CHAPTER II

DRESS AND MANNERS

On the homely subject of washing an excellent little paper may be found in Chambers’s _Book of Days_. What were the “things” put out for the lavender or laundress? The common people wore neither shirts nor socks nor any under-clothing at all. Towels, napkins, table-cloths, sheets, pillow-cases, were the things that were washed, in all houses except the very poorest; the mediæval inventories of furniture show that pillows and cushions were much used in every house. Of personal things linen shirts were not anciently worn even by great and rich nobles; they wore their splendid velvets and silks next to the skin; the poor man was dressed in black coarse woollen with, if he were fortunate, some kind of cloak: there were no night-shirts. When ladies began to use night-dresses they were of costly material which would not wash. Anne Boleyn slept in a night-dress of black satin, bound with black taffeta and edged with black velvet. Queen Elizabeth slept in velvet lined in fur.

A “Washing Tally” preserved at Haddon Hall, supposed to be of Charles the First’s time, enumerates all the different articles then sent to the wash. They were ruffles, bandes, cuffes, “handkercher,” caps, shirts, half-shirts, boot-hose, tops, socks, sheets, pillow-cases, table-cloths, napkins, and towels.

Most of these names require no explanation. The band was the white collar round the neck, which was either starched to stand up or else it lay upon the shoulders. The box that kept them was called a band-box. Boot-hose were like “tights” of the present day, drawn up the whole length of the leg. The sock, sometimes embroidered, was drawn over the hose to the calf of the leg. It was customary when the washing was done at home for the women to begin at midnight or very early in the morning. Pepys complains of being disturbed in the night by the laundresses. The basket in which the linen was thrown was called the “buck” or the “buck-basket.”

The Puritanic fashions of dress, manners, and speech still continued in the City. While the Court party wore their hair long and curled, the Puritans cropped theirs close; they drawled in their speech; they interlarded their discourse with texts and allusions to Scripture; they still, though the power had gone from them, denounced all sorts of merry-makings, all sports, all festivals and games as damnable; still they continued to find their chief joy and solace at a sermon. There was reason for this; for while their thoughts were mainly occupied with twisting texts into the support of their favourite doctrines, the preacher, who was engaged in exactly the same pursuit, gave them materials for the maintenance of their doctrines, or for discussion and controversy afterwards. The women, it is said, took down the principal points in shorthand, being as much interested and as keen in controversy as the men.

I do not know any period in which it could not be said that the dress of the gallants and courtiers, as well as that of the ladies, was not extravagant and costly. Certainly the dress of the gallants in the seventeenth century, except for the fifteen years of Puritan austerity, was costly and extravagant enough to please any one. It does not appear, however, that the extravagance in dress descended to the City or to the City madams. In the time of Elizabeth the excessive adornment of the latter was the subject of many satirical pens. Under Charles II. the sobriety of the men, still more or less under Puritan influence, was reflected in the quiet dress of the women. As for the Court ladies, Evelyn observes that they paint; Pepys finds patches coming in with the Restoration; he also notices, but without admiration, the hair frizzed up to the ears; in 1662 he says they began to wear perukes—by which I understand some addition to their own hair; next year he observes the introduction of the vizard. In July 1663 he witnesses the riding of the King, Queen, and Court in Hyde Park. “The King and the Queen, who looked in this dress, a white-laced waistcoat and a crimson short petticoat, with her hair dressed _à la négligence_, mighty pretty, and the King rode hand in hand with her. Here was also my Lady Castlemaine [who] rode among the rest of the ladies: but the King took, methought, no notice of her.... She looked mighty out of humour, and had a yellow plume in her hat, which all took notice of, and yet is very handsome.... I followed them up into Whitehall and into the Queen’s presence, where all the ladies walked, talking and fiddling with their hats and feathers, and changing and trying one another’s by one another’s head and laughing.... But above all Mrs. Stewart in this dress, with her hat cocked and a red plume, with her sweet eye, little Roman nose and excellent taille, is now the greatest beauty I ever saw, I think, in my life.”

I do not propose to dwell upon the changes of fashion, because the alterations in a sleeve, or in the length of a lady’s waist, would carry us too far and would be of little profit. But there was one change in fashion which one must not pass over, because it exercised an influence upon the whole national character. This was the introduction of the peruke, perruque, or wig. Ladies began to wear wigs, presumably, as they do now, to conceal the ravages of time, and the falling off of the natural hair. Malcolm is of opinion that the wig was a natural reaction against the Roundhead rule. For the Roundheads cropped their hair and the Cavaliers wore it long in curls. Therefore, he who had a scanty supply of curls, or was bald, to escape being taken for one of the opposite camp, put on a wig; next he excited envy by the fulness and length of his curls; finally all wore wigs, and the fashion set in which lasted a hundred years, and, as regards the clergy, for nearly two hundred years. A good deal might be said for the use of a wig. It was, to begin with, an age when the heads of all the lower classes, servants and working people, were always filled with vermin—one learns that even so late as a hundred years ago it was almost impossible to keep the children of quite respectable people clean in this respect. Next, the time and trouble of having the head dressed and the curls twisted—for not even a Cavalier could always depend upon a natural curl—were saved by sending the wig to the hairdresser. Again, when everybody wore a shaven face, the adoption of the wig went far to conceal and disguise one’s age. Baldness there was none, nor any grey hairs. A man generally had two wigs; a new wig of ordinary make cost about three guineas, but one might pay a great deal more for a superior wig. “Forty guineas a year,” cries an indignant writer, “for periwigs, and but ten to a poor chaplain.” The wigs were at first an imitation of a man’s own hair in colour, with some exaggeration in length; and although cleanliness was one reason for their introduction, they had to be sent to the barbers occasionally in order to be freed from vermin. After the Plague, for a long time, nobody would buy a wig for fear of infection. The fashion was, of course, carried to ridiculous lengths; Lord Foppington, in the _Relapse_, is said to have a periwig down to his knees; he also says that a periwig should be to a man like a mask to a woman; nothing should be seen but his eyes.” The various kinds of wig belong to the eighteenth century, in which they are treated more fully.

The following are a few more scattered notes on fashion:—

Both men and women carried pocket mirrors; the women had these dangling from their girdles; the men carried them in their hands or in their pockets, and sometimes stuck them in their hats.

It was one of the affectations of the time for the gallants to go abroad with their faces half covered by their cloaks and their hats drawn down. Hence the stage custom of throwing the cloak across from the right to the left.

The coats of inferior functionaries, such as bailiffs or catchpoles, were adorned with pewter buttons.

A country gentleman’s dress consisted of Devonshire Kersey suit, coarse cloth coat, Dutch felt hat, worsted stockings, and neat leather shoes.

All craftsmen wore aprons, but these were different; the blacksmith had a leathern apron, the grocer a white apron, the vintner a blue apron, and so on. One could formerly recognise a man’s trade by his dress and appearance.

I find that this century introduced the use of the nightcap, perhaps for the sake of quiet, because, with the bawling of the watchman, the cry of the chimney-sweep, and the noise of the laundresses, who began about midnight, there was almost as much noise at night as by day.

If men disfigured themselves with wigs, the women heightened their charms, as they believed, by sticking little bits of black taffeta on their faces. The fashion began in the Commonwealth, when ladies began to cut out stars, circles, and even figures representing a coach and four, and stick them upon their cheek, forehead, or chin:—

“Her patches are of every cut, For pimples and for scars; Here’s all the wandering planets’ signs, And some of the fixed stars.”

Like the fashion of the wig, the patch lasted more than a hundred years. Indeed, it lasted even into the nineteenth century. And in 1826, a lady, speaking of a toilet-table, speaks of the patch-boxes upon it. This proves, I take it, that the patch-box still retained its position on the table, though the use of it had been abandoned. I have one of these patch-boxes; it is of silver, about the same size as a snuff-box, but a great deal deeper.

Ladies painted as well as patched. They prepared their faces for the paint with oil. The page—_The Silent Woman_—says that “my lady kisses me with her oil’d face and puts a peruke on my head.” They seem all to have worn a peruke. Mrs. Otter, according to her husband, has a peruke “like a pound of hemp, made up in shoe threads.” They understood the art of making up. “Her teeth were made on the Blackfriars, both her eyebrows in the Strand, and her hair in Silver Street.... She takes herself asunder when she goes to bed into some twenty boxes; and about noon next day is put together again like a great German clock.”

In walking with a lady the custom was to take her fan and play with it for her. A fine gentleman displayed his fashion and his grace by the way he handled and waved the fan.

There was a pretty custom observed by gentlefolk on the 1st of May. The maypoles had been restored, but the old dances were well-nigh forgotten. The people on this day flocked to Hyde Park; but gentlemen escorted their mistresses into the country to bid welcome to the spring. There was always a collation in the seventeenth century to mark the day or the function, whichever it was.

Kissing was as common as shaking hands. When a man was introduced to a lady he kissed her; men kissed each other. In 1667 Pepys, having made a successful speech, was complimented by Mr. Montagu, who kissed him. It appears that husbands and lovers were not always pleased at this indiscriminate kissing, and there are instances where the ladies rebelled against the custom.

The day of St. Valentine was universally observed. Everybody chose, or received by lot, a valentine. On the eve of the 14th of February the bachelors and maidens assembled together in equal companies; each wrote his or her name on a paper. These were rolled up; the men drew the girls’ names, the girls the men’s. This arrangement gave an opening for some choice, because everybody had the girl whose name he had drawn and the girl who had drawn his name. These matters settled, and every man having his Valentine chosen or assigned, it became the duty of the man to make a present to the girl and to treat her as if she was indeed his mistress. In Pepys’s _Diary_, however, it is apparent that married men might have their wives for Valentines and that children might have married women. Pepys had his wife for a Valentine two years running. In the first he gave her £5, in the second a Turkey stone set with diamonds. Poets wrote Valentines. Thus in 1629 J. Howell wrote the following pretty lines to his Valentine:—

“Could I charm the Queen of Love To lend a quill of her white Dove; Or one of Cupid’s pointed wings Dipt in the fair Castalian Springs; Then would I write the all-divine Perfections of my Valentine.

As ’mongst all Flow’rs the Rose excels, As amber ’mongst the fragrant’st smells, As ’mongst all Minerals the Gold, As marble ’mongst the finest Mould, As Diamonds ’mongst jewels bright, As Cynthia ’mongst the lesser Lights; So ’mongst the Northern Beauties shine, So far excels my Valentine.

In Rome and Naples I did view Faces of Celestial Hue; Venetian Dames I have seen many (I only saw them, touch’d not any), Of Spanish Beauties, Dutch and French, I have beheld the Quintessence; Yet I saw none that could outshine Or parallel my Valentine.

The Italians they are coy and quaint, But they grosly daub and paint; The Spanish Kind are apt to please, But sav’ring of the same Disease; Of Dutch and French some few are comely, The French are light, the Dutch are homely. Let Tagus, Po, and Loire and Rhine, Then veil unto my Valentine.

Here may be seen pure white and red, Not by feign’s Art, but Nature wed, No simp’ring Smiles, no mimic Face, Affecture Gesture, or forc’d Grace, A fair smooth front, free from least Wrinkle, Her eyes (on me) like Stars do twinkle; Thus all perfections do combine To beautify my Valentine.”

The May Day observances, revived with the Restoration, were duly honoured. The milkmaids and the sweeps paraded the streets with music. The old custom of going out into the fields to gather May dew was kept up, though one imagines in a formal way only, and not to let good old customs decay. On New Year’s Day presents were made by inferiors to their patrons, by tenants to the nobles, by the nobles to the King.

The observance of Queen Elizabeth’s Day is described in the following letter from John Verney to Sir Ralph Verney, November 20, 1679:—

“Monday being Queen Elizabeth’s coronation day there were vast quantities of bonfires about town, but chief of all was at Temple Bar, over which gate Queen Elizabeth was deck’t up with a Magna Charta and the Protestant religion; there was a devil in a pageant and 4 boys in surplices under him, 6 Jesuits, 4 bishops, 4 archbishops, 2 patriarchs of Jerusalem and Constantinople, several cardinals, besides Franciscans, black and grey friars; there was also a great crucifix, wax candles, and a bell, and 200 porters hired at 2s. a man to carry lights along with the show, which came from the Green Yard in great order thro’ Moor (or Cripple) Gate, and so along London Wall, then up Houndsditch, and so on again at Aldgate, from whence to Temple Bar, where they were disrobed and burnt. ’Tis believed there were above 100,000 spectators, and most say the King was at Townes’ the goldsmith’s; £10 was an ordinary price for a room at Temple Bar” (Walker’s MS. xi. 186).

People of position still maintained a great many servants. In 1634 Evelyn’s father was appointed Sheriff of Surrey and Sussex. He had 116 servants in livery, every one in green satin doublets. Several gentlemen and persons of quality waited on him in the same habit. He says, however, that thirty or forty was the usual retinue of a Sheriff. Pepys, in his modest house in the City, apparently had a cook and housemaid, a lady’s maid, and a “girl,” or general assistant. The ’prentice in the tradesman’s house was as we have seen a servant, and did some of the housework. A footman followed a lady who went out into the streets in the daytime; a ’prentice escorted his mistress when she went out to a card party in the evening, or when she went to an evening lecture at her parish church.

When a man was rich enough to set up his coach, part of the furniture was a pair of running footmen; these ran before the coach. The velocity of the machine did not make this exercise a great strain upon their activity; they stopped at the next stage and proclaimed the coming of the great man. Generally they were dressed in white; they carried a cane with a hollow ball at the end, in which was an orange or a lemon to refresh themselves with. When the roads became smooth and the carriages began to run much faster, the running footmen were gradually abolished. They remained, however, till late in the eighteenth century. Howell sends a running footman to a friend. He says:—

“You writ to me lately for a Footman, and I think this Bearer will fit you; I know he can run well, for he hath run away twice from me, but he knew the way back again. Yet tho’ he had a running head as well as running heels (and who will expect a footman to be a stay’s man?) I would not part with him were I not to go post to the north. There be some things in him that answer for his Waggeries; he will come when you call him, go when you bid him, and shut the door after him; he is faithful and stout and a lover of his master; he is a great enemy to all dogs if they bark at him in his running, for I have seen him confront a huge mastiff and knock him down; when you go a country journey, or have him with you a hunting, you must spirit him with liquor.”

The City tradesman kept one kitchenmaid. His wife and daughters made the pies and cakes, and the preserves and the pickles. We have seen the work put upon the apprentice already (p. 186).