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 published in 1605 or 1606.* John Taylor, the Water Poet, censures the extravagance of those who Wear a farm in shoe-strings edged with gold, Prized at the church's tithe,-the poor man's bread. The print of the Earl of Somerset, given in a preceding chapter,† presents us with all the articles above mentioned. The trunks are of a fashion prevalent towards the middle of James's reign, and such as Prince Henry is represented wearing in the print given below from Drayton's Polyolbion dated 1613. Silk and thread stockings were now generally worn by the gentry, those of woollen cloth having become quite unfashionable. Short jackets or doublets, with hanging or false sleeves, were worn towards 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, shoe-roses, 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 afterwards 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 colour. Yellow ruffs and bands are continually alluded to by the dramatists of this period. 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, 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 and twenty 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 two in a seam, with peckadells of white satin, the 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, and silver bodkins are mentioned in the comedy lined throughout with velvet, durance petticoats, of "Eastward Hoe," as part of the apparel and ornaments of citizens' wives and daughters at this time, as are French hoods and guarded (i.e. borbered 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 paintgiven to the peculiar and elegant habit his pencil ings of Vandyke, whose name has indeed been 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 him in what Jonson calls "long saussage hose," or "breeches pinned up like pudding-bags"-a Dutch fashion, which is to be seen in Holland and in many parts of the continent, particularly Germany and Switzerland, to this day. Another sort of long breeches, which may also have been of Dutch origin, form part of the Vandyke costume before alluded to, but they hang loose below the knee, and are either fringed or adorned with a row of points or ribands 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 • See ante, p. 61. 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 the thigh, with or without sleeves, and sometimes 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 armour 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 moustache and peaked beard were common to both parties. The Cromwelites eschewed silks and satins, wearing cloths and coarser stuffs of black and sober colours, and adhered to the old high-crowned black hat, in preference to the low-crowned Flemish beaver. 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 armour. 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 fire-arms gradually occasioned the abandonment of it piece by piece, until nothing remained but the back and breast-plates, which were made bullet-proof, and the open steel head-piece 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 VOL. III. | Dragoons.* The first were the fullest armed, wearing a close casque or head-piece, gorget, breast and back-plates (pistol and culiver proof), pauldrons, vambraces, two gauntlets, tassets, culessetts, culets or garde-de-reins, and a buff coat with long skirts to wear between their clothes and their armour. Their weapons were, a good sword," stiff cutting and sharp pointed," a lance eighteen feet long, one or two pistols of sufficient bore and length, a flask, cartouch-box, and all appurtenances fitting. The Cuirassiers, armed, as we have already stated, with back, breast, and head-piece, 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 66 a buff coat with deep skirts, and an open head-piece 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 fire-arm of the particular bore ordered by government, and lighter than the usual match or wheellock. 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. 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 favourite 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 dreamt of following the career of the knight of La Mancha, as wearing harness and mounting war-horses, except at the urgent call of necessity. |