Chapter VIII: Preface (8)

The Cortes of 1560 reported that the nation was fast being ruined by extravagance in dress, and begged that a "pragmatic" should be issued forbidding every sort of ornament or tissue in which metal entered, and strictly limiting the trimming of garments to a plain piping round the edge. This pragmatic was duly granted, but during the next few years a considerable change was seen. Philip had married the beautiful young French Princess Elizabeth of Valois, who had been brought up with Mary Stuart in that light-hearted court that Brantome described so well. She had no patience with the rigid puritanism and peddling interference of stern authority with beauty's armoury, and French fashions for ladies became general. A "pragmatic" {229} was published in 1563, ostensibly re-enforcing that of 1537 (which, as has been shown, prohibited the use of gold lace or embroidery in any form), but really relaxing the regulations greatly, for the benefit of the ladies. They might in future wear sleeves of point lace in gold or silver, gold or silver gauze, or silk shot with gold, and their jackets might be made of similar stuffs, whilst they might deck their coifs, wimples, stomachers, and under-linen with as much gold as they pleased. Gold, silver, or crystal buttons could now be worn, but not on the skirt, and only on the head, bosom, bodice, and sleeves; whilst the hat might be trimmed with gold gimp. Some concessions were made to their spouses as well, for they were permitted to clothe their nether limbs in silk hose, and their trunks might be slashed and trimmed with silk, and, generally speaking, the wearing of silk was greatly extended.

Contemporary writers are full of the great extravagance in dress which followed this period. Moncada says that it was not uncommon for a man's dress to cost 300 ducats a suit, whilst the abuse of precious stones, both by men and women, was carried to a ridiculous excess. Contemporary portraits show that things were bad enough in this respect in England at the time, but they were much worse in Spain.

Only one year after the proclamation of the pragmatic just mentioned, namely, in December, 1564, another elaborate decree was issued, on the pretext that the previous one had left several points in doubt, and the authorities had consequently been lax in enforcing it. The decree of 1563 had said that {230} one year's grace was to be given for garments already made, and this concession had served as a loophole for the evading the regulations altogether. The authorities are therefore ordered strictly to enforce the decree; but the opportunity is taken of elucidating doubtful points and still further modifying the severity of the orders. It is now explained that the prohibition of gold, silver, and silk stitching, gimp, or trimming of any sort on the garments, referred only to applied trimmings, and was not meant to include the weaving of gold or silk threads or stripes in the textures, or even the sewing of stripes of silk or leather on to the garment, which stripes might be bordered by a piping and held by two rows of ornamental backstitch on each side, provided that no other sort of adornment is used. Silk gimp even may be applied on garments for indoor wear, whilst silk frogs may be sewn on to overcoats and travelling cloaks. Fringes were also allowed on horse furniture and harness now, and swordbelts and baldricks might be worn as rich as the taste and extravagance of the owners cared to make them. Some doubt is said to exist as to the legality of stuffing the trunk-hose with baize to extend them, and whether the slashes might be lined with baize for the same purpose, and these practices are strictly forbidden, "nor may piping be inserted like farthingales, nor may threads, nor wires, nor gummed silk be employed to extend the trunks unduly, as we are informed has fraudulently been done." The previous pragmatic had imposed the same penalties for infraction of the decree by people in their own houses as in public, which appears to have caused much vexation by the {231} invasion of domiciles by inferior officers, on pretext of searching for forbidden garments, and the right of search was now abolished.

An attempt to shame ladies into obeying the law was made for the first time, of many, in these pragmatics of 1563-4 by giving to women of bad character the right to deck themselves in prohibited finery in their own houses. But Madrid was already commencing upon the downward career which made it for more than a century the most dissolute place in Europe, and women of rank even were proud of their effrontery, so that no attempts to induce them to obey the law by appeals to their modesty ever succeeded. The brazen-faced impudence of the Madrileñas, which so shocked foreigners in the seventeenth century, still remains as a cherished tradition of the fast-disappearing race of _majas_ and _manolas_ of Lavapies and other low neighbourhoods of the capital, and is encouraged in them as a national trait by their social betters.

In 1568 Philip lost both his beautiful young wife and his only son. Defeat and disappointment met him on all sides, and his gloom, deepened by fanaticism, became heavier as the years rolled on. Henceforward he and his Court dressed in black, and the fashions of his people followed him, to the extent of relinquishing almost entirely the use of gold tissues and embroidery on their garments. But poor as was the King's exchequer, and in despite of Drake and the buccaneers, gold still poured into Spain from the Indies, and luxury, if checked in one direction, was certain to break out in another. Coaches had been brought {232} by Charles from Flanders when he came to Spain, and by the end of the sixteenth century a perfect rage for coaches had seized upon the people of the capital--a form of extravagance which for the next century at least was carried to a ridiculous excess, and even now remains the principal foible of the Madrileños. The new taste was supposed to threaten the art of horsemanship and the breed of horses; so for some years pragmatics were issued ordering that no coach or wheeled litter or chariot was to be drawn by less than four horses. To encourage men to ride on horseback, doctors, lawyers, and licentiates of universities were authorised in 1584 to use long housings to their steeds, and whilst mules were still to be housed with plain harness, horses might be decked with velvet saddles, gold and silver fringes, gimp and nails, and made as smart as possible, in order to encourage their use.

In 1593 Camillo Borghese was sent to Madrid by the Pope, and has left behind him for our enlightenment a minute account of the fashions of his day,[2] by which we may see the effects that had been produced by the "pragmatics" we have described. "The dress of this country," he says, "is as follows. The men wear long breeches, with a surcoat and hat, or else a cloak and cap, as it would be a great breach of decorum with them to wear a hat and cloak together. This costume would certainly be very pretty if the breeches were not cut so long as to be disproportionate. Some men have taken to wearing hose in the Seville style, which they call {233} galligaskins, and with these it is proper to wear a cloak and hat instead of a cap. The ladies, like the men, usually dress in black, and have a veil round their faces like nuns, their heads being enveloped by their mantillas in such a way that their faces are hardly visible. Indeed if it were not for the pragmatic issued by the King on the subject they would still cover their faces completely, as they used to do a few years ago. When they do not wear these veils over their faces, they have on collars with enormous ruff pleats. They are naturally dark-skinned, but the use of paints is so common that they all look fair, and though small in stature their high pattens make them look tall, so that it may be truly said that all Spanish ladies turn themselves from little and dusky to big and bright. The main street of Madrid would be fine if it were not unutterably filthy and almost impassable on foot, and the better class of ladies are always in carriages or litters, whilst the humbler ones ride on donkey-back or pick their way through the mire. They (the ladies) are naturally impudent, presumptuous, and off-handed, and even in the street go up and talk with men whom they do not know, looking upon it as a kind of heresy to be introduced properly. They admit all sorts of men to their conversation and are not a bit scandalised at the most improper proposals being made to them.

"The gentlemen now rarely ride on horseback but often go in carriages. They are preceded in the streets by a group of pages and a couple of servants they call lacqueys, the pragmatic not allowing them more, although the grandees may be {234} attended by four. The pragmatics only allow saddle cloths to be worn from October to March, but for the rest of the year velvet saddles may be used. The one pastime of these people is to drive up and down the Calle Mayor (High Street) from midday to midnight."

The good churchman was much shocked at the effrontery of the people and their filthy habits, but this branch of the subject is foreign to the present article. Rough magnificence, side by side with boorish rusticity, seems to have been the characteristic of the Spain of Philip II. In the same year that Borghese wrote, a very severe pragmatic had been issued prohibiting the use of silver ornaments on household furniture, which, it says, had reached a pitch of extravagance which could no longer be endured. Decrees were issued in 1586, 1590, and 1594, which are interesting as showing that the inevitable extravagance of dress had now turned into the direction of the starched ruff. "No man," says the last-named pragmatic, "may wear either at his neck or wrists on any sort of ruff or frill, fixed or loose, any trimming, fringe ravelling, or netting, starch, rice, gums, rods, wires, gold or silver threads, or any 'alchemy' or anything else to extend or support them, but only a plain Holland or linen ruff with one or two little pleats, on pain of forfeiture of shirt and ruff and a fine of 50 ducats." Great resistance was offered to this, and it was found, somehow or other, whether by "alchemy" or what not, the "lettuce-frill" ruffs still stood stiffly from the neck, and the Council of State gravely considered the matter, with the result that the decree of 1594 insists upon the law being {235} enforced, the ruffs to be as described, and not more than three inches wide from the band to the hem, the colour to be pure white. The penalties for infraction were tremendous--for a first offence, 20,000 maravedis fine, for the second, 40,000, and for the third, 80,000 and a year's banishment.

This was not by any means the only sumptuary law promulgated in this year of 1594; a much relaxed code of dress was issued with regard to gold and fancy silk textures, of which the universal use of unadorned black for so many years had greatly decreased the manufacture in Spain. Women were now allowed to wear fine cloth or silk jackets, and cover the seams thereof with gold or silver braid or scrolls, whilst their dresses and mantles might be trimmed as profusely as they pleased with the same ornaments. Doublets, jackets, and waistcoats were now allowed to be of quilted silk, satin, or taffety; whilst the trunk hose of the men might be slashed, and double-stitched at the edge of the slashings. The said breeches, moreover, might be stiffened by a single thickness of baize and all the fine stuffs used for gentlemen's garments could now, for the first time for many years, be stamped with patterns. New and more severe measures were adopted at the same time to keep up the breed of horses, which animals were thought to be almost in danger of extinction, as horsemanship was less than ever indulged in, and mules were preferred for drawing the coaches.

In the same year, 1594, a curious pragmatic was proclaimed dealing with the extravagant abuse of honorific titles. It commences in the King's name by saying that, although it is unnecessary to {236} make rules for himself or his family, he will begin at the top for regularity's sake. The King must be addressed in writing simply as "Sir" at the head of the letter, which must end with "God guard the Catholic person of your Majesty," at the bottom. The heir to the crown was to be addressed in the same way, but with "Highness" substituted for "Majesty," the Princes of the blood being given the style of Highness, but "his Highness" alone standing for the heir to the crown. The rest of the Princes were to be addressed on the outside of a letter, "To his Highness the Infante Don So-and-so." The titles "Excellency" and "Illustrious Sir," which had become very general forms of courtesy, were forbidden, and "Most Reverend Sir" was only to be applied to Cardinals and the Primate of Spain, the Archbishop of Toledo. The highest grandees, bishops, and members of the Council of State were in future to be addressed by the inferior title of "Señoria," or Lordship, whilst, out of courtesy and at the option of the person speaking or writing, the same title could be given alone to Marquises, Counts, Presidents of Councils, and Grand Commanders. All letters of every kind were ordered to begin at the top with a cross, and then to state the business without any address or name, ending with "God guard your lordship"--or other title--and the date, place, and signature of the writer. Absolutely no further compliment was to be permitted, no matter what the relationship or rank of the parties. As a further attempt to enforce simplicity, the same pragmatic provides that in future, on pain of a fine of 10,000 maravedis, no coronet may surmount any coat of arms, except {237} such as are borne by Dukes, Marquises, and Counts.

The proclamation of this pragmatic caused a dreadful fluttering of the dovecotes of the Calle Mayor. "Liars' parade" (the raised terrace before the church of St. Philip), the favourite lounge of the gilded youth, rose in revolt, the cadets of the Cordobas, the Mendozas, the Maquedas, the Leivas, the Manriques, and the rest of them, who had been called "Excellencies" and "Lordships" from their cradles, turned like the worm at last. Dress without gold they might, but they, the sons of Dukes, to be addressed with no more ceremony than dustmen--perish the thought! that they would not stand. So they and the rest of the rufflers, led captains, kept poets, bullies, and blacklegs, swept down the Calle Mayor carrying the grave Alcalde and all before them. Shops were shut, water was boiled to throw out upon the base "Corchetes," who dared to call such gallants plain "Mister," and the gloomy recluse in the Alcazar at the end of the street himself heard the row. When he was told the cause of it, he only remarked, so the chronicles say: "Bah! what does it matter to me what they are called? Let them be Lordships, or what they will, so long as they serve me well." And the pragmatic thus died on the day it was born, for no attempt was ever made to enforce it, and "Señorias" in the Calle Mayor remained as plentiful as blackberries in an English hedgerow.

The isolation of Philip II. in his gloomy old age, together with the relaxation of the enactments already mentioned against the use of gold and silver tissues, had allowed luxury in dress {238} practically to go unchecked during the last years of the sixteenth century, and when the King died, in 1598, he left Spain, and particularly the capital, in a perfect frenzy of prodigality. The most brazen dissoluteness accompanied the blindest religious fanaticism; the exchequer was bankrupt, the fields untilled, the aforetime busy workshops of the south silent and abandoned, the people starving or flocking across the seas in search of the easily won gold that was ruining them; and when the coveted gold came to the few who survived the pursuit, it was lavished in insensate waste on the adornment of their outer persons--for they always fed frugally in that lean land--and most of the wealth left the country as fast as it entered it, the idleness it engendered being its net result to the country that won it.

For the next hundred years the same process went on. The monarch of Spain and the Indies was reduced to beg his subjects in the name of charity to provide food for himself and his family, whilst the mines of Peru and Mexico were sending millions. The splendour of the polished Court of Philip IV. was only rivalled by that of his nephew, the Grand Monarque, but it was soaked to the core in sloth and squalor, whilst the humbler people found the purchasing power of gold grow less and less as the metal poured in and the workers, dazzled by wealth so lightly won, ceased to produce commodities for consumption. Philip III. was a narrow bigot without his father's industry or intellect, but he was well-meaning and sorely beset, and was unequal to the propping up of the great empire into which his father's narrow and halting policy had {239} introduced the dry rot. The regulation of dress, however, and the repression of profane extravagance was just the task which appealed to his tastes and sympathies, and he set about it as soon as he mounted the throne.

His pragmatic of 1600 was a new departure in many things and was the pattern of all similar enactments for the next hundred years. It is very minute, but a few of its provisions are worth preserving, as they throw much light on the tastes of the time. The King in his preamble sets forth that he is informed that the sumptuary pragmatics are quite disregarded, and seeing that the great excess and extravagance in dress constitutes a national scandal which must be moderated, he has conferred with his wisest councillors and has decided to issue a new pragmatic which shall supersede all previous ones.

To begin with, the following sweeping order is given: No one of whatever rank, except the King and his children, shall wear any sort of brocade or cloth of gold or silver, or stuff shot with gold or silver, or silk in which metal is woven. No cord, gimp, ornamental stitching or quilting, either of silk or metal, is to be permitted, excepting on religious vestments and uniforms, and no precious stones or pearls are to be worn on housings or accoutrements in any shape. There is an absolute prohibition of the employment of lute-string, twist, ruchings, flat braid, cording, chainlets, crewels, cross-stitching, through-stitching, tangle trimming, puffs, and any sort of bead or steel trimmings; and the following dress is alone prescribed: The cape or other over-garment may be {240} of any sort of silk with stripes, on each edge of which may be an ornamental stitching. Surcoats and ropillas (a sort of half-tight over-jacket with double sleeves, the outer ones hanging loose from the shoulder) may be also of silk and trimmed in the same way, and, if desired, a piping of another sort of silk, but not the same, may be put between the stripes. The inside of the capes may have similar stripes of silk, satin, or taffety, but not velvet. Shoulder capes may be made of velvet, and the hoods of riding-cloaks or rain-capes may be lined with the same. Silk gimp and frogs may be sewn on to duffel cloaks, &c. The trunks may be worn of any kind of silk, and each slashing may be edged with a velvet or silk piping and an "eyelash" border. If the slashing is a wide one this edging may be worn on both sides of it, but if otherwise only on one side. The slashings may be lined with taffety. Silk gimp or braid of any sort may be worn on the trunks excepting lutestrings or crewels. Galligaskins may also be made of silk, but with no trimming but a row of gimp on each side and at the opening. Dressing-gowns for women and men may be of any material or fashion, so long as gold or silver is not used. Doublets, ropillas, or trunks made of satin may be ornamented by silk stitching of any colour, but on no account may the stuff be pinked, ravelled, or fringed. The rules generally apply to women as well as men, but the former are allowed to wear jackets of light cloth of gold or silver, which may be trimmed with a braid of the same over the seams, and the whole jacket may be covered with "whirligigs" or scrolls of gold or silver, so long as there is no working in the stuff {241} itself. The frills and flounces of these garments may also be ornamented in the same fashion. Hats, belts, baldricks, &c., were all treated in the same way; gold or silver gimp, braid, and lace were allowed to be sewn on, but not embroidered or woven in, the texture.

A rather curious point in this decree of 1600 is the distinction in it of different classes of citizens. Thus women of known evil life were allowed to wear what they liked inside the houses, but were to conform to the law in the streets; pages might dress in silk jackets, coats, trunks, and caps, but their capes were to be of cloth or frieze; no lackeys were to have silken clothes or velvet scabbards, but they were allowed to wear taffety caps. The punishments for the breaking the orders seem severe but unequal. Offending wearers were to lose the peccant garment and pay a sum equal to its value for pious uses, but tradesmen who made or sold the goods were to be condemned to four years' exile and a fine of twenty maravedis for a first offence, double the punishment for a second, and the pillory and ten years' exile from Spain for a third. All this sounds very severe, but there were plenty of ways out of it. For instance, garments already made might be worn for four years by men and six by women, although they were not in accordance with the law. This pragmatic was proclaimed with the usual ceremony by one of the Alcaldes de Casa y Corte with the sound of drum and trumpet in the High Street of Madrid on the 8th of June, 1600. The month must have been a busy one for the dignified officials in question; for during the first fortnight of it decrees regulating almost every conceivable subject were issued. The {242} rigid and unpopular decree about courtesy titles was superseded, and nearly everybody of position might now be called Señoria. No gold or silver in any form was to be used in furniture or household decoration, "as the King is shocked at the waste of the estates of his subjects in such superfluities, and considers it high time that the money were employed in useful and necessary things." Velvet or silk might be employed in upholstery, but no gold or silver except a gold fringe on the edges. The same rule applied to the lining of carriages and litters, but no silk was to be used on the outside of vehicles.

The regulation of jewellery was just as minute and severe, and to judge from that which was in future to be allowed, the excess in this respect must have been very great, since after pages of prohibitions with regard to the fashions of jewellery, and the limitation of enamels and precious stones, men were still allowed to wear as many rings as they liked, chains and girdles of gold pieces, sets of cameos mounted in gold, and strings of pearls in their caps. The use of silver plate is also much limited, but still side-saddles might be made of silver, if plain, and the harness and horse-cloths covered with the same metal. Here, again, the same loophole for evasion was given; for all things already made were exempt if registered within six months.

Attempts were made at the same time, as on many subsequent occasions, to suppress the ostentatious promenading up and down the Calle Mayor, which grew more scandalous as the years went on, until it reached its apogee in the reign {243} of Philip IV., and for which the taste has never yet quite died out. No women of loose life were to promenade in coaches, nor might coaches be hired for the purpose on pain of confiscation. No person but a grandee might have more than two torches carried before him under penalty of one hundred ducats fine, and if any person hired a lackey by the day, or for less than a month, he was to be put in the pillory and exiled for four years. The reasons for these regulations will be well understood by those who have studied the characteristic picaresque novels of the period, and have smiled at the amusing subterfuges adopted by impecunious scamps to pass themselves off as noble hidalgos, the better to prey upon their fellow-creatures.

Amongst other things Philip III. in his youthful zeal tried to deal with the vexed subject of ruffs. He made no attempt to stand against starch any longer--indeed, to judge from his portraits, no one ever wore such stiff or extensive ruffs as he did himself, but he sternly draws the line at trimming. There must be no lace edges or ravellings; they must be pure white, with two little pleats only, and not more than 4½ inches wide, half as wide again as had been allowed by his father. For the next few years pragmatics positively rained in Madrid, altering, restricting, relaxing this or the other detail of the various decrees; but all to no purpose apparently, for in 1611 Philip came out with another long proclamation, saying that the extravagant abuse of dress being worse than ever, he has consulted discreet experts and has decided to alter the rules. The use of gold and silver thread {244} and foil, and of coloured silks, is more restricted than ever, the only exceptions being for church vestments and the dresses of officers actually engaged in war. In other respects, however, the trimmings allowed appear to be exceedingly elaborate, and in the pragmatic of 1611 about a dozen different specimen trimmings of trunks alone are described with all the finnicking minuteness of a modern Court dressmaker's bill; the sum total of it all being that the employment of silk, velvet, and other fine stuffs, stamped and plain, was now almost unrestricted, whilst bullion was more severely forbidden than before, except for ladies' jackets and a few of their trimmings.

Another desperate attempt was made in the same year to restrict the unprofitable idling in the streets with carriages and an order was issued that no new coaches were to be made without a license from the President of the Council, and no man was to ride in a coach without leave, "as the King is informed that gentlemen are forgetting how to ride." Women also are to refrain from covering up their heads and faces, in order that they may be seen and recognised, and they may only be accompanied by their husbands, fathers, sons, or grandfathers. The girls of a family may ride in a coach without the mistress of it, and the owners of coaches may be accompanied by a friend, but with this exception no coach is to go out without its owner, and may not be lent, exchanged, or sold without special license.

Ruffs had now apparently become general with all classes, as a pragmatic was issued in 1611, saying that, notwithstanding the former prohibition of the {245} use of long-lawn and muslin for ruffs, frills, and collars, poor people would insist upon wearing them, and they consequently might now be made of those cheaper materials as well as of fine linen.

In March, 1621, Philip III. died, leaving luxury and extravagance in his capital more rampant than ever, and Philip IV., a mere boy, at once set to work to grapple the evil with as much confidence as if he were the first to attempt it. If economy had ever been needed it was so now, for the public treasury was empty, the people ruined with oppressive taxation, ecclesiastical extortion and official peculation, and the country was rapidly becoming depopulated. A curious pamphlet is still in existence which contains a series of exhortations addressed to the King in the year of his accession by a noble member of the Cortes of Castile, setting forth the various evils from which the country was suffering, and proposing remedies for them.[3] There is much plain speaking and boldness on many matters therein, and, amongst others, on the eternal question of sumptuary extravagance. The representation on this subject has so direct a bearing upon what has already been said as to the inoperativeness of the pragmatics, that some of it is worth transcribing.

"Your subjects spend and waste great sums in their abuse of costly garb with so many varieties of trimmings that the making costs more than the garments themselves, and as soon as they are made there is a change of fashion and the money has to be spent over again. When they marry, the {246} vast wealth they squander on dress alone ruins them, and they are in debt for the rest of their lives; and although this expenditure may be voluntary, it has become, so to speak, obligatory, and such is the excess that the wife of an artisan nowadays needs as much finery as a lady, even though she and her husband have to get the money for it by dishonest means, to the offence of God. Many weddings, indeed, are prevented by the excessive cost and the vassals are therefore unable to serve your Majesty as they ought. They are unable to pay their debts, the costs incurred in the recovery of which still further reduce their fortunes.... As for collars also, the disorder in their use is very great, for a single one of linen, with its making and ravelling, will cost over 200 reals, and six reals every time it is goffered, which at the end of the year doubles the cost of them and much money is thus wasted. Besides this, many strong young men are employed in goffering them, who might be better employed in work necessary for the commonwealth or in tilling the soil. The servants, too, have to be paid higher wages in respect of the money they have to spend in collars, which consumes most of what they earn, and a great quantity of wheat is wasted in starch, which is wanted for food. In addition to this, the fine linens to make these collars are brought from abroad, and money has to be sent out of the country to pay for them. With respect to coaches, great evil is caused and offence given to God, seeing the disquiet they bring to the women who own them, as they never stay at home but leave their children and servants to run riot with the bad example of the mistress being always {247} abroad. The praiseworthy and necessary art of horsemanship too is dying out, and those who ought to be mounted crowd, six or eight of them together in a carriage, talking to wenches rather than learning how to ride. It must be evident how different gentlemen must grow up who have all their lives been rolling about in coaches instead of riding, besides which the breed of horses is deteriorating and money is being squandered by the keeping of coaches often by people of moderate means who can ill afford it but who are over-persuaded by their wives, who say that because So-and-so, who is no better off than they, have a coach they must have one as well, and so the bad example spreads."

Don Mateo proposed some very drastic remedies, and, whether in consequence of this or not, the King and his favourite, the masterful Count-Duke of Olivares, put their heads together during the first few weeks of the reign, and came out with tremendous series of pragmatics repeating the most stringent provisions of the decree of 1611 with regard to the use of gold or silver, either in dress, furniture, saddlery, or upholstery. No trimmings were to be allowed of any sort, and no silk capes, cloaks, or overalls were to be worn, cloth, frieze, and duffel being substituted in those garments. Above all Don Mateo's suggestion about the ruffs was adopted. No person was permitted, on pain of the pillory and exile, to pleat or goffer linen in any shape. Starch was placed in the _index expurgatoris_ again, and ruffs were to be for ever suppressed in favour of the large, square, flat Walloon collar, which fell over the shoulders and breast like a bib.

The expenses of the palace were cut down to {248} a minimum, and Philip himself, the most prodigal and lavish of men in after years, went on short commons. Amongst other efforts at economy made by him one originated a fashion which became deeply rooted in the Spanish character, and which the Italian minister of another Philip--the Frenchman--a hundred years afterwards, said had a large share in making Spaniards the leisurely and dignified people they were. The wide, falling Walloon collar, with little or no stiffening,--as will be seen in portraits of the time--was apt to wrinkle round the neck and very soon became dirty; so an ingenious tailor in the Calle Mayor submitted to the young King and his brother Carlos a new device, consisting of a high square collar of cardboard covered with light-coloured silk inside and with the same stuff as the doublet outside. By means of heated rollers and shellac the cardboard was permanently moulded into a graceful curve which bent outwards at the height of the chin.[4] Philip was pleased with the novelty and ordered some of the new "golillas," as they were called, for himself and his brother. The tailor, in high glee, went to his shop to make them, but alas! heated rollers turned with handles and smoking pots of shellac were suspicious things in those days, and the spies of the Council promptly haled the tailor and his uncanny instruments before the President, who sagely decided that there was some devilish witchcraft behind it all; and if not--well, the accursed {249} things he was making were lined with light blue silk in violation of the pragmatic, so he must be punished anyhow. A bonfire was made of the poor man's stock before his door and he was put under lock and key; but when Olivares heard of it he was furious. He and the Duke of Infantado sent for the President and rated him soundly as a meddling old fool for burning the King's new collars. The President declared his ignorance that they were for the King, but pointed out how outrageous they were in shape, and how they sinned against the pragmatic; but he was soon silenced by the Count-Duke, who told him they were the best and most economical things ever invented, as they did away with the need for constant washing of collars, and would last ten years without further expense or trouble.

The golilla "caught on" with high and low. It is true that heads had to be carried stiffly and turned slowly, but Spanish heads were intended so to be used and no complaint was made. No more pragmatics against ruffs, moreover, were ever needed again, and the costly, cumbrous fashion went out for good. This was in 1623, the same year as Charles Stuart went on his hairbrained trip to Madrid, and during his stay all the pragmatics were suspended, in order that he might see how splendid the Madrileños could be if left to themselves. They did their best to sustain their reputation and the poverty-stricken country was again plunged into the maddest vortex of prodigality that even dissolute Madrid had ever seen, and flaunting Buckingham himself was outshone in brilliancy and lavishness by the nobles of Philip's Court. The strict law of Charles V. limiting the {250} wearing of jewellery and precious stones had been re-imposed, but the list of gems displayed, given, and received as presents during Charles' visit, and the sumptuous dresses worn, has been left on record, down to the smallest detail, by one of the King's attendants;[5] and shows an inconceivable lavishness which naturally would, and did, make it difficult to revert in Madrid to the severe orders of the pragmatics again.

The tendency of the time, however, was against barbaric splendour, and gradually the taste for gold and silver tissues and embroideries in civil costume was modifying itself, but new extravagancies sprang up as old ones languished. Philip's sister Anna had married Louis XIII. of France in 1615 with great pomp, and all the Spanish Court had assembled on the historic ford of the Bidasoa which marked the French frontier. They brought back some new fashions with them, caught from the Parisians. Since Charles V., for good reasons, was obliged to have his curls cropped at Barcelona, Spaniards of all classes had worn the hair short, and parted as it is in England at present. The French wore it longer and the Spaniards now followed their lead. But not all at once. They first adopted the mode of having two ugly locks like long, limp Newgate-knockers, called "guedejas," hanging before the ears, the back of the head being cropped and the top surmounted by a twist or curl called a "copete." In the early portraits of Philip IV. this style of headdress may be seen.

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Another fashion brought from France was much more objectionable, but took a stronger hold in Spain than elsewhere. Round hoop-skirts or farthingales had been common in most parts of Europe for over fifty years before, but the new refinement, called a "guarda-infante," was a very large, farthingale flattened back and front so as to stick out inordinately at the sides, particularly at the hips. The jaunty Madrileñas added to it a new feature, which made it worse than ever, namely, a metal section or facing to the bottom hoop which resounded against a similar plate on the heels of their clogs, or clanked upon the ground, so that a musical clickety-click accompanied them wherever they went; even as it did that aged equestrienne of Banbury famed in English nursery lore. As the bold wenches minced along they prided themselves upon the eccentric or rhythmical effects they produced. They would be neither shamed, coerced, nor persuaded to abandon the foolish caprice until they tired of it themselves, but Don Philip did his best by pragmatics to suppress it. In 1639 the famous fulmination against female extravagance in dress was issued, part of which ran as follows:

"His Majesty orders that no woman, whatever her quality, shall wear a guarda-infante; which is a costly, superfluous, painful, ugly, disproportionate, lascivious, indecent article of dress, giving rise to sin on the part of the wearers and on that of men for their sakes. The only exception to this rule shall be public prostitutes.

"No skirts shall consist of more than eight yards of silk or a proportionate quantity of other stuff, nor shall they measure more than four yards round; the {252} same rule shall apply to polonaises, over-skirts, hen-coop skirts and petticoats.

"No woman wearing shoes shall have a bottom hoop, farthingale, or anything else in the skirt for the purpose of making a noise, and bottom hoops or farthingales shall not be worn except with pattens at least five inches high.

"No woman shall wear low-cut bodices except women of known evil life. Any person guilty of infraction of this pragmatic shall lose the offending article of dress and pay a fine of 20,000 maravedis for the first offence, and for the second double that amount, with exile from the Court."

The unfortunate dressmakers who made the garments were to be much more severely punished than the fair wearers, and four years' penal servitude was their sentence for a second offence.

The offended Madrileñas did not put up tamely with such tyranny, and, led by three frisky damsels, the daughters of a famous judge, they came out the day after the pragmatic was proclaimed, swaggering and jingling up and down the Prado in the widest guarda-infantes, the most outrageous farthingales, and the noisiest of hoops; and dared the scandalised alguaciles to touch them, since they could hardly arrest all the rank and beauty of the Court; and the fair ones practically had their own way, for Philip only issued a grave and sorrowful remonstrance against the indelicacy and expense of their constantly changing caprices, and begging them to conform to their duty. But they pleased themselves as usual, although it is said that their three fair ringleaders did no go quite scot-free, as their father the judge, scandalised that his own daughters {253} should be the first to break the law, condemned them to dress in nun's garb of the coarsest frieze. Nothing daunted, the recalcitrant "Gilimonas,"[6] as they were called, managed, with nods and winks and frisking skirts, to look more deliciously provocative than ever in their penitential garb, and their pastors and masters were glad enough to get them back again into their clicking farthingales to avoid the scandal.

Nor were the gallants of the other sex more submissive about their lovelocks. An order was proclaimed at the same time, saying, "His Majesty orders that no man shall wear a topknot, or lovelock before the ears, or any curls upon his head--and barbers who dress the hair in this fashion shall be fined 200 maravedis and be imprisoned for 10 days." Men who wore the offending curls were to be excluded from Court and all public offices. "Liars' Parade" was as much upset about this as about titles, and made a desperate attempt to resist. It was in the very heyday of poetry in Spain--Calderon, Lope de Vega, Quevedo, and a host of others were for ever firing off poetical squibs and satires at the foibles of the age, the "Liars' Parade" being the central exchange for the "good things" of poets, big and little, from the monarch downwards. A cloud of barbed poetical arrows from scores of poetical bows were consequently shot at the royal decree against topknots and guedejas; and ridicule and satire were poured out unsparingly upon those who were responsible for it. But to be shut out from the presence of king and ministers, to have the public service closed against them, was {254} too hard to be borne by the noble swaggerers and kept poets of the Calle Mayor, so they gave way and took to the long, lank, straight hair all round, which Philip himself wore for the rest of his life, though others, particularly away from the Court, still clung to the guedejas and short backhair.

When Philip IV. had been gathered to his fathers in the jasper vault of the Escorial, and his sickly son had married a French princess, Spain began to conform its fashions to those which ruled in the Court of the Roi-soleil, but somehow the three-cornered plumed hat, so general in France and England, never became popular in Spain. The large flap-brimmed hat with feathers still lingered when the Queen Regent Mariana, during her rivalry with her bold step-son, Don Juan José of Austria, raised a regiment of Swiss and German mercenaries. These soldiers wore a very broad-brimmed hat, flat all round, and slightly turned up at the edge, much like the wideawakes of to-day. This hat caught the fancy of the Spaniards, who dubbed it "Chambergo," a Spanish variant of "Schomberg," after whom the regiment was called, and this hat has to this day never lost its hold upon the Spanish populace, although they had to raise a revolution to keep it, as will be related presently.

A very absurd craze at the end of the seventeenth century, which official remonstrance was powerless to put down, was the universal wearing of great horn-rimmed spectacles, such as may be seen in the portrait of Quevedo, facing page 256; men and women of fashion insisted upon wearing these ugly appendages, whether they needed them or not, and {255} literary fashion though it was in a literary age, much sport was given to the poetasters in attacking it.

By the time Charles the Bewitched had grown up, French fashion ruled in Madrid, with the sole exceptions of the golilla (somewhat changed in shape to suit the long backhair) and the round-brimmed hat, which resisted all attempts to displace them; but the old vice of extravagance still continued in spite of changed fashions, and in 1674 a pragmatic was issued deploring again the costly excess in dress, the abuse of adornment of equipages, and the idle luxury of the time. The severe decrees of Philip IV. are re-enacted, and a code of permissible dress laid down, in which velvets, silks, satins, taffeties, of all colours, stamped and plain, are allowed, but foreign textures are to be equal in weight and fineness to Spanish goods.

The pragmatics now, however, had altered their tone. They were exhortatory rather than comminatory during the last years of the House of Austria. A change came with the advent of the first Bourbon Philip V. The Spaniards were sensitive, and resented the inferiority implied by the adoption by the Court and society of the French fashions, high heels, wide-skirted coats, full-bottomed wigs, and the rest; so the mass of the people clung to their cropped back-hair, their broad-brimmed hats, long cloaks, and above all their stately stiffened "golillas." Philip was too wise to run atilt against the golilla at first, and indeed adopted it himself, as may be seen in his portrait as a youth in the Louvre. But he wrote an anonymous pamphlet against it, and lost no opportunity of pointing out its unfitness for working people and soldiers. Alberoni, with his caustic {256} Italian wit, was for ever sneering at it, so that when Philip abandoned it and took to a collar and white lace cravat public opinion was prepared for the change and the golilla fell, after a reign of a hundred years.

When Philip was firm upon his throne after his long struggle, he issued a pragmatic, in 1723, once more trying to stem the tide of extravagance, precisely as if it had never been tried and failed before. No gold or silver either in texture or trimming was to be worn. No gold, glass, pearl, or steel buttons were to be allowed. No precious stones, real or false, might be used in trimming or fastenings, there were to be no foreign ornaments, and sham gems and jewellery were strictly prohibited. No silk might be worn but such as was of Spanish manufacture. Servants were to be clothed in plain cloth and woollen stockings, and no person but a grandee was allowed to keep more than two lackeys; and no silk was to be used on harness or the outside of coaches. No person might drive more than four horses in the capital, and no lawyer, notary, or tradesman was permitted to keep a coach. Doctors and priests alone might ride a pacing mule, all other men were bidden to mount horses only. Artisans and workmen were to dress exclusively in baize, serge, or frieze; their cuffs alone might be of silk. The pains and penalties in this great pragmatic were many and severe, but the decree aimed at doing too much. So many fine and delicate doubtful points arose with regard to its provisions, that for years after fresh proclamations were constantly being made to elucidate this pragmatic of 1723; and through the many loopholes offenders escaped, and the act became a dead letter.

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Indeed, sumptuary laws were already growing out of date, even in Spain; the courtiers copied the latest fashions from Paris, and the common people, more out of patriotism and mute resentment than anything else, made their cloaks longer and longer and their hats wider and wider. The long ends of the cloaks had to be put out of the way somehow, so they were thrown across the face to the opposite shoulder, and, what with the broadbrim over the brow and the cloak over the mouth, none of the face was seen but the eyes.

Spain during the greater part of the eighteenth century had the ill-fortune to be governed by foreign ministers, mostly Italians, and one after the other they tried to cut stubborn Spain to the same pattern as the rest of the world. The more they tried the more sulky and determined became the people, and it resolved itself into a national article of faith to resist all change; things Spanish being better than things elsewhere. When Philip's younger son, Charles III., came from Naples to rule them he brought with him his Neapolitan ministers. Grimaldi said that the Spaniards all looked like conspirators slinking about in the darkness with their covered faces. An attempt was made to light the streets with oil-lamps, but the people resented such a foolish foreign fad, and smashed the lamps as fast as they were put up. The offenders could not be identified with their covered faces and slouch hats, so the King was persuaded by the Marquis of Squillaci (Esquilache, as the Spaniards called him) to issue a new pragmatic. Its tone was more one of sorrow than of anger. The King was shocked for foreigners to see such a boorish fashion in his {258} capital, and had determined that in future no long cloaks or round-brimmed hats were to be worn. Either a short cape or a skirted coat was allowed, and men might wear either their own hair or a wig, but they must cover it with a three-cornered hat and not a Chambergo, and the face must not be hidden in any way.

This order was proclaimed on the 4th of March, 1766, and police were posted in the principal places with shears to curtail cloaks and lop hat-brims. It happened that a man pursued by alguaciles for wearing the forbidden garments took refuge in the precincts of the church of the Trinity, where he was followed by the officers and beaten, in defiance of sanctuary. An infuriated crowd collected and overpowered the authorities, who were dismayed at the feeling evinced, and withdrew their men. For the next few days men all over Madrid ostentatiously flaunted their cloaks and broad-brims before the barracks and police posts, and there is no doubt that the feeling was taken advantage by politicians for their own ends to goad the people to fury against the Italian ministers. Matters came to a head on the 23rd of March, when a soldier attempted to seize a man with his face covered. A crowd, ready for mischief, collected immediately, and the authorities were overpowered. The mob swept up the Calle de Leon across the Calle de Alcalá to Squillaci's house (the famous "house with the seven chimneys") which they wrecked, although the minister had fled. With broad-brimmed hats on the top of poles they scoured the streets, making all men they met uncock their hats. Overpowering all resistance, they assembled {259} before the palace. The guards used force in vain, and that night the capital was in the hands of the mob. The gaols were opened, houses wrecked, foreigners assailed and killed, the King's Walloon Guard especially being singled out for vengeance. Squillaci and Grimaldi had fled, and the Spanish ministers, either out of timidity or sympathy, practically sided with the rioters. The rising spread rapidly to the provinces, old grievances were raked up again, and a dangerous revolution was in progress, when the King surrendered unconditionally. People were to wear what they pleased, food and oil were to be reduced in price, and the Italian ministers were smuggled away, never to return.