FURNITURE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Selected from Specimens and Prints of the Period, blankets; . . . two counterpoints of plush, both sides alike, sewed with silk. . . . Item, to Henry Waller, joiner, for one frame for a canopy for a cushioncloth, with iron-work to it, for the timber-work of one chair, two low stools, and two little tables; . . . for one folding-table of walnut-tree;" &c., &c.1 Paper and leather hangings were invented early in the seventeenth century, and the walls of the wealthier classes were now enriched with the magnificent paintings of Rubens, Vandyke, Teniers, Rembrandt, Terburg, &c., in addition to those of 1 Anne, queen of James I., had a walnut-tree chest of drawers in her room.-Fosbroke, Ency. of Antiq. Holbein and Jansen; and the chefs d'œuvres of the earlier great masters of Italy were displayed in gorgeous frames, and amid objects of art and virtu worthy of their companionship. Ornaments of china-ware had been brought from Italy in the time of Elizabeth, but, in 1631, they were regular articles of importation by the East India ships. Turkey and Persian carpets are seen in paintings of this period covering the tables of even the middling classes of society, floors being still matted or strewed with rushes, even in palaces, excepting those of throne or bedrooms, where carpets were laid down in front of the throne or by the side of the bed. FURNITURE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Selected from Specimens and Prints of the Period. The ceilings of state apartments were also adorned with paintings of historical or allegorical subjects by the first artists. The costume of the latter part of Elizabeth's reign continued in fashion apparently for some time after the accession of James I. The king himself had his clothing made larger, and even his doublets quilted, through fear of assassination, his breeches in great plaits and full stuffed. The frontispiece to a book of hunting, published in this reign, gives us a good specimen of this style of dress as worn by the monarch, his courtiers, and attendants, when pursuing James's favorite amusement-the chase. In Decker's Gull's Horn Book, first printed in 1609, we are told that the noblest gallants, when they consecrate their hours to their mistresses and to reveling, wear feathers then chiefly in their hats, being of the fairest ensigns of their bravery." But very rich hatbands and jewels were worn without feathers as well as with them. For the shape of the hats of this period the reader may turn to a preceding page in this volume, where Guido Fawkes and his companions are engraved from a print pub- | two in a seam, with peckadells of white satin, the lished in 1605 or 1606.1 John Taylor, the Water Wear a farm in shoe-strings edged with gold, Prized at the church's tithe-the poor man's bread. hose of tawney velvet, laced thick with gold-lace buttons with small furnishings, as canvas-cotton, baise, fustian for pockets, and stiffening for the same," and "four cloaks of tawney velvet, laced with six gold laces round about, lined with shag, and bordered with buckram." The portrait of Anne of Denmark, queen to James I., engraved in Strutt's "Dresses and Habits," and that of the Countess of Somerset, given in our first chapter,' afford us specimens of the dress of the female nobility of the period. The enormous fardingale was worn throughout this reign by the higher classes. Grogram gowns, lined throughout with velvet, durance petticoats, and silver bodkins are mentioned in the comedy of "East Silk and thread stockings were now generally | ward Hoe," as part of the apparel and ornaments worn by the gentry, those of woolen cloth having become quite unfashionable. Short jackets or doublets, with hanging or false sleeves, were worn toward the end of James's reign; and the ruff was succeeded by the band and the peccadilloe or piccadilly, from a well-known shop for the sale of which the street so called received its name. When James I. visited Cambridge, in 1615, the vice-chancellor of that university issued an order prohibiting "the fearful enormity and excess of apparel seen in all degrees, as, namely, strange peccadilloes, vast bands, huge cuffs, shoeroses, tufts, locks and tops of hair, unbeseeming that modesty and carriage of students in so renowned an university." The bands and ruffs were alike stiffened with yellow starch, a fashion brought, it is said, from France, by Mrs. Turner, who was afterward executed for poisoning Sir Thomas Overbury, and who, as mentioned in a former page, caused the extinction of the very fashion she had introduced, by appearing on the scaffold in a ruff of that color. Yellow ruffs and bands are continually alluded to by the dramatists of this period. of citizens' wives and daughters at this time, as are French hoods and guarded (i. e., bordered or laced) gowns in the play of the "London Prodigal," printed in 1605. The costume of the time of Charles I. has been familiarized to us by the numberless prints of that unfortunate monarch and the most distinguished personages of his reign, engraved from the paintings of Vandyke, whose name has indeed been given to the peculiar and elegant habit his pencil has so often portrayed. At the commencement of Charles's reign, however, the later fashions of his father's time held their ground; and we find Ben Jonson, in his comedy of the "New Inn," first acted in 1629, making a beau declare "I would put on The Savoy chain about my neck; the ruff, Some of the paintings of Charles also represent For the sumptuous materials of which the dresses of this day were made we must refer our readers to the wardrobe accounts of this reign, the details of which are too elaborate for our columns. The warrant to the great wardrobe on the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth, already quoted, contains a curious list of cloths of gold, brocaded silks, velvets,luded to; but they hang loose below the knee, and satins, tissues, &c., &c. "Sugar-loaf buttons," both large and small, are mentioned in it as much employed for the decoration of dresses; and another item is to John White, shoemaker, for eight pair of pumps for eight pages, with eight pair of roses, edged with copper lace to them." Bugle-lace and bugle-buttons appear also in request, and two-andtwenty pair of silk stockings and four of worsted are ordered for the pages and footmen. Eighteen yards of black wrought velvet are ordered for a gown for the princess's physician; and there are four suits for four pages, described minutely as consisting of doublets and hose, the doublets of cloth of gold, lined with taffeta, and laced with gold lace, two and are either fringed or adorned with a row of points or ribbons meeting the wide tops of the boots, which were ruffled with lace or lawn. Portraits of this period exhibit a curious clog or false sole to the boots, which appear to be excessively high-heeled They are particularly remarkable in the portrait of the Duke of Lennox, by Vandyke, in the collection of the Earl of Darnley, at Cobham Hall, Kent. The upper part of the Vandyke costume consisted of a short doublet of silk or satin, with slashed sleeves: a falling collar of rich point lace; a short cloak worn carelessly over one shoulder, and a broad-leafed Flemish beaver hat with one or more feathers falling gracefully from it; a very broad and richly embroidered sword-belt, in which usually hung a Spanish rapier. The silk doublet was occasionally exchanged for a buff coat, reaching half way down 1 See ante, p. 59. the thigh, with or without sleeves, and sometimes armed, as we have already stated, with back, breast, laced with gold or silver, and the cloak in that case for a scarf or sash of silk or satin worn either round the waist or over the shoulder, and tied in a large bow either behind or on the hip. When over this coat was placed the steel gorget or a breast and back-plate, the wearer was equipped for battle, complete armor being now confined almost entirely to the heavy horse. The intercourse with Spain had in the previous reign changed the name of lancer into cavalier-an appellation which ultimately distinguished the whole royal party from that of the republican, while at the same time the cropped hair of the latter obtained for them the title of Roundheads from their opponents, "the wealthy curled darlings of the isle," who wore their hair in long ringlets upon their shoulders. The mustache and peaked beard were common to both parties. The Cromwellites eschewed silks and satins, wearing cloths and coarser stuffs of black and sober colors, and adhered to the old high-crowned black hat, in preference to the low-crowned Flemish beaver. and headpiece, only carried swords and pistols. The Harquebussiers, or Carabiniers, were similarly defended, but carried, in addition to sword and pistol, the harquebuss or the carabine, according to their appellation. The Dragoons, first raised in France in 1600, wore only "a buff coat with deep skirts, and an open headpiece with cheeks," and were divided at first into two classes, pikemen and musketeers, so called from the weapons they carried; but in 1645 they changed their muskets for the shorter piece called "the dragon," from which the French troops of this description had originally received their name; and in 1649 the dragon was abandoned for the caliver, or culiver, corrupted from calibre, a firearm of the particular bore ordered by government, and lighter than the usual match or wheel-lock. The modern firelock was invented about 1635. The musket-rest and the swine's feather (the precursor of the bayonet) were abandoned during the civil wars. Similar distinctions arose at the same period between the females of opposite parties-the ladies of the royalists wearing ringlets and feathers, while those of the Puritans covered the head closely with hood, cap, coif, or high-crowned hat. The pencil of Hollar has fully illustrated this portion of our subject in his fine works, “Ornatus Muliebris Anglicanus," published in 1640, and "Theatrum Mulierum," published in 1644. Masks were much worn at this period by females of the higher classes, and mufflers by elderly women of humbler conditions. Muffs of fur and elegant fans composed of ostrich-feathers were carried by women of fashion. With the reign of Charles I. we may be said to take leave of armor. His father, King James, had declared it to be an admirable invention, because it prevented the wearer as much from doing harm to others as from receiving injury himself; and the improvement of firearms gradually occasioned the abandonment of it piece by piece, until nothing remained but the back and breastplates, which were made bulletproof, and the open steel headpiece, or iron pot, as the common sort were called; buff coats, long buff gloves or gauntlets, and high boots of jacked leather, thence called jacked or jackboots, defending sufficiently the rest of the person. Troops so armed acquired the name of cuirassiers. In 1632 the English cavalry was divided into four classes: the Lanciers, the Cuirassiers, the Harquebussiers or Carabiniers, and the Dragons or Dragoons." The first were the fullest armed, wearing a close casque or headpiece, gorget, breast and back-plates (pistol and culiver proof), pauldrons, vambraces, two gauntlets, tassets, culessets, culets or garde-de-reins, and a buff coat with long skirts to wear between their clothes and their armor. Their weapons were a good sword," stiff-cutting and sharppointed," a lance eighteen feet long, one or two Distols of sufficient bore and length, a flask, cartouchbox, and all appurtenances fitting. The Cuirassiers, Militarie Instructions for the Cavalrie. Cambridge 1232 The character and tastes of James I. soon banished those mere shadows of the chivalric ages that had still lingered and flitted about the court of Queen Elizabeth. It was at a tournament, indeed, held in one of the first years of his reign,' that he found his worthless favorite Carr; but after this we hear no more of his countenancing such antiquated spectacles. His heroic son Henry, it is true, was an enthusiast for military pageants of this nature, and delighted in running at the ring, fighting at barriers, and breaking spears in the tilt-yard; but even the example of the heir-apparent was lost upon the English nobility. Chivalry, even as a harmless game, had gone quite out of fashion only a few years after the commencement of the seventeenth century; and men would as soon have dreamed of following the career of the knight of La Mancha, as wearing harness and mounting war-horses, except at the urgent call of necessity. While the lance and the battleax were thus laid aside, the rapier and dagger came into more active exercise, and the duello, or modern duel, now became the customary mode of deciding their differences among gentlemen. In these encounters, which, as at present, arose not only out of private and personal quarrels, but also out of the great public questions of the day, it sometimes happened that the parties, though of high rank, belabored each other stoutly with cudgels before proceeding to more knightly extremities; but even in the regular duel it was not unusual for unfair advantages of various kinds to be attempted to be taken by one or both of the parties, till the practice of appointing seconds in all cases was resorted to in order to guard against such treacheries. Combatants also, before they encountered, sometimes searched each other's clothes, or, for better assurance, stripped, and fought in their shirts. Yet, when a duel was a grave and premeditated affair, and between men of nice honor and punctilio, the stately ceremonials of ancient chivalry were carefully observed. If the challenge was delivered orally, it was with hat in hand, profound 1 See ante, p. 37. |