Chapter V: Part 5

You must have heard the leper use his rattle to warn you of his proximity. You, too, may have thought that Joan of Arc was a sorceress and Friar Bungay a magician. You may have--I have not your wonderful letter here for reference--heard all about Eleanor of Cobham, and how she did penance in a shift in the London streets for magic against the King's person.

Some ladies, I notice, wore the long-tongued belt--buckled it in front, and then pushed it round until the buckle came into the centre of the back and the tongue hung down like a tail; but these ladies were not wearing the high-waisted gown, but a gown with a normal waist, and with no train, but a skirt of even fulness and of the same length all the way round.

There were striped stuffs, piled velvet, rich-patterned silks, and homespun cloths and wool to choose from. Long-peaked shoes, of course, and wooden clogs out of doors.

The town and country maids, the merchants' wives, and the poor generally, each and all according to purse and pride, dressed in humbler imitation of the cut of the clothes of the high-born, in quite simple dresses, with purse, girdle, and apron, with heads in hoods, or twisted wimples of coarse linen.

Well, there you lie, ladies, on the tops of cold tombs, stiff and sedate, your hands uplifted in prayer, your noses as often as not knocked off by later-day schoolboys, crop-headed Puritans, or Henry VIII.'s sacrilegious hirelings. Lie still in your huge head-dresses and your neat-folded gowns--a moral, in marble or bronze, of the pomps and vanities of this wicked world.

EDWARD THE FOURTH

Reigned twenty-two years: 1461-1483.

Born 1441. Married, 1464, Elizabeth Woodville.

THE MEN

I invite you to call up this reign by a picture of Caxton's shop: you may imagine yourself in the almonry at Westminster, where, in a small enclosure by the west front of the church, there is a chapel and some almshouses. You will be able to see the rich come to look at Mr. Caxton's wares and the poor slinking in to receive alms.

'If it please any man, spiritual or temporal, to buy any
pyes of two or three commemorations of Salisbury use
emprynted after the form of this present letter, which
be well and truly correct, let him come to Westminster
into the Almonry at the red pale, and he shall have them
good cheap.'

This was Caxton's advertisement.

As you watch the people going and coming about the small enclosure, you will notice that the tonsured hair has gone out of fashion, and that whereas the merchants, citizens, and such people wear the roundlet hat, the nobles and fine gentlemen are in black velvet caps, or tall hats with long-peaked brims, or in round high hats with fur brim close to the crown of the hat, or in caps with little rolled brims with a button at the top, over which two laces pass from back to front, and from under the brim there falls the last sign, the dying gasp of the liripipe, now jagged and now with tasselled ends.

We have arrived at the generally accepted vague idea of 'medieval costume,' which means really a hazy notion of the dress of this date: a steeple head-dress for ladies, a short waist, and a train; a tall, sugar-loaf hat with a flat top for the men, long hair, very short and very long tunics, long-pointed shoes, and wide sleeves--this, I think, is the amateur's idea of 'costume in the Middle Ages.'

You will notice that all, or nearly all, the passers-by Caxton's have long hair; that the dandies have extra-long hair brushed out in a cloud at the back; that the older men wear long, very simple gowns, which they belt in at the waist with a stuff or leather belt, on which is hung a bag-purse; that these plain gowns are laced across the front to the waist over a vest of some coloured stuff other than the gown.

You will see that the poor are in very simple tunics--just a loose, stuff shirt with sleeves about 8 inches wide, and with the skirts reaching to the knees, a belt about their middle--rough, shapeless leather shoes, and woollen tights.

You will remember in the early part of the reign, before the heraldic shield with the red pale, Caxton's sign, caught your eye, that the fashionable wore very wide sleeves, great swollen bags fitting only at shoulder and wrist, and you may recall the fact that a tailor was fined twenty shillings in 1463 for making such wide sleeves. Poulaines, the very long shoes, are now forbidden, except that an esquire and anyone over that rank might wear them 2 inches beyond the toes; but I think the dandies wore the shoes and paid the fine if it were enforced.

Notice the jagged ribbon falling from the brim of his hat; this is
the last of the liripipe.]

See Caxton, in a sober-coloured gown, long, and laced in the front, showing a plain vest under the lacing, talking to some of his great customers. The Duchess of Somerset has just lent him 'Blanchardine and Eglantine'; Earl Rivers, the Queen's brother, talks over his own translation of 'The Sayings of the Philosophers'; and Caxton is extolling that worshipful man Geoffrey Chaucer, and singing praises in reverence 'for that noble poet and great clerke, Vergyl.'

Edward himself has been to the shop and has consented to become patron of an edition of Tully--Edward, with his very subtle face, his tall, handsome appearance, his cold, elegant manners. He is dressed in a velvet gown edged with fur; the neck of the gown is low, and the silk vest shows above it. Across his chest are gold laces tapering to his waist; these are straight across the front of his gown-opening. His hair is straight, and falls to the nape of his neck; he wears a black velvet cap upon his head. The skirts of his gown reach to his knees, and are fur-edged; his sleeves are full at the elbows and tight over his wrists; he is wearing red Spanish leather tall boots, turned over at the top.

As he stands talking to Caxton, one or two gentlemen, who have also dismounted, stand about him. Three of them are in the height of the fashion. The first wears a velvet tunic, with fur edges. The tunic is pleated before and behind, and is full and slightly pursed in front; the sleeves are long, and are cut from shoulder to wrist, where they are sewn together again; cuff and border of the cut or opening are both edged with fur. The neck is high, but there is no collar. The length of the tunic is quite short; it comes well above the knees. His under-sleeves are full, and are of rich silk; his shoes are certainly over the allowed length; his tights are well cut. His peaked hat has gold bands round the crown.

The second gentleman is also in a very short tunic, with very wide sleeves; this tunic is pleated into large even folds, and has a belt of its own material. His hair is long, and bushed behind; his tights are in two colours, and he wears an eighteen-penny pair of black leather slops or shoes. His hat is black, tall, but without a peak; a long feather is brooched into one side of it.

The third man is wearing a low black cap, with a little close brim; a jagged piece of stuff, about 3 feet long, hangs from under the brim of his hat. He is wearing long, straight hair. This man is wearing a little short tunic, which is loose at the waist, and comes but an inch or two below it; the sleeves are very loose and wide, and are not fastened at the wrist; the tunic has a little collar. The shortness of his tunic shows the whole of his tights, and also the ribbon-fastened cod-piece in front. His shoes are split at the sides, and come into a peak before and behind.

Now, our gentlemen of this time, having cut open their baggy sleeves, and made them to hang down and expose all the under-sleeve, must now needs lace them up again very loosely. Then, by way of change, the tight sleeve was split at the elbow to show a white shirt. Then came the broad shoulders, when the sleeves were swelled out at the top to give an air of great breadth to the shoulders and a more elegant taper to the waist. Some men had patterns sewn on one leg of their tights. The gown, or whatever top garment was being worn, was sometimes cut into a low, V shape behind at the neck to show the undergarment, above which showed a piece of white shirt.

A long gown, in shape like a monk's habit, wide sleeves, the same width all the way down, a loose neck--a garment indeed to put on over the head, to slip on for comfort and warmth--was quite a marked fashion in the streets--as marked as the little tunic.

If you are remembering Caxton's shop and a crowd of gentlemen, notice one in a big fur hat, which comes over his eyes; and see also a man who has wound a strip of cloth about his neck and over his head, then, letting one end hang down, has clapped his round, steeple-crowned hat over it.

You will see high collars, low collars, and absence of collar, long gown open to the waist, long gown without opening, short-skirted tunic, tunic without any skirt, long, short, and medium shoes, and, at the end of the reign, one or two broad-toed shoes. Many of these men would be carrying sticks; most of them would have their fingers covered with rings.

Among the group of gentlemen about Edward some merchants have pressed closer to see the King, and a girl or two has stolen into the front row. The King, turning to make a laughing remark to one of his courtiers, will see a roguish, pretty face behind him--the face of a merchant's wife; he will smile at her in a meaning way.

THE WOMEN

France, at this date, shows us a sartorial Savonarola, by name Thomas Conecte, a preaching friar, who held an Anti-Hennin Crusade, which ended in a bonfire of these steeple head-dresses. The flames of these peculiar hats lit up the inspired devotees, and showed their heads wrapped in plain linen wimples or some little unaffected caps. But the ashes were hardly cold before the gray light of the next day showed the figure of the dreaded preacher small upon the horizon, and lit upon the sewing-maids as they sat making fresh steeples for the adornment of their ladies' heads.

Joan of Arc is dead, and another very different apparition of womankind looms out of the mists of history. Whilst Joan of Arc is hymned and numbered among the happy company of saints triumphant, Jane Shore is roared in drinking-songs and ballads of a disreputable order, and is held up as an awful example. She has for years been represented upon the boards of West End and Surrey-side theatres--in her prime as the mistress of Edward IV., in her penance before the church door, and in her poverty and starvation, hounded from house to house in a Christian country where bread was denied to her. I myself have seen her through the person of a stout, melancholy, and h-less lady, who, dressed in a sort of burlesque fish-wife costume, has lain dying on the prompt-side of the stage, in a whirl of paper snow, while, to the edification of the twopenny gallery, she has bewailed her evil life, and has been allowed, by a munificent management, to die in the arms of white-clad angels. There is a gleam of truth in the representation, and you may see the real Jane Shore in a high steeple head-dress, with a thin veil thrown over it, with a frontlet or little loop of black velvet over her forehead; in a high-waisted dress, open in a V shape from shoulder to waist, the opening laced over the square-cut under-gown, the upper gown having a collar of fur or silk, a long train, broad cuffs, perhaps 7 inches long from the base of her fingers, with a broad, coloured band about her waist, a broader trimming of the same colour round the hem of her shirt, and in long peaked shoes. In person of mean stature, her hair dark yellow, her face round and full, her eyes gray, and her countenance as cheerful as herself. The second real picture of her shows you a haggard woman, with her hair unbound and falling about her shoulders, shivering in a shift, which she clutches about her with one hand, while the other holds a dripping candle; and the third picture shows an old woman in dirty wimple and untidy rags.

There are many ways of making the steeple head-dress. For the most part they are long, black-covered steeples, resting at an angle of forty-five degrees to the head, the broad end having a deep velvet band round it, with hanging sides, which come to the level of the chin; the point end has a long veil attached to it, which floats lightly down, or is carried on to one shoulder. Sometimes this steeple hat is worn over a hood, the cape of which is tucked into the dress. Some of these hats have a jutting, upturned piece in front, and they are also covered with all manner of coloured stuffs, but not commonly so. All persons having an income of L10 a year and over will have that black velvet loop, the frontlet, sewn into their hats. There is another new shape for hats, varying in height from 8 to 18 inches. It is a cylinder, broader at the top than the bottom, the crown sometimes flat and sometimes rounded into the hat itself; this hat is generally jewelled, and covered with rich material. The veils are attached to these hats in several ways; either they float down behind from the centre of the crown of the hat, or they are sewn on to the base of the hat, and are supported on wires, so as to shade the face, making a roof over it, pointed in front and behind, or flat across the front and bent into a point behind, or circular. Take two circles of wire, one the size of the base of your hat and the other larger, and dress your linen or thin silk upon them; then you may pinch the wire into any variations of squares and circles you please.

She wears the high hennin from which hangs a wisp of linen. On her
forehead is the velvet frontlet, and across her forehead is a veil
stretched on wires.]

The veil was sometimes worn all over the steeple hat, coming down over the face, but stiff enough to stand away from it. Towards the end of the reign the hats were not so high or so erect.

Remember, also, that the horned head-dress of the previous reign is not by any means extinct.

There remain two more forms of making the human face hideous: one is the head-dress closely resembling an enormous sponge bag, which for some unknown reason lasted well into the reign of Henry VII. as a variety to the fashionable head-gear of that time, and the other is very simple, being a wimple kept on the head by a circular stuffed hoop of material, which showed, plain and severe across the forehead. The simple folk wore a hood of linen, with a liripipe and wide ear-flaps.

The dresses are plain in cut; they are all short-waisted if at all fashionable. The most of them have a broad waist-belt, and very deep borders to their skirts; they have broad, turned-back cuffs, often of black. These cuffs, on being turned down over the hand, show the same colour as the dress; they are, in fact, the old long cuff over the fingers turned back for comfort.

It is by the variety of openings at the necks of the gowns that you may get change. First, let me take the most ordinary--that is, an opening of a V shape from shoulders to waist, the foot of the V at the waist, the points on the top of the shoulders at the join of the arm. Across this opening is seen, cut square and coming up to the base of the bosom, the under-gown. You may now proceed to vary this by lacing the V across, but not drawing it together, by having the V fur-edged, or made to turn over in a collar of black upon light material, or its opposite, by showing a vest of stuff other than that of the under-gown, which will then make a variety of colour when the skirt is held up over the arm. Or you may have your dress so cut that it is high in front and square cut, and over this you may sew a false V collar wither to or above the waist. I have said that the whole neck-opening may be covered by a gorget of cloth, which was pinned up to the steeple hat, or by a hood of thin stuff or silk, the cape of which was tucked into the dress.

The lady, I think, is now complete down to her long-pointed shoes, her necklet of stones or gold chain, with cross or heraldic pendant, and it remains to show that the countrywoman dressed very plainly, in a decent-fitting dress, with her waist in its proper place, her skirt full, the sleeves of her dress turned back like my lady's, her head wrapped in a wimple or warmed in a hood, her feet in plain, foot-shaped shoes, and wooden clogs strapped on to them for outdoor use or kitchen work; in fact, she looked much like any old body to-day who has lived in a village, except that the wimple and the hood then worn are out of place to-day, more's the pity!

No doubt ladies were just human in those days, and fussed and frittered over an inch or so of hennin, or a yard or two of train. One cut her dress too low to please the others, and another wore her horned head-dress despite the dictates of Fashion, which said, 'Away with horns, and into steeples.' No doubt the tall hennins, with their floating veils, looked like black masts with silken sails, and the ladies like a crowd of shipping, with velvet trains for waves about their feet; no doubt the steeples swayed and the silks rustled when the heads turned to look at the fine men in the days when hump-shouldered Richard was a dandy.

EDWARD THE FIFTH

Reigned two months: April and June, 1487.

RICHARD THE THIRD

Reigned two years: 1483-1485.

Born 1450. Married, 1473, Anne Neville.

THE MEN

Fashion's pulse beat very weak in the spring of 1483. More attune to the pipes of Fate were the black cloaks of conspirators and a measured tread of soft-shoed feet than lute and dance of airy millinery. The axe of the executioner soiled many white shirts, and dreadful forebodings fluttered the dovecots of high-hennined ladies.

The old order was dying; Medievalism, which made a last spluttering flame in the next reign, was now burnt low, and was saving for that last effort. When Richard married Anne Neville, in the same year was Raphael born in Italy; literature was beginning, thought was beginning; many of the great spirits of the Renaissance were alive and working in Italy; the very trend of clothes showed something vaguely different, something which shows, however, that the foundations of the world were being shaken--so shaken that men and women, coming out of the gloom of the fourteenth century through the half-light of the fifteenth, saw the first signs of a new day, the first show of spring, and, with a perversity or an eagerness to meet the coming day, they began to change their clothes.

It is in this reign of Richard III. that we get, for the men, a hint of the peculiar magnificence of the first years of the sixteenth century; we get the first flush of those wonderful patterns which are used by Memline and Holbein, those variations of the pine-apple pattern, and of that peculiar convention which is traceable in the outline of the Tudor rose.

The men, at first sight, do not appear very different to the men of Edward IV.'s time; they have the long hair, the general clean-shaven faces, open-breasted tunics, and full-pleated skirts. But, as a rule, the man, peculiar to his time, the clothes-post of his age, has discarded the tall peaked hat, and is almost always dressed in the black velvet, stiff-brimmed hat. The pleated skirt to his tunic has grown longer, and his purse has grown larger; the sleeves are tighter, and the old tunic with the split, hanging sleeves has grown fuller, longer, and has become an overcoat, being now open all the way down. You will see that the neck of the tunic is cut very low, and that you may see above it, above the black velvet with which it is so often bound, the rich colour or fine material of an undergarment, a sort of waistcoat, and yet again above that the straight top of a finely-pleated white shirt. Sometimes the sleeves of the tunic will be wide, and when the arm is flung up in gesticulation, the baggy white shirt, tight-buttoned at the wrist, will show. Instead of the overcoat with the hanging sleeves, you will find a very plain-cut overcoat, with sleeves comfortably wide, and with little plain lapels to the collar. It is cut wide enough in the back to allow for the spread of the tunic. Black velvet is becoming a very fashionable trimming, and will be seen as a border or as under-vest to show between the shirt and the tunic. No clothes of the last reign will be incongruous in this; the very short tunics which expose the cod-piece, the split-sleeve tunic, all the variations, I have described. Judges walk about, looking like gentlemen of the time of Richard II.: a judge wears a long loose gown, with wide sleeves, from out of which appear the sleeves of his under-tunic, buttoned from elbow to wrist; he wears a cloak with a hood, the cloak split up the right side, and fastened by three buttons upon the right shoulder. A doctor is in very plain, ample gown, with a cape over his shoulders and a small round cap on his head. His gown is not bound at the waist.

Here one sees the first of the broad-toed shoes and the birth of the
Tudor costume--the full pleated skirts and the prominence of white
shirt.]

The blunt shoes have come into fashion, and with this the old long-peaked shoe dies for ever. Common-sense will show you that the gentlemen who had leisure to hunt in these times did not wear their most foppish garments, that the tunics were plain, the boots high, the cloaks of strong material. They wore a hunting-hat, with a long peak over the eyes and a little peak over the neck at the back; a broad band passed under the chin, and, buttoning on to either side of the hat, kept it in place. The peasant wore a loose tunic, often open-breasted and laced across; he had a belt about his waist, a hood over his head, and often a broad-brimmed Noah's Ark hat over the hood; his slops, or loose trousers, were tied below the knee and at the ankles. A shepherd would stick his pipe in his belt, so that he might march before his flock, piping them into the fold.

To sum up, you must picture a man in a dress of Edward IV.'s time, modified, or, rather, expanded or expanding into the costume of Henry VII.'s time--a reign, in fact, which hardly has a distinct costume to itself--that is, for the men--but has a hand stretched out to two centuries, the fifteenth and the sixteenth; yet, if I have shown the man to you as I myself can see him, he is different from his father in 1461, and will change a great deal before 1500.

THE WOMEN

Here we are at the end of an epoch, at the close of a costume period, at one of those curious final dates in a history of clothes which says that within a year or so the women of one time will look hopelessly old-fashioned and queer to the modern woman. Except for the peculiar sponge-bag turban, which had a few years of life in it, the woman in Henry VII.'s reign would look back at this time and smile, and the young woman would laugh at the old ideas of beauty. The River of Time runs under many bridges, and it would seem that the arches were low to the Bridge of Fashion in 1483, and the steeple hat was lowered to prevent contact with them. The correct angle of forty-five degrees changed into a right angle, the steeple hat, the hennin, came toppling down, and an embroidered bonnet, perched right on the back of the head, came into vogue. It is this bonnet which gives, from our point of view, distinction to the reign. It was a definite fashion, a distinct halt. It had travelled along the years of the fourteenth century, from the wimple and the horns, and the stiff turbans, and the boxes of stiffened cloth of gold; it had languished in the caul and blossomed in the huge wimple-covered horns; it had shot up in the hennin; and now it gave, as its last transformation, this bonnet at the back of the head, with the stiff wimple stretched upon wires. Soon was to come the diamond-shaped head-dress, and after that the birth of hair as a beauty.

In this case the hair was drawn as tightly as possible away from the forehead, and at the forehead the smaller hairs were plucked away; even eyebrows were a little out of fashion. Then this cylindrical bonnet was placed at the back of the head, with its wings of thin linen stiffly sewn or propped on wires. These wires were generally of a V shape, the V point at the forehead. On some occasions two straight wires came out on either side of the face in addition to the V, and so made two wings on either side of the face and two wings over the back of the head. It is more easy to describe through means of the drawings, and the reader will soon see what bend to give to the wires in order that the wings may be properly held out.

Beyond this head-dress there was very little alteration in the lady's dress since the previous reign. The skirts were full; the waist was high, but not absurdly so; the band round the dress was broad; the sleeves were tight; and the cuffs, often of fur, were folded back to a good depth.

The neck opening of the dress varied, as did that of the previous reign, but whereas the most fashionable opening was then from neck to waist, this reign gave more liking to a higher corsage, over the top of which a narrow piece of stuff showed, often of black velvet. We may safely assume that the ladies followed the men in the matter of broad shoes. For a time the old fashion of the long-tongued belt came in, and we see instances of such belts being worn with the tongue reaching nearly to the feet, tipped with a metal ornament.

The great erection on her head is made of thin linen stretched upon
wires; through this one may see her jewelled cap.]

Not until night did these ladies discard their winged head erections; not until the streets were dark, and the brass basins swinging from the barbers' poles shone but dimly, and the tailors no longer sat, cross-legged, on the benches in their shop-fronts--then might my lady uncover her head and talk, in company with my lord, over the strange new stories of Prester John and of the Wandering Jew; then, at her proper time, she will go to her rest and sleep soundly beneath her embroidered quilt, under the protection of the saints whose pictures she has sewn into the corners of it. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, bless the bed that she lies on.

So we come to an end of a second series of dates, from the First Edward to the Third Richard, and we leave them to come to the Tudors and their follies and fantastics; we leave an age that is quaint, rich, and yet fairly simple, to come to an age of padded hips and farthingales, monstrous ruffs, knee-breeks, rag-stuffed trunks, and high-heeled shoes.

With the drawings and text you should be able to people a vast world of figures, dating from the middle of the thirteenth century, 1272, to nearly the end of the fifteenth, 1485, and if you allow ordinary horse-sense to have play, you will be able to people your world with correctly-dressed figures in the true inspiration of their time. You cannot disassociate the man from his tailor; his clothes must appeal to you, historically and soulfully, as an outward and visible sign to the graces and vices of his age and times.

HENRY THE SEVENTH

Reigned 24 years: 1485-1509.

Born, 1456. Married, 1486, Elizabeth of York.

THE MEN

Everyone has felt that curious faint aroma, that sensation of lifting, which proclaims the first day of Spring and the burial of Winter. Although nothing tangible has taken place, there is in the atmosphere a full-charged suggestion of promise, of green-sickness; there is a quickening of the pulse, a thrumming of the heart, and many an eager, quick glance around for the first buds of the new order of things.

England's winter was buried on Bosworth Field: England's spring, as if by magic, commenced with Henry's entry into London.

The first picture of the reign shows the mayor, the sheriffs, and the aldermen, clothed in violet, waiting at Shoreditch for the coming of the victor. The same day shows Henry in St. Paul's, hearing a _Te Deum_; in the Cathedral church, packed to its limit, three new banners waved, one bearing a figure of St. George, another a dragon of red on white and green sarcenet, and the third showed a dun cow on yellow tarterne.

Spring, of course, does not, except in a poetic sense, burst forth in a day, there are long months of preparation, hints, signs in the air, new notes from the throats of birds.

The springtime of a country takes more than the preparation of months. Nine years before Henry came to the throne Caxton was learning to print in the little room of Collard Mansion--he was to print his 'Facts of Arms,' joyous tales and pleasant histories of chivalry, by especial desire of Henry himself.

Later still, towards the end of the reign, the first book of travel in the West began to go from hand to hand--it was written by Amerigo Vespucci, cousin to La Bella Simonetta.

Great thoughts were abroad, new ideas were constantly under discussion, the Arts rose to the occasion and put forth flowers of beauty on many stems long supposed to be dead or dormant and incapable of improvement. It was the great age of individual English expression in every form but that of literature and painting, both these arts being but in their cradles; Chaucer and Gower and Langland had written, but they lay in their graves long before new great minds arose.

The clouds of the Middle Ages were dispersed, and the sun shone.

The costume was at once dignified and magnificent--not that one can call the little coats great ideals of dignity, but even they, by their richness and by the splendour of the persons they adorned, come into the category.

The long gowns of both men and women were rich beyond words in colour, texture, and design, they were imposing, exact, and gorgeous. Upon a fine day the streets must have glittered when a gentleman or lady passed by.

The fashions of the time have survived for us in the Court cards: take the jacks, knaves, valets--call them as you will, and you will see the costume of this reign but slightly modified into a design, the cards of to-day and the cards of that day are almost identical. Some years ago the modification was less noticeable; I can remember playing Pope Joan with cards printed with full-length figures, just as the illustrations to 'Alice in Wonderland' are drawn. In the knave you will see the peculiar square hat which came in at this time, and the petti-cote, the long coat, the big sleeve, and the broad-toed shoes. You will see the long hair, undressed and flowing over the shoulders (the professional classes, as the lawyer, cut their hair close, so also did the peasant). Over this flowing hair a dandy would wear a little cap with a narrow, rolled-up brim, and over this, on occasions, an enormous hat of felt, ornamented with a prodigious quantity of feathers.

There was, indeed, quite a choice of hats: the berretino--a square hat pinched in at the corners; many round hats, some with a high, tight brim, some with the least brim possible; into these brims, or into a band round the hat, one might stick feathers or pin a brooch.

The chaperon, before described, was still worn by Garter Knights at times, and by official, legal, civic, and college persons.

What a choice of coats the gentlemen had, and still might be in the fashion! Most common among these was the long coat like a dressing-gown, hanging upon the ground all round, with a wide collar, square behind, and turning back in the front down to the waist--this was the general shape of the collar, and you may vary it on this idea in every way: turn it back and show the stuff to the feet, close it up nearly to the neck, cut it off completely. Now for the sleeves of such a coat. I have shown in the illustrations many varieties, the most common was the wide sleeve, narrow at the shoulder, and hanging over the hand in folds. The slashes, which show the white shirt, are usual, and of every order. The shirt itself was often ornamented with fine gathers and fancy stitching, and was gathered about the neck by a ribbon. As the years went on it is easy to see that the shirt was worn nearer to the neck, the gathers became higher and higher, became more ornamented, and finally rose, in all extravagant finery, to behind the ears--and we have the Elizabethan ruff.

Next to the shirt a waistcoat, or stomacher, of the most gorgeous patterned stuff, laced across the breast sometimes, more often fastened behind. This reached to the waist where it met long hose of every scheme of colour--striped, dotted, divided in bands--everything--displaying the indelicate but universal pouch in front, tied with coloured ribbons.

On the feet, shoes of all materials, from cloth and velvet to leather beautifully worked, and of the most absurd length; these also were slashed with puffs of white stuff. Many of these shoes were but a sole and a toe, and were tied on by thongs passing through the sole.

Of course the long coat would not alone satisfy the dandy, but he must needs cut it off into a short jacket, or petti-cote, and leave it open to better display his marvellous vest. Here we have the origin of the use of the word 'petticoat'--now wrongly applied; in Scotland, to this day, a woman's skirts are called her 'coats.'

About the waists of these coats was a short sash, or a girdle, from which hung a very elaborate purse, or a dagger.

Stick in hand, jewel in your hat, dandy--extravagant, exquisite dandy! All ages know you, from the day you choose your covering of leaves with care, to the hour of your white duck motoring-suit: a very bird of a man, rejoicing in your plumage, a very human ass, a very narrow individual, you stride, strut, simper through the story of the universe, a perfect monument of the Fall of Man, a gorgeous symbol of the decay of manhood. In this our Henry's reign, your hair busheth pleasantly, and is kembed prettily over the ear, where it glimmers as gold i' the sun--pretty fellow--Lord! how your feathered bonnet becomes you, and your satin stomacher is brave over a padded chest. Your white hands, freed from any nasty brawls and clean of any form of work, lie in their embroidered gloves. Your pride forbids the carriage of a sword, which is borne behind you--much use may it be!--by a mincing fellow in your dainty livery. And if--oh, rare disguise!--your coiffure hides a noble brow, or your little, neat-rimmed coif a clever head, less honour be to you who dress your limbs to imitate the peacock, and hide your mind beneath the weight of scented clothes.

In the illustrations to this chapter and the next, my drawings are collected and redrawn in my scheme from works so beautiful and highly finished that every student should go to see them for himself at the British Museum. My drawings, I hope, make it quite clear what was worn in the end of the fifteenth century and the first nine years of the sixteenth, and anyone with a slight knowledge of pictures will be able to supply themselves with a large amount of extra matter. I would recommend MS. Roy 16, F. 2; MS. Roy 19, C. 8; and especially Harleian MS. 4425.

Of the lower classes, also, these books show quite a number. There are beggars and peasants, whose dress was simply old-fashioned and very plain; they wore the broad shoes and leather belts and short coats, worsted hose, and cloaks of fair cloth. 'Poverty,' the old woman with the spoon in her hat, is a good example of the poor of the time.

When one knows the wealth of material of the time, and has seen the wonder of the stuffs, one knows that within certain lines imagination may have full scope. Stuffs of silk, embroidered with coupled birds and branches, and flowers following out a prescribed line, the embroideries edged and sewn with gold thread; velvet on velvet, short-napped fustian, damasked stuffs and diapered stuffs--what pictures on canvas, or on the stage, may be made; what marvels of colour walked about the streets in those days! It was to the eye an age of elaborate patterns--mostly large--and all this broken colour and glitter of gold thread must have made the streets gay indeed.

Imagine, shall we say, Corfe Castle on a day when a party of ladies and gentlemen assembled to 'course a stagge,' when the huntsmen, in green, gathered in the outer ward, and the grooms, in fine coloured liveries, held the gaily-decked horses; then, from the walls lined with archers, would come the blast of the horn, and out would walk my lord and my lady, with knights, and squires, and ladies, and gallants, over the bridge across the castle ditch, between the round towers. Behind them the dungeon tower, and the great gray mass of the keep--all a fitting and impressive background to their bravery.

The gentlemen, in long coats of all wonderful colours and devices, with little hats, jewelled and feathered, with boots to the knee of soft leather, turned back in colours at the top; on their left hands the thick hawking glove on which, jessed and hooded, sits the hawk--for some who will not go with the hounds will fly the hawk on the Isle of Purbeck.

Below, in the town over the moat, a crowd is gathered to see them off--merchants in grave colours, and coats turned back with fur, their ink-horns slung at their waists, with pens and dagger and purse; beggars; pilgrims, from over seas, landed at Poole Harbour, in long gowns, worn with penitence and dusty travels, shells in their hats, staffs in their hands; wide-eyed children in smocks; butchers in blue; men of all guilds and women of all classes.

The drawbridge is down, the portcullis up, and the party, gleaming like a bed of flowers in their multi-coloured robes, pass over the bridge, through the town, and into the valley.

The sun goes in and leaves the grim castle, gray and solemn, standing out against the green of the hills....

And of Henry himself, the great Tudor, greater, more farseeing than the eighth Henry, a man who so dominates the age, and fills it with his spirit, that no mental picture is complete without him. His fine, humorous face, the quizzical eye, the firm mouth, showing his character. The great lover of art, of English art, soon to be pulverized by pseudo-classic influences; the man who pulled down the chapel at the west end of Westminster Abbey with the house by it--Chaucer's house--to make way for that superb triumph of ornate building, his chapel, beside which the mathematical squares and angles of classic buildings show as would boxes of bricks by a gorgeous flower.

The stories against him are, in reality, stories for him, invented by those whom he kept to their work, and whom he despoiled of their ill-gotten gains. He borrowed, but he paid back in full; he came into a disordered, distressed kingdom, ruled it by fear--as had to be done in those days--and left it a kingdom ready for the fruits of his ordered works--to the fleshy beast who so nearly ruined the country. What remained, indeed, was the result of his father's genius.

THE WOMEN

Take up a pack of cards and look at the queen. You may see the extraordinary head-gear as worn by ladies at the end of the fifteenth century and in the first years of the sixteenth, worn in a modified form all through the next reign, after which that description of head-dress vanished for ever, its place to be taken by caps, hats, and bonnets.

The richest of these head-dresses were made of a black silk or some such black material, the top stiffened to the shape of a sloping house-roof, the edges falling by the face on either side--made stiff, so as to stand parallel--these were sewn with gold and pearls on colour or white. The end of the hood hung over the shoulders and down the back; this was surmounted by a stole of stiffened material, also richly sewn with jewels, and the whole pinned on to a close-fitting cap of a different colour, the edge of which showed above the forehead.

The more moderate head-dress was of black again, but in shape nearly square, and slit at the sides to enable it to hang more easily over the shoulders. It was placed over a coif, often of white linen or of black material, was turned over from the forehead, folded, and pinned back; often it was edged with gold.

On either side of the hood were hanging ornamental metal-tipped tags to tie back the hood from the shoulders, and this became, in time--that is, at the end of the reign--the ordinary manner of wearing them, till they were finally made up so.

The ordinary head-dress was of white linen, crimped or embroidered in white, made in a piece to hang over the shoulders and down the back, folded back and stiffened in front to that peculiar triangular shape in fashion; this was worn by the older women over a white hood.

The plain coif, or close-fitting linen cap, was the most general wear for the poor and middle classes.

The hair was worn long and naturally over the shoulders by young girls, and plainly parted in the centre and dressed close to the head by women wearing the large head-dress.

Another form of head-dress, less common, was the turban--a loose bag of silk, gold and pearl embroidered, fitting over the hair and forehead tightly, and loose above.

The gowns of the women were very simply cut, having either a long train or no train at all, these last cut to show the under-skirt of some fine material, the bodice of which showed above the over gown at the shoulders. The ladies who wore the long gown generally had it lined with some fine fur, and to prevent this dragging in the mud, as also to show the elegance of their furs, they fastened the train to a button or brooch placed at the back of the waistband. This, in time, developed into the looped skirts of Elizabethan times.

The bodice of the gown was square cut and not very low, having an ornamental border of fur, embroidery, or other rich coloured material sewn on to it. This border went sometimes round the shoulders and down the front of the dress to below the knees. Above the bodice was nearly always seen the V-shaped opening of the under petticoat bodice, and across and above that, the white embroidered or crimped chemise.

The sleeves were as the men's--tight all the way down from the shoulder to the wrist, the cuffs coming well over the first joints of the fingers (sometimes these cuffs are turned back to show elaborate linings), or they were made tight at the shoulder and gradually looser until they became very full over the lower arm, edged or lined with fur or soft silk, or loose and baggy all the way from shoulder to hand.

At this time Bruges became world-famed for her silken texture; her satins were used in England for church garments and other clothes. The damask silks were greatly in use, and were nearly always covered with the peculiar semi-Spanish pattern, the base of which was some contortion of the pomegranate. Some of these patterns were small and wonderfully fine, depending on their wealth of detail for their magnificent appearance, others were huge, so that but few repeats of the design appeared on the dress. Block-printed linens were also in use, and the samples in South Kensington will show how beautiful and artistic they were, for all their simple design. As Bruges supplied us with silks, satins, and velvets, the last also beautifully damasked, Ypres sent her linen to us, and the whole of Flanders sent us painters and illuminators who worked in England at the last of the great illuminated books, but this art died as printing and illustrating by wood-blocks came in to take its place.

Nearly every lady had her own common linen, and often other stuffs, woven in her own house, and the long winter evenings were great times for the sewing chambers, where the lady and her maids sat at the looms. To-day one may see in Bruges the women at the cottage doors busy over their lace-making, and the English women by the sea making nets--so in those times was every woman at her cottage door making coarse linens and other stuffs to earn her daily bread, while my lady was sitting in her chamber weaving, or embroidering a bearing cloth for her child against her time.

However, the years of the Wars of the Roses had had their effect on every kind of English work, and as the most elegant books were painted and written by Flemings, as the finest linen came from Ypres, the best silks and velvets from Bruges, the great masters of painting from Florence, Germany, and Belgium, so also the elaborate and wonderful embroidery, for which we had been so famous, died away, and English work was but coarse at the best, until, in the early sixteen hundreds, the new style came into use of raising figures some height above the ground-work of the design, and the rich embroidery of the Stuart times revived this art.

I have shown that this age was the age of fine patterns, as some ages are ages of quaint cut, and some of jewel-laden dresses, and some of dainty needlework.

A few ladies wore their gowns open to the waist to show the stomacher, as the men did, and open behind to the waist, laced across, the waist being embraced by a girdle of the shape so long in use, with long ends and metal ornaments; the girdle held the purse of the lady.

Notice the diamond-shaped head-dress, the wide, fur-edged gown with
its full sleeves.]

The illustrations given with this chapter show very completely the costume of this time, and, except in cases of royal persons or very gorgeously apparelled ladies, they are complete enough to need no description.

The shoes, it will be seen, are very broad at the toes, with thick soles, sometimes made much in the manner of sandals--that is, with only a toecap, the rest flat, to be tied on by strings.

As this work is entirely for use, it may be said, that artists who have costumes made for them, and costumiers who make for the stage, hardly ever allow enough material for the gowns worn by men and women in this and other reigns, where the heaviness and richness of the folds was the great keynote. To make a gown, of such a kind as these good ladies wore, one needs, at least, twelve yards of material, fifty-two inches wide, to give the right appearance. It is possible to acquire at many of the best shops nowadays actual copies of embroidered stuffs, velvets, and damask silks of this time, and of stuffs up to Early Victorian patterns, and this makes it easy for painters to procure what, in other days, they were forced to invent.

Many artists have their costumes made of Bolton sheeting, on to which they stencil the patterns they wish to use--this is not a bad thing to do, as sheeting is not dear and it falls into beautiful folds.

The older ladies and widows of this time nearly all dressed in very simple, almost conventual garments, many of them wearing the 'barbe' of pleated linen, which covered the lower part of the face and the chin--a sort of linen beard--it reached to the breast, and is still worn by some religious orders of women.

Badges were still much in use, and the servants always wore some form of badge on their left sleeve--either merely the colours of their masters, or a small silver, or other metal, shield. Thus, the badge worn by the servants of Henry VII. would be either a greyhound, a crowned hawthorn bush, a red dragon, a portcullis, or the red and white roses joined together. The last two were used by all the Tudors, and the red rose and the portcullis are still used. From these badges we get the signs of many of our inns, either started by servants, who used their master's badge for a device, or because the inn lay on a certain property the lord of which carried chequers, or a red dragon, or a tiger's head.

I mentioned the silks of Bruges and her velvets without giving enough prominence to the fine velvets of Florence, a sample of which, a cope, once used in Westminster Abbey, is preserved at Stonyhurst College; it was left by Henry VII. to 'Our Monastery of Westminster,' and is of beautiful design--a gold ground, covered with boughs and leaves raised in soft velvet pile of ruby colour, through which little loops of gold thread appear.

I imagine Elizabeth of York, Queen to Henry VII., of the subtle countenance--gentle Elizabeth, who died in child-birth--proceeding through London, from the Tower to Westminster, to her coronation; the streets cleansed and the houses hung with tapestry, arras and gold cloth, the fine-coloured dresses of the crowd, the armoured soldiers, all the rich estate of the company about her, and the fine trappings of the horses. Our Queen went to her coronation with some Italian masts, paper flowers, and some hundreds of thousands of yards of bunting and cheap flags; the people mostly in sombre clothes; the soldiers in ugly red, stiff coats, were the only colour of note passing down Whitehall, past the hideous green stuck with frozen Members of Parliament, to the grand, wonderful Abbey, which has seen so many Queens crowned.

HENRY THE EIGHTH

Reigned thirty-eight years: 1509-1547.

Born, 1491. Married, 1509, Katherine of Aragon; 1532,
Anne Boleyn; 1536, Jane Seymour; 1540, Anne of Cleves;
1540, Katherine Howard; 1548, Katherine Parr.

THE MEN

VERSES BY HENRY THE EIGHTH IN PRAISE OF CONSTANCY

'As the holy grouth grene with ivie all alone
Whose flowerys cannot be seen and grene wode levys be gone,
Now unto my lady, promyse to her I make
From all other only to her I me betake.
Adew myne owne ladye, adew my specyall
Who hath my hart trewly, be sure, and ever shall.'

So, with songs and music of his own composition, comes the richest man in Europe to the throne of England. Gay, brave, tall, full of conceit in his own strength, Henry, a king, a Tudor, a handsome man, abounding in excellence of craft and art, the inheritance from his father and mother, figures in our pageant a veritable symbol of the Renaissance in England.