Part 6

Ben Jonson, "Every Man out of his Humour," thus recounts a misfortune which happened to Fastidio in a duel: "I had on a gold cable hatband, then new come up, of massie goldsmith's work, which I wore about a murrey French hat, the brims of which were thick embroidered with gold twist and spangles; I had an Italian cut-work band, ornamented with pearls, which cost three pounds at the Exchange.... He, making a reverse blow, falls upon my embossed girdle--I had thrown off the hangers a little before; strikes off a skirt of a thick satin doublet I had, lined with four taffataes; cuts off two panes of embroidered pearls; rends through the drawings out of tissue; enters the lining, and skips the flesh; and not having leisure to put off my silver spurs, one of the rowels catched hold of the ruffle of my boot, it being Spanish leather, and subject to tear; overthrows me, and rends me two pairs of stockings, that I had put on being a raw morning--a peach-colour and another."

In the same play, Fungoso, reckoning up the price of Fastidio's dress, says: "Let me see; the doublet--say fifty shillings the doublet--and between three and four pounds the hose,--then the boots, hat, and band;--some ten or eleven pounds will do it all."

By the year 1583 the trunks are rifled of their contents in order to provide stuffing for the doublet. It will be noticed in the cut of knightly pastimes that the girdle meets at a point in front. This shape was emphasised, the doublet protruded in front, and hung down for some distance, and the peas-cod bellied doublet was developed. We must again turn to our old "anatomist" Stubbes: "Certain I am there was never any kind of apparel invented that could more disproportion the body of a man than their doublets with great bellies do, hanging down beneath the groin, as I have said, and stuffed with four or five, or six pounde of bombast at the least. I say nothing of what their doublets be made; some of satin, taffata, silk, grograine, chamlet, gold, silver, and what not; slashed, jagged, cut, carved, pinched, and laced with all kinds of costly lace of divers and sundry colours, of all which, if I could stand upon particularly, rather time than matter would be wanting." The peas-cod bellied doublet is still perpetuated in the person of our esteemed contemporary, Mr. Punch.

An excellent example of the trunk-hose of the latter part of the reign of James I. appears in the engraved portrait of Henry, Prince of Wales. The hose consists of a series of richly embroidered straps discovering the silk or velvet trunk in the narrow intervals between.

With the reign of the "martyr King" Charles, both peas-cod bellied doublets and trunk-hose disappear, and the costume of this period is strikingly picturesque. Charles was a man of cultivated taste, and handsome to boot; he undoubtedly influenced the costume of his time. The earliest engraved portraits, by Francis Delaram and William Hole, exhibit him in long, loose breeches reaching to the knees, with the doublet still pointed at the waist. The more familiar costume of this monarch is, however, that which is seen in the various portraits by Vandyke. The costume of the Cavaliers is well described in a little book on British costume published in the "Library of Entertaining Knowledge" in 1834: "It consisted of a doublet of silk, satin, or velvet, with large loose sleeves, slashed up the front; the collar, covered by a falling band of the richest point lace, with that peculiar edging now called Vandyke; a short cloak was worn carelessly on one shoulder. The long breeches, fringed or pointed, as we have already mentioned, met the tops of the wide boots, which were also ruffled with lace or lawn. A broad-leafed Flemish beaver hat, with a rich hatband and plume of feathers, was set on one side of the head, and a Spanish rapier, hung from a magnificent baldrick or sword-belt, worn sashwise over the right shoulder."

We now arrive at the period of the dandiacal Pepys, who describes with great unction the various changes and details of his costume. On September 13, 1660, the Duke of Gloucester died of the small-pox "by the great negligence of the doctors." He was buried on the 21st at Westminster, and on the 22nd our chronicler "purchased a pair of short black stockings to wear over a pair of silk ones for mourning." On April 23, 1661, the occasion of the King's going from the Tower to Whitehall, he rose with the lark, made himself as fine as he could, and put on his velvet coat, the first day that he put it on, "though made half a year ago."

"_September 29th, 1661._--This day I put on my half cloth black stockings, and my new coate of the fashion, which pleases me well, and with my beaver I was (after office was done) ready to go to my Lord Mayor's feast, as we were all invited."

The long laced coats, familiar during the latter part of the reign of the "Merry Monarch" and the succeeding reign, had already come into vogue. On May 11, 1662, Pepys repaired in the afternoon to Whitehall, and "walked in the parke," where he saw the King, "now out of mourning in a suit laced with gold and silver, which it was said was out of fashion."

The costume of the masses during the Commonwealth and Restoration, was the well-known knee breeches and stockings, with doublet or jerkin.

In a poem called "Wit Restored," _c._ 1658, is described the holiday dress of a countryman when courting:--

"And first chill put on my Zunday parell That's lac't about the Quarters; With a pair of buckram slopps, And a vlanting pair of garters. With a sword tide vast to my side, And my grandfather's dugen and dagger, And a peacock's veather in my capp, Then, oh, how I shall swagger!"

About the year 1658 petticoat breeches crossed the silver streak from Versailles, and became the vogue at the Court of Charles II. Randal Holme, writing in 1659, describes the dress as follows:--"A short-waisted doublet and petticoat breeches, the lining being lower than the breeches and tied above the knees; the breeches are ornamented with ribands up to the pocket, and half their breadth upon the thigh; the waistband is set about with ribands, and the shirt hanging out over them." The petticoat breeches were not ridiculous in themselves--the modern Scotch kilt, which is an extremely picturesque and even reasonable costume, is made upon precisely the same principle; it was the absurd lace ruffles, which hung drooping below the knee, which were worn with the petticoats during the earlier period, and in which Charles II. is figured in Heath's Chronicle, 1662, which made the costume a banality. The figure of the exquisite of 1670 from Jacquemin wears the petticoat breeches, but without the ruffles or frills at the knees. It must be confessed, however, that the gentleman possesses a sufficiency of frill!

Petticoat breeches had disappeared by the end of the reign of Charles II., and we have now to deal with another distinct change in the national costume. In an inventory of apparel of Charles II. in 1679 appears a suit of clothes of one material, and consisting of _coat_, waistcoat, and breeches. William III. is figured in 1694 in a long laced coat with enormous sleeve cuffs, the waistcoat almost as long as the coat, with large flaps and pockets also richly laced, the nether garments being knee breeches and stockings with buckled shoes, the hat cocked according to the fancy of the wearer. This coat, indeed, has, with variations, existed up to the present time. The gold lacings, the rows of buttons down the front, the huge cuffs, indeed, have vanished; but the modern coat is, fundamentally, the same as its earliest prototype. The two buttons at the back, which now serve no purpose other than an ornamental one, once buttoned up the flaps, and constitute the last remains of the coat's former glories.

Towards the middle of the eighteenth century the coat fits tightly to the body, the skirts being long and ample, and made to stand out stiffly by being lined with buckram; the large Kevenhuller hat has given place to one of much more moderate proportions.

The fop of the day is thus ridiculed by Diana in the play of "Lionel and Clarissa," by Isaac Bickerstaff, 1768:--

"Ladies, pray admire a figure, Fait selon le dernier gout. First, his hat, in size no bigger Than a Chinese woman's shoe; Six yards of ribbon bind His hair en baton behind; While his foretop's so high, That in the crown he may vie With the tufted cockatoo. Then his waist so long and taper 'Tis an absolute thread-paper: Maids, resist him, you that can. Odd's life, if this is all th' affair, I'll clap a hat on, club my hair, And call myself a man."

The short hair and large bishop's sleeves of the clergy are satirised in the same play:--

"Lauk! Madam, do you think, when Mr. Lionel's a clergyman, he'll be obliged to cut off his hair? I'm sure it will be a thousand pities, for it is the sweetest colour! and your great pudding-sleeves, Lord! they'll quite spoil his shape, and the fall of his shoulders. Well, Madam, if I was a lady of large fortune, I'll be hanged if Mr. Lionel should be a parson, if I could help it."

FOOTNOTES:

[11] Embroidery.

[12] Fairholt, "Costume in England."

V

THE KIRTLE OR PETTICOAT

"_Falstaff._ What trade art thou, Feeble?

"_Feeble._ A woman's tailor, sir.

"_Shallow._ Shall I prick him, sir?

"_Falstaff._ You may; but if he had been a man's tailor he would have pricked you--Wilt thou make as many holes in an enemy's battle, as thou hast done in a woman's petticoat?

"_Feeble._ I will do my good will, sir; you can have no more.

"_Falstaff._ Well said, good woman's tailor! well said, courageous Feeble! Thou wilt be as valiant as the wrathful dove, or most magnanimous mouse--Prick the woman's tailor well, Master Shallow; deep, Master Shallow."

V

THE KIRTLE OR PETTICOAT

The kirtle or petticoat is in reality a development of the tunic. It is the tunic which has become a closely fitting bodice, with long draperies, more or less formal, attached. The names of the different portions of dress have at different periods varied almost indefinitely. The first item of the habit of the Order of the Garter is successively described as tunic, coat, surcoat, and _kirtle_.

The kirtle, therefore, takes up the story of costume from the time when the loose tunic gave place to a more formal attire--broadly speaking, from the Norman Conquest.

During the eleventh century, however, woman's dress was still the loose tunic, the principal change being in the remarkable development of the sleeves, which, although close fitting along the whole length of the arm, either had an extraordinary attachment at the wrist in the form of a bag or pouch, or were abnormally extended and widened at the wrist and tied in knots to avoid treading on them. This fashion is satirised in the figure of the devil from the Cotton MSS., given in the introductory chat of this work.

In the "Romaunt of the Rose," written at the close of the thirteenth century, John de Meun relates the story of Pygmalion, representing him as adorning the statue he had created with a succession of the garments of the fashion of the period of the poem, with the purpose of discovering which became her best:--"He clothed her in many guises; in robes, made with great skill, of the finest silk and woollen cloths; green, azure, and brunette, ornamented with the richest skins of ermines, minivers, and greys: these being taken off, other robes were tried upon her, of silk, cendal, mallequins, mallebruns, satins, diaper, and camelot, and all of divers colours. Thus decorated, she resembled a little angel; her countenance was so modest. Then, again, he put a wimple upon her head, and over that a coverchief, which concealed the wimple, but hid not her face. All these garments were then laid aside for gowns, yellow, red, green, and blue; and her hair was handsomely disposed in small braids, with threads of silk and gold adorned with little pearls, upon which was placed, with great precision, a crestine; and over the crestine, a crown or circle of gold, enriched with precious stones of various sizes. Her little ears were decorated with two beautiful pendants of gold, and her necklace was confined to her neck by two clasps of gold. Her girdle was exceedingly rich, and to it was attached an aulmoniere, or small purse, of great value."

In the reign of Edward III. the close-fitting bodice appears, with the girdle over the hips, the sleeves either tight or provided with an upper sleeve with long tippets or streamers from the elbow. Later a kind of "spencer"[13] jacket, or waistcoat, was worn, faced and bordered with miniver or other fur. These "spencer"-like jackets lasted for a considerable period. An example appears in the effigy of Joan of Navarre, Queen of Henry IV. A similar jacket again appears in the reign of Henry VI.

The Italian _cassone_, or marriage chests, of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, furnish us with many examples of graceful dresses of a character peculiar to that period and nation, but which fashion obtained to some extent elsewhere; a good deal of the grace of these things is due, however, to the fine convention adopted in the work of this period. A feature of this dress is the long wide sleeves streaming from the shoulders, part sleeve and part cloak. The illustration which forms the heading of Chat IV. will serve to give some idea of this dress.

At the commencement of the Tudor period the costume of the ladies is still that of the period of high head-dresses of the middle of the century. The waist is still high and narrow, the gown long, ample and flowing, often edged with fur, and with fur collar and cuffs. By the end of the reign of Henry VIII., however, costume had undergone a marked change. The waist suddenly drops, the stomacher appears, together with the bell-shaped open gown, with richly embroidered petticoat, which lasted for a considerable time--to the time of Charles I., in fact. Both cut gown and inner petticoat were ornamented, either by woven patterns or embroidery, the richest ornaments being reserved for the petticoat; the turnovers or "collars" of the skirts being plain, in contrast to the rich ornaments of the upper surface.

An interesting portrait of Queen Mary (Red Mary) by Lucas de Heere, in the possession of Sir William Quilter, was recently shown at the exhibition at the Guildhall of the works of Flemish painters. She wears a black dress with stiffened collar behind, ornamented with gold embroidery, open at the neck, disclosing a pink bodice also richly embroidered, the sleeves furred at the elbows.

The era of petticoat inflation began about this time; it was such a remarkable development that the consideration of it is reserved for a separate chat.

In Holinshed's Chronicle, 1577, appears an amusing cut of "Makbeth and Banquho" met by "the iij weird Sisters or Feiries." "Makbeth" is figured as wearing an astonishing Life Guard helmet and plume. "The iij weird Feiries" are fascinating creatures, gaily dressed in ornamented kirtles, with panniers, puffed sleeves and shoulders, and, in one instance, with a remarkable peaked turban with streamer on her head.

The dress of the Tudor period was magnificent beyond description. In a wardrobe account of Henry VIII., seven yards of purple cloth-of-gold damask is apportioned for a kirtle for Catherine of Arragon. As in the case of the men, the sleeves were invariably the richest portion of women's dress. "Amongst the inventories of this reign we find: three pair of purple satin sleeves for women; one pair of linen sleeves, paned with gold over the arm, quilted with black silk, and wrought with flowers between the panes and at the hands; one pair of sleeves of purple gold tissue damask wire, each sleeve tied with aglets of gold; one pair of crimson satin sleeves, four buttons of gold being set on each sleeve, and in every button nine pearls."

This extravagance was more than continued during the reign of Elizabeth. It is thus satirised by Beaumont and Fletcher in "Four Plays in One."

"I went then to Vanity, whom I found Attended by an endless troop of taylors, Mercers, embroiderers, feather-makers, fumers; All occupations opening like a mart, That serve to rig the body out with bravery; And through the room new fashions flew like flies, In thousand gaudy shapes; Pride waiting on her, And busily surveying all the breaches Time and decaying nature had wrought in her, Which still with art she piec'd again, and strengthened. I told your wants; she shew'd me gowns and headtires, Embroider'd waste coats, smocks seamed through with cut-work, Scarfs, mantles, petticoats, muffs, powders, paintings, Dogs, monkies, parrots; all of which seem'd to show me The way her money went."

The beauties of the Court of the Merry Monarch are made familiar to us by the pencil of Sir Peter Lely.[14] The age was distinguished in the case of the women not so much for the magnificence of its costume as for the scantiness of it. It was to a certain extent a return to the simplicity of Nature!

"If," says Addison, writing in the _Spectator_, "we survey the pictures of our great-grandmothers in Queen Elizabeth's time, we see them clothed down to the very wrists, and up to the very chin. The hands and face were the only samples they gave of their beautiful persons. The following age of females made larger discoveries of their complexion. They first of all tucked up their garments to the elbow, and, notwithstanding the tenderness of the sex, were content for the information of mankind to expose their arms to the coldness of the air, and injuries of the weather."

They affected a mean between dress and nakedness, which occasioned the publication of a book entitled "A Just and Seasonable Reprehension of Naked Breasts and Shoulders," with a preface by Richard Baxter, _temp._ Charles II.

Herrick's lines may be said to foreshadow the period:--

"A sweet disorder in the dress Kindles in clothes a wantonness; A lawn about the shoulders thrown Into a fine distraction; An erring lace, which here and there Enthrals the crimson stomacher; A cuff neglected, and thereby Ribbons to flow confusedly; A winning wave, deserving note In the tempestuous petticoat. A careless shoe-string, in whose tie I see a wild civility;-- Do more bewitch me, than when art Is too precise in every part."

The remarks of our diarist Pepys on the subject of dress are always entertaining, although he displays perhaps less interest in his wife's dresses than in his own.

"_April 15th, 1662._--With my wife, by coach, to the new Exchange, to buy her some things; where we saw some new-fashion petticoats of sarcanett with a black broad lace printed round the bottom and before, very handsome, and my wife had a mind to one of them."

His wife's dressmaker's bill is apparently a much less serious item than his own dress expenses, which is perhaps the reverse of the present order of things.

"_October 30th, 1663._--To my great sorrow find myself £43 worse than I was the last month.... But it hath chiefly arisen from my layings-out in clothes for myself and wife; viz., for her about £12, and for myself £55--or thereabouts,(!) having made myself a velvet cloak, two new cloth skirts, a new shag gown, trimmed with gold buttons and twist, with a new hat, and silk tops for my legs, and many other things, being resolved, henceforward, to go like myself"(!!).

"_March 2nd, 1669._--My wife this day put on her first French gown, called a Sac, which becomes her very well."

May Day of the same year: "My wife extraordinary fine with her flowered tabby gown that she made two years ago, now laced exceeding pretty; and indeed was fine all over. And mighty earnest to go, though the day was very lowering; and she would have me put on my fine suit--which I did"(!).

A certain affectation by the ladies of male costume made its appearance towards the close of the century. Laced and buttoned coats and waistcoats were worn, together with a smartly cocked hat surmounted with a feather. It also appeared earlier, during the reign of Elizabeth, and was satirised by Stubbes, and later, in the _Spectator_, by Addison. We picture Die Vernon in a habit of this kind, which was chiefly worn for riding, but also for walking. Fielding describes the appearance of Sophia Western at the inn at Upton in a similar habit.

The rigidity of the bodice at the commencement of the Hanoverian period was an echo of an earlier time, when Good Queen Bess strutted it in wheeled farthingale. It was strongly fortified with whalebone strips, and formed a V in front.

One of the chief characteristics of the dresses of this period was the naturalistic floral patternings, which were seen everywhere, and even invaded the dress of the men, whose waistcoats were gay with embroidered flowers. This floral patterning was the outward and visible sign of the general interest which was then taken in natural form. Linnæus, at Upsala, was propounding his botanical system; gardening was generally popular. Mrs. Delany thus describes a dress which she saw at Court in February, 1741, and which is sufficiently indicative of the generally prevailing taste: "The Duchess of Queensberry's clothes pleased me best; they were white satin embroidered--the bottom of the petticoat brown hills covered with all sorts of weeds, and every breadth had an old stump of a tree that ran up almost to the top of the petticoat, broken and ragged and worked with brown chenille, round which twined nastersians, ivy, honeysuckles, periwinkles, convolvuluses, and all sorts of twining flowers, which spread and covered the petticoat; vines with the leaves variegated as you have seen them by the sun, all rather smaller than nature, which makes them look very light; the robings and facings were little green banks with all sorts of weeds; and the sleeves and the rest of the gown loose, twining branches of the same sort as those on the petticoat. Many of the leaves were finished with gold, and part of the stumps of the trees looked like the gilding of the sun."

The quilted petticoat with figured panniers which is associated with the name of Dolly Varden is a charming dress of the rustic or idyllic sort. Like the rigid bodice, it was a development of the dress of an earlier period; it was, in fact, the stiff outer kirtle of the Elizabethan and Stuart periods looped up in folds.

The fashionable luxuries of the latter half of the eighteenth century are thus commented upon in the _London Magazine_ of February, 1773:--

"The modes of dress, as well as those of house-keeping, are articles of incredible expense. Here the ladies are beyond description extravagant.