THE

THE STUARTS.

HE accession of King James I. interfered in no degree with the costume of the country. That monarch had, in fact, more luxuries to conform to, than to introduce.

His cowardice, among his other failings, made it a matter of solicitude with him to guard his person, at all times unwieldy, with quilted and padded clothing, so that it might be ever dagger-proof. It was so far fortunate, for a man of his idle turn, that he needed no innovation of a striking kind to indulge in this costume; for the stuffed and padded dresses that had become fashionable in the reign of Elizabeth continued to be worn in all their fullblown importance; the sumptuary laws, which had always proved singularly inefficient, were all repealed in the first year of this reign.'

66

A Jewell for Gentrie" appeared in 1614, in the shape of a goodly volume devoted to hunting and other fashionable methods of killing time; and it was decorated with a full-length figure of James and attendants hawking, from which the following copy of his Majesty was executed. "The great, round, abominable breech,' as the satirists term it, now tapered down to the knee, and was slashed all over, and covered with lace and embroidery. Stays were sometimes worn beneath the long-waisted doublets of the gentlemen, to keep them straight, and confine the waist.2

The Earl of Suffolk writes to Sir John Harington in 1611, "The king saith he liketh a flowing garment," and mentions also that the Prince (Henry) laugheth at the long grown fashion of our young courtiers, and wisheth for change every day.

2 Sir Walter Raleigh, who combined an excess of dandyism with a mind immeasurably superior to that of the majority of fashionables, is delineated in a waist that might excite the envy of the most stanch advocate for this baneful fashion. (See Lodge's "Portraits.")

The king's hat is of the newest and most improved fashion, and not much unlike those worn but a few years ago; it has a feather at its side, and it was not uncommon to decorate the stems of these feathers with jewels, or to insert a group of them in a diamond ornament worn in the centre of the hat; and hatbands, richly decorated with valuable stones, were also frequently seen; or a single pearl was hung from a centre ornament that secured the upturned brim.'

66

Fig. 230.

Dekker, in his "Seven Deadly Sinnes of London," 1606, says: An Englishman's suit is like a traitor's body that hath been hanged, drawn, and quartered, and set up in several places: the collar of his doublet and the belly in France; the wing and narrow sleeve in Italy; the short waist hangs over a Dutch botcher's stall in Utrich; his huge sloppes speakes Spanish; Polonia gives him the bootes; the blocke for his head alters faster than the felt-maker can fit him, and thereupon we are called in scorne blockheads. And thus we, that mocke every nation for keeping one fashion, yet steale patches from every one of them to piece out our pride, are now laughing-stocks to them, because their cut so scurvily becomes us.' And in Greene's "Farewell to Folly," 1591, he says: "I have seen an English gentleman so diffused in his suits,-his doublet being for the weare of Castile, his hose for Venise, his hat for France,

1 In Gabriel Harvey's "Letter Book" (Camden Society), he mentions a servant sending to a maid an enamelled posy ring, which his master wore sewn on his hat.

his cloak for Germanie,-that he seemed no way to be an Englishman but by the face."

In Marston's comedy "What you Will," 1607, a servingman thus enumerates a gentleman's wardrobe: “A cloak lined with rich taffeta, a white satin suit, the jerkin covered with gold lace, a chain of pearl, a gilt rapier in an embroidered hanger, pearl-coloured silk stockings, and a pair of massive silver spurs." The taste for pure-white dresses of silk velvet or cloth was prevalent at this time. Horace Walpole had at Strawberry Hill a full-length portrait of Lord Falkland entirely dressed in white, except his gloves, which are black, and engraved by Harding; and at Lullingstone, Kent, is still preserved a full-length of Sir

G. Hart, 1600, fig. 231. The entire dress is white, the doublet (peascodbellied) is of plain white silk, lace collar and cuffs; the sword belt also white. The bombasted breeches are of lace or needlework; the hose of white silk with needlework crescents over them; the netherstocks of plain white silk rolled over the knee, the shoes white leather with white roses. The only bit of colour in the entire dress being the high red heels to the shoes.

The fashionable novelties of dress are again given by Deckar in his "Guls' Horn-booke," 1609, in a passage where the simplicity of old times is contrasted with the new: Fig. 231. “There was then neither the Spanish slop, nor the skipper's galligaskin, the Switzer's blistered codpiece, nor the Danish sleeve, sagging down like a Welch wallet, the Italian's close strosser, nor the French standing collar; your treblequadruple dedalian ruffs, nor your stiffnecked rabatos, that have more arches for pride to row under than can stand under five London bridges, durst not then set themselves out in print; for the patent for starch could by no means be signed. Fashions then was counted a disease, and horses died of it." 1

1 In "The Preparation at Oxford," in August, 1605, printed in

Henry Fitzgeffery, in his satirical "Notes from Black Fryers," 1617, describing the visitors to that favourite place of amusement, asks

"Knowest thou yon world of fashions now comes in,
In Turkie colours carved to the skin;

Mounted Pelonianly till hee reeles,'

That scorns (so much) plaine dealing at his heeles.
His boote speakes Spanish to his Scottish spurres;
His Sute cut Frenchly, round bestucke with Burres;
Pure Holland is his Shirt, which, proudly faire,
Seemes to out-face his Doublet, everywhere
His Haire like to your Moors or Irish Lockes;
His chiefest Dyet Indian minced Dockes.2
What Countrey may-game might wee this suppose?
Sure one woo'd thinke a Roman, by his Nose.
No! In his Habite better understand,

Hee is of England, by his Yellow band."

And he elsewhere describes a

66

spruse coxcombe,"

"That never walkes without his Looking.glasse
In a Tobacco-box or Diall set,

That he may privately conferre with it,
How his Band jumpeth with his Peccadilly,
Whether his Band-strings ballance equally,
Which way his Feather waggs:

Nichol's "Progresses of James I.," it appears that the Chancellor of the University, through the heads of houses, admonished all doctors, graduates, scholars, and probationers to provide themselves with gowns, hoods, and caps according to the orders of the University, and that all "Commoners and Halliers do wear rounde capps and such colours and fashions in their apparell as the statutes do prescribe." The writer remarks further on that "the young Masters of Arts & the Batchelors of arts wore gowns & hoods so much alike as not to be distinguished, viz., black wide sleeved gowns, faced to the foot with taffeta and about the arm to turn up to the elbow, and black civil hoods on the left shoulder." At the public meetings some M.A.'s had hoods lined with minever, none with white tafeta. The B.D.'s had their hoods lined with black. All the other Batchelors in hoods of changeable taffeta, and that of all colours. The D.D.'s wore scarlet gowns, faced to the foot with velvet, with wide sleeves faced and turned up. Those D.D.'s who were auditors were in scarlet gowns, "and their hoods turned up as they are here when they go to preach." The Doctors of Law and Physic wore scarlet gowns and changeable hoods. In 1615, when James visited Cambridge, it was ordered that all "Regents and Non Regents come to St Marie's Church in the tyme of Disputacions with hoods and capps; viz., Regents with white hoods, and Non Regents with civill (? sable) hoods." 2 Tobacco.

1i.e. on high-heeled shoes.

on

66

He'll have an attractive Lace,

And Whalebone bodyes, for the better grace.” 1

The fondness of ladies for painting their faces and exposing their breasts, was severely reprimanded by the divines and satirists in the early part of the seventeenth century. Dr. John Hall, in an appendix to his small volume against long hair, discourses in unmeasured terms 'the vanities and exorbitances of many women, in painting, patching, spotting, and blotting themselves,” declaring it to be "the badge of an harlot; rotten posts are painted, and gilded nutmegs are usually the worst." The portraits of noble ladies, in the reign of James, some of which may be seen in Nichol's account of the "Progresses" of that monarch, will sufficiently show how obtrusively immodest the fashion of exposing the naked breast had become. While a ruff, or band of immoderate size stretched forth from the neck, the front of the dress was cut away immediately beneath it nearly to the waist, which made the fashion more noticeable, as all the other part of the bust was over-cloathed, while the bosom was perfectly bare."

The full-length portraits of the Earl and Countess of Somerset, for ever rendered infamous by their connection with the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, and which are engraved, fig. 232, from a rare contemporary print, will well display the points that marked the costume of the nobility about the middle of James's reign. The Earl's hat and ruff are unpretending and plain; but his doublet exhibits the effect of tight-lacing, while his trunk-hose, richly embroidered, strut out conspicuously beneath. His garters,

1 Pocket looking-glasses were worn by men as well as by women, and for the same purpose, namely, to adjust the hair and other points of dress, which were the objects of so much attention in both sexes.

"He is one that will draw out his pocket glasse thrice in a walke." Return from Parnassus.

2 "The mallow rootes to make thy teeth looke white" are mentioned by Singer in the "Reformed Whore."

The portrait of Lady Seymour, of Troubridge, at Petworth, and engraved in Adolphus" "British Cabinet," shows the breasts quite bare. Painting the face by ladies is referred to in Ben Jonson's "The Devil is an Ass," 1616.