. and Edward VI., who, however, used the profile in their groats. Henry coined also a novel coin--the sovereign, or "double rose noble," worth twenty shillings, and the "rose rial," or half-sovereign. These gold coins are now very rare. On the reverse of his coins he for the first time placed the Royal arms.

The gold coins of Henry VIII. were sovereigns, half-sovereigns, or rials, half and quarter rials, angels, angelets, or half angels, and quarter-angels, George nobles--so called from bearing on the reverse St. George and the dragon--crowns, and half-crowns. His silver coins were shillings, groats, half-groats, and pennies. Amongst these appeared groats and half-groats coined by Wolsey at York, in accordance with a privilege, exercised by the Church long before. In his impeachment it was made a capital charge that he had placed the cardinal's hat on the groats under the king's arms. The groats also bore on each side of the arms his initials, "T. W.," and the half-groats "W. A."--Wolsey Archiepiscopus.

Not only did Henry adulterate the coin in the most scandalous manner, but he also depreciated the value of the silver coins, by coining a much larger number of pennies out of a pound of the base alloy. Before his time the mixed mint pound had consisted of eleven ounces two pennyweights of silver, and eighteen pennyweights of alloy; but Henry, in 1543, altered it to ten ounces of silver and two ounces of alloy. Two years later he added as much alloy as there was silver; and not content with that, in 1546, or one year after, he left only four ounces of silver in the pound, or eight ounces of alloy to the four ounces of silver! But this even did not satisfy him: he next proceeded to coin his base metal into a larger amount than the good metal had ever produced before. Instead of 37s. 6d., or 450 pennies, into which it had been coined ever since the reign of Edward IV., he made it yield 540 pennies, or 45s., in 1527, and in 1543 he extended it to 48s., or 576 pennies. He thus, instead of 450 pennies out of a pound containing eleven ounces two pennyweights of silver, coined 576 pennies out of only four ounces of silver! Such were the lawless robberies which "Bluff Harry" committed on his subjects. Any one of the smallest debasements by a subject would have sent him to the gallows. He certainly was one of the most wholesale issuers of bad money that ever lived.

The counsellors of his son Edward--a most rapacious set of adventurers--however, even out-Harryed Harry; for though Edward restored at first the value of the mint mixture in some degree, in 1551 the amount of silver in a pound of that alloy was only three ounces, or an ounce less than the worst coin of his father. And still worse, instead of 48s., the largest number coined by his father out of a pound, he coined 72s., or instead of 450 pennies out of four ounces of silver, 864 pennies were coined out of three ounces. The ruin, the confusion of prices, and the public outcry, however, consequent upon this violent public fraud, at length compelled Government to restore the amount of silver in the pound to nearly what it was at the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII., and the number of shillings was reduced from seventy-two to sixty. The gold, which was equally debased, was also restored to the same extent.

Queen Mary, while she issued a proclamation at the commencement of her reign denouncing the dishonest proceedings of her predecessors, again increased the alloy in a pound of mint silver to an ounce instead of nineteen pennyweights; and she added two pennyweights more of alloy to the ounce of gold. The coins issued by Philip and Mary bear both their profiles.

Elizabeth honourably restored the coinage to its ancient value. She fixed the alloy in a pound of silver at only eighteen pennyweights; but she coined sixty-two shillings out of the pound instead of sixty, at which it remained till 1816, when it became sixty-six, as it still remains. The standard mixture of Elizabeth has continued the same to our own day. She called in and melted down the base money of her father and brother to the nominal value of £638,000, but of real value only £244,000. The gold coins of Elizabeth are rials, angels, half-angels, and quarter-angels, crowns and half-crowns, nobles and double nobles. Some of her coins were the first which had milled edges, both of gold and silver. Besides shillings, sixpences, groats, and pence, Elizabeth coined a crown, for the use of the East India Company, called portcullis crowns, in imitation of the Spanish dollar. These were valued at four shillings and sixpence, and are now rare.

In Scotland the alloy of the silver at the mint was not so great as in England during this period; but the number of shillings coined out of one pound of silver was astonishingly increased. This kind of depreciation had been going on for two centuries before this period; but from 1475, when only 144 shillings were coined out of the pound of silver, the number was rapidly augmented every few years, till in 1601 no less than 720 shillings were coined out of it, or, in other words, the original value of one pound was made to pass for thirty-six pounds.

In tracing the historical events of these reigns, we have had occasion to show the increasing strength of the Royal navy of England. Both in the reigns of Henry VIII. and of Elizabeth the sea fights were of a character and attended by results which marked out England as a maritime power growing ever more formidable. In the fourth year of his reign Henry drove the French fleet from the Channel with forty-two ships, Royal and others. He chastised the Scots, who, under James V., had become daring at sea; and on various occasions during his reign he showed his superiority to the French and Spaniards.

But it was the victory over the Armada under Elizabeth, and the exploits of Drake, Essex, Raleigh, and others in the Spanish ports, and of Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher in the Spanish settlements of America, that raised the fame of the British fleet to a pitch which it had never reached before. For, after all, the amount of Henry's fleet never was large. We are told, indeed, that at first he had only one ship of war, the _Great Harry_, till he took the _Lion_, a large Scottish ship, with its commander, the celebrated Andrew Barton; but probably this is meant of such size as to merit the name of man-of-war. Parsimonious as was Henry VII., and careful to avoid any collisions with foreign powers, we cannot suppose he left the kingdom totally destitute of a navy. But Henry VIII. was not contented with owning merely a mediocre fleet; he had an ambition of building large vessels, and in 1512 he built one of 1,000 tons, called the _Regent_. This was blown up in a battle with the French fleet off Brest, and instead of it he built another called _Grâce de Dieu_. The rivalry of Henry was excited by the King of Scotland building a much larger ship than his _Regent_, which was said to carry 300 seamen, 120 gunners, and 1,000 soldiers. This ship, like Henry's _Regent_, was unfortunately lost at sea. By the end of Henry's reign, his fleet altogether amounted to 12,500 tons.

Besides building of ships, Henry seems to have planned all the necessary offices for a naval system. He established the Navy Office, with a sort of Board of Admiralty for its management, and he also founded, in the fourth year of his reign, the Corporation of the Trinity House at Deptford, for managing everything relating to the education, selection, and appointment of pilots, the putting down of buoys, and erecting beacons and lighthouses. Similar establishments were created by him at Hull and Newcastle. He built at great cost the first pier at Dover, and passed an Act of Parliament for improving the harbours of Plymouth, Dartmouth, Teignmouth, Falmouth, and Fowey, which had been choked up by the refuse of certain tin-works, which he prohibited. But perhaps his greatest works of the kind were his establishment of the navy-yards and storehouses at Woolwich and Deptford. No monarch, in fact, had hitherto planned so efficiently and exerted himself so earnestly to found an English navy. Great merit is due to him for his advancement of the maritime interests of the nation.

The manner in which the different monarchs of the Tudor dynasty advanced or neglected the navy is well shown by the returns of the Navy Office to Parliament in 1791. At the end of the reign of Henry VIII. it amounted to 12,500 tons, at the end of that of Edward VI. to only 11,065 tons, and at the end of Mary's to 7,110 tons, but at the end of Elizabeth's it rose to 17,110. At the time of the Armada, Elizabeth had at sea 150 sail, of which, however, only forty were the property of the Crown; the rest belonged to the merchants who were liable to be called upon on such emergencies to furnish their largest craft for the public service. Thirty-four of these ships were from 500 to 1,100 tons each, and these larger vessels are said to have carried 300 men and forty cannon each. Besides the vessels thus called out for war, the mercantile navy at this time amounted to another 150 sail of various capacity, averaging each 150 tons, and carrying forty seamen.

This extent of Royal and mercantile navy had not been reached without much fostering care on the part of the queen. With all her parsimony and dread of expense, it was one of the finest parts of her very mixed character, that she saw the necessity of a strong power at sea and had all the pride of her father to maintain it. Whilst on land she introduced the manufacture of gunpowder, and raised the pay of the soldiers, she extended her care to the fleet, and made it in the end the best equipped navy in Europe. She raised the pay of the sailors as she had done that of the soldiers, and the merchants entered so readily into her service that she had no longer occasion to hire vessels, as her predecessors had done, from the Hanse Towns, or from Venice and Genoa. She built a fort on the Medway, somewhere near the present Sheerness, to protect her fleet, and justly acquired the name of the Queen of the North Seas. Many circumstances combined to give a new and wonderful development in her time to commerce--the discovery and partial settlement of the New World; the way opened by the Cape to India; the extension of commercial inquiry and enterprise into the north of Europe and to the banks of Newfoundland. But ere this stirring period arrived, commerce had had to struggle with many severe restrictions, the fruit of the ignorance of political economy.

in the

XVIth CENTURY

showing

the DISCOVERIES of

BRITISH & other EXPLORERS.]