fashionable. The most of them have a broad waist-belt, and very deep
borders to their skirts; they have broad, turned-back cuffs, often of
black. These cuffs, on being turned down over the hand, show the same
colour as the dress; they are, in fact, the old long cuff over the
fingers turned back for comfort.
It is by the variety of openings at the necks of the gowns that you
may get change. First, let me take the most ordinary--that is, an
opening of a V shape from shoulders to waist, the foot of the V at the
waist, the points on the top of the shoulders at the join of the arm.
Across this opening is seen, cut square and coming up to the base of
the bosom, the under-gown. You may now proceed to vary this by lacing
the V across, but not drawing it together, by having the V fur-edged,
or made to turn over in a collar of black upon light material, or its
opposite, by showing a vest of stuff other than that of the
under-gown, which will then make a variety of colour when the skirt is
held up over the arm. Or you may have your dress so cut that it is
high in front and square cut, and over this you may sew a false V
collar wither to or above the waist. I have said that the whole
neck-opening may be covered by a gorget of cloth, which was pinned up
to the steeple hat, or by a hood of thin stuff or silk, the cape of
which was tucked into the dress.
[Illustration: {A woman of the time of Edward IV.}]
The lady, I think, is now complete down to her long-pointed shoes, her
necklet of stones or gold chain, with cross or heraldic pendant, and
it remains to show that the countrywoman dressed very plainly, in a
decent-fitting dress, with her waist in its proper place, her skirt
full, the sleeves of her dress turned back like my lady's, her head
wrapped in a wimple or warmed in a hood, her feet in plain,
foot-shaped shoes, and wooden clogs strapped on to them for outdoor
use or kitchen work; in fact, she looked much like any old body to-day
who has lived in a village, except that the wimple and the hood then
worn are out of place to-day, more's the pity!
No doubt ladies were just human in those days, and fussed and
frittered over an inch or so of hennin, or a yard or two of train. One
cut her dress too low to please the others, and another wore her
horned head-dress despite the dictates of Fashion, which said, 'Away
with horns, and into steeples.' No doubt the tall hennins, with their
floating veils, looked like black masts with silken sails, and the
ladies like a crowd of shipping, with velvet trains for waves about
their feet; no doubt the steeples swayed and the silks rustled when
the heads turned to look at the fine men in the days when
hump-shouldered Richard was a dandy.
EDWARD THE FIFTH
Reigned two months: April and June, 1487.
RICHARD THE THIRD
Reigned two years: 1483-1485.
Born 1450. Married, 1473, Anne Neville.
THE MEN
[Illustration: {Three men of the time of Edward V. and Richard III.}]
Fashion's pulse beat very weak in the spring of 1483. More attune to
the pipes of Fate were the black cloaks of conspirators and a measured
tread of soft-shoed feet than lute and dance of airy millinery. The
axe of the executioner soiled many white shirts, and dreadful
forebodings fluttered the dovecots of high-hennined ladies.
The old order was dying; Medievalism, which made a last spluttering
flame in the next reign, was now burnt low, and was saving for that
last effort. When Richard married Anne Neville, in the same year was
Raphael born in Italy; literature was beginning, thought was
beginning; many of the great spirits of the Renaissance were alive and
working in Italy; the very trend of clothes showed something vaguely
different, something which shows, however, that the foundations of the
world were being shaken--so shaken that men and women, coming out of
the gloom of the fourteenth century through the half-light of the
fifteenth, saw the first signs of a new day, the first show of spring,
and, with a perversity or an eagerness to meet the coming day, they
began to change their clothes.
It is in this reign of Richard III. that we get, for the men, a hint
of the peculiar magnificence of the first years of the sixteenth
century; we get the first flush of those wonderful patterns which are
used by Memline and Holbein, those variations of the pine-apple
pattern, and of that peculiar convention which is traceable in the
outline of the Tudor rose.
The men, at first sight, do not appear very different to the men of
Edward IV.'s time; they have the long hair, the general clean-shaven
faces, open-breasted tunics, and full-pleated skirts. But, as a rule,
the man, peculiar to his time, the clothes-post of his age, has
discarded the tall peaked hat, and is almost always dressed in the
black velvet, stiff-brimmed hat. The pleated skirt to his tunic has
grown longer, and his purse has grown larger; the sleeves are tighter,
and the old tunic with the split, hanging sleeves has grown fuller,
longer, and has become an overcoat, being now open all the way down.
You will see that the neck of the tunic is cut very low, and that you
may see above it, above the black velvet with which it is so often
bound, the rich colour or fine material of an undergarment, a sort of
waistcoat, and yet again above that the straight top of a
finely-pleated white shirt. Sometimes the sleeves of the tunic will be
wide, and when the arm is flung up in gesticulation, the baggy white
shirt, tight-buttoned at the wrist, will show. Instead of the overcoat
with the hanging sleeves, you will find a very plain-cut overcoat,
with sleeves comfortably wide, and with little plain lapels to the
collar. It is cut wide enough in the back to allow for the spread of
the tunic. Black velvet is becoming a very fashionable trimming, and
will be seen as a border or as under-vest to show between the shirt
and the tunic. No clothes of the last reign will be incongruous in
this; the very short tunics which expose the cod-piece, the
split-sleeve tunic, all the variations, I have described. Judges walk
about, looking like gentlemen of the time of Richard II.: a judge
wears a long loose gown, with wide sleeves, from out of which appear
the sleeves of his under-tunic, buttoned from elbow to wrist; he wears
a cloak with a hood, the cloak split up the right side, and fastened
by three buttons upon the right shoulder. A doctor is in very plain,
ample gown, with a cape over his shoulders and a small round cap on
his head. His gown is not bound at the waist.
[Illustration: A MAN OF THE TIME OF RICHARD III. (1483-1485)
Here one sees the first of the broad-toed shoes and the birth of the
Tudor costume--the full pleated skirts and the prominence of white
shirt.]
The blunt shoes have come into fashion, and with this the old
long-peaked shoe dies for ever. Common-sense will show you that the
gentlemen who had leisure to hunt in these times did not wear their
most foppish garments, that the tunics were plain, the boots high, the
cloaks of strong material. They wore a hunting-hat, with a long
peak over the eyes and a little peak over the neck at the back; a
broad band passed under the chin, and, buttoning on to either side of
the hat, kept it in place. The peasant wore a loose tunic, often
open-breasted and laced across; he had a belt about his waist, a hood
over his head, and often a broad-brimmed Noah's Ark hat over the hood;
his slops, or loose trousers, were tied below the knee and at the
ankles. A shepherd would stick his pipe in his belt, so that he might
march before his flock, piping them into the fold.
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Edward V. and Richard III.;
a hat}]
To sum up, you must picture a man in a dress of Edward IV.'s time,
modified, or, rather, expanded or expanding into the costume of Henry
VII.'s time--a reign, in fact, which hardly has a distinct costume to
itself--that is, for the men--but has a hand stretched out to two
centuries, the fifteenth and the sixteenth; yet, if I have shown the
man to you as I myself can see him, he is different from his father in
1461, and will change a great deal before 1500.
THE WOMEN
[Illustration: {A woman of the time of Edward V. and Richard III.}]
Here we are at the end of an epoch, at the close of a costume period,
at one of those curious final dates in a history of clothes which says
that within a year or so the women of one time will look hopelessly
old-fashioned and queer to the modern woman. Except for the peculiar
sponge-bag turban, which had a few years of life in it, the woman in
Henry VII.'s reign would look back at this time and smile, and the
young woman would laugh at the old ideas of beauty. The River of Time
runs under many bridges, and it would seem that the arches were low to
the Bridge of Fashion in 1483, and the steeple hat was lowered to
prevent contact with them. The correct angle of forty-five degrees
changed into a right angle, the steeple hat, the hennin, came toppling
down, and an embroidered bonnet, perched right on the back of the
head, came into vogue. It is this bonnet which gives, from our point
of view, distinction to the reign. It was a definite fashion, a
distinct halt. It had travelled along the years of the fourteenth
century, from the wimple and the horns, and the stiff turbans, and the
boxes of stiffened cloth of gold; it had languished in the caul and
blossomed in the huge wimple-covered horns; it had shot up in the
hennin; and now it gave, as its last transformation, this bonnet at
the back of the head, with the stiff wimple stretched upon wires. Soon
was to come the diamond-shaped head-dress, and after that the birth of
hair as a beauty.
In this case the hair was drawn as tightly as possible away from the
forehead, and at the forehead the smaller hairs were plucked away;
even eyebrows were a little out of fashion. Then this cylindrical
bonnet was placed at the back of the head, with its wings of thin
linen stiffly sewn or propped on wires. These wires were generally of
a V shape, the V point at the forehead. On some occasions two straight
wires came out on either side of the face in addition to the V, and so
made two wings on either side of the face and two wings over the back
of the head. It is more easy to describe through means of the
drawings, and the reader will soon see what bend to give to the wires
in order that the wings may be properly held out.
Beyond this head-dress there was very little alteration in the lady's
dress since the previous reign. The skirts were full; the waist was
high, but not absurdly so; the band round the dress was broad; the
sleeves were tight; and the cuffs, often of fur, were folded back to a
good depth.
The neck opening of the dress varied, as did that of the previous
reign, but whereas the most fashionable opening was then from neck to
waist, this reign gave more liking to a higher corsage, over the top
of which a narrow piece of stuff showed, often of black velvet. We may
safely assume that the ladies followed the men in the matter of broad
shoes. For a time the old fashion of the long-tongued belt came in,
and we see instances of such belts being worn with the tongue reaching
nearly to the feet, tipped with a metal ornament.
[Illustration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF RICHARD III. (1483-1485)
The great erection on her head is made of thin linen stretched upon
wires; through this one may see her jewelled cap.]
Not until night did these ladies discard their winged head erections;
not until the streets were dark, and the brass basins swinging from
the barbers' poles shone but dimly, and the tailors no longer
sat, cross-legged, on the benches in their shop-fronts--then might my
lady uncover her head and talk, in company with my lord, over the
strange new stories of Prester John and of the Wandering Jew; then, at
her proper time, she will go to her rest and sleep soundly beneath her
embroidered quilt, under the protection of the saints whose pictures
she has sewn into the corners of it. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
bless the bed that she lies on.
So we come to an end of a second series of dates, from the First
Edward to the Third Richard, and we leave them to come to the Tudors
and their follies and fantastics; we leave an age that is quaint,
rich, and yet fairly simple, to come to an age of padded hips and
farthingales, monstrous ruffs, knee-breeks, rag-stuffed trunks, and
high-heeled shoes.
With the drawings and text you should be able to people a vast world
of figures, dating from the middle of the thirteenth century, 1272, to
nearly the end of the fifteenth, 1485, and if you allow ordinary
horse-sense to have play, you will be able to people your world with
correctly-dressed figures in the true inspiration of their time. You
cannot disassociate the man from his tailor; his clothes must appeal
to you, historically and soulfully, as an outward and visible sign to
the graces and vices of his age and times.
HENRY THE SEVENTH
Reigned 24 years: 1485-1509.
Born, 1456. Married, 1486, Elizabeth of York.
THE MEN
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Henry VII.; hose}]
Everyone has felt that curious faint aroma, that sensation of lifting,
which proclaims the first day of Spring and the burial of Winter.
Although nothing tangible has taken place, there is in the atmosphere
a full-charged suggestion of promise, of green-sickness; there is a
quickening of the pulse, a thrumming of the heart, and many an eager,
quick glance around for the first buds of the new order of things.
England's winter was buried on Bosworth Field: England's spring, as
if by magic, commenced with Henry's entry into London.
The first picture of the reign shows the mayor, the sheriffs, and the
aldermen, clothed in violet, waiting at Shoreditch for the coming of
the victor. The same day shows Henry in St. Paul's, hearing a _Te
Deum_; in the Cathedral church, packed to its limit, three new banners
waved, one bearing a figure of St. George, another a dragon of red on
white and green sarcenet, and the third showed a dun cow on yellow
tarterne.
Spring, of course, does not, except in a poetic sense, burst forth in
a day, there are long months of preparation, hints, signs in the air,
new notes from the throats of birds.
The springtime of a country takes more than the preparation of months.
Nine years before Henry came to the throne Caxton was learning to
print in the little room of Collard Mansion--he was to print his
'Facts of Arms,' joyous tales and pleasant histories of chivalry, by
especial desire of Henry himself.
Later still, towards the end of the reign, the first book of travel in
the West began to go from hand to hand--it was written by Amerigo
Vespucci, cousin to La Bella Simonetta.
Great thoughts were abroad, new ideas were constantly under
discussion, the Arts rose to the occasion and put forth flowers of
beauty on many stems long supposed to be dead or dormant and incapable
of improvement. It was the great age of individual English expression
in every form but that of literature and painting, both these arts
being but in their cradles; Chaucer and Gower and Langland had
written, but they lay in their graves long before new great minds
arose.
The clouds of the Middle Ages were dispersed, and the sun shone.
The costume was at once dignified and magnificent--not that one can
call the little coats great ideals of dignity, but even they, by their
richness and by the splendour of the persons they adorned, come into
the category.
The long gowns of both men and women were rich beyond words in colour,
texture, and design, they were imposing, exact, and gorgeous. Upon a
fine day the streets must have glittered when a gentleman or lady
passed by.
The fashions of the time have survived for us in the Court cards:
take the jacks, knaves, valets--call them as you will, and you will
see the costume of this reign but slightly modified into a design, the
cards of to-day and the cards of that day are almost identical. Some
years ago the modification was less noticeable; I can remember playing
Pope Joan with cards printed with full-length figures, just as the
illustrations to 'Alice in Wonderland' are drawn. In the knave you
will see the peculiar square hat which came in at this time, and the
petti-cote, the long coat, the big sleeve, and the broad-toed shoes.
You will see the long hair, undressed and flowing over the shoulders
(the professional classes, as the lawyer, cut their hair close, so
also did the peasant). Over this flowing hair a dandy would wear a
little cap with a narrow, rolled-up brim, and over this, on occasions,
an enormous hat of felt, ornamented with a prodigious quantity of
feathers.
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Henry VII.}]
There was, indeed, quite a choice of hats: the berretino--a square hat
pinched in at the corners; many round hats, some with a high, tight
brim, some with the least brim possible; into these brims, or
into a band round the hat, one might stick feathers or pin a brooch.
[Illustration: A MAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY VII. (1485-1509)]
The chaperon, before described, was still worn by Garter Knights at
times, and by official, legal, civic, and college persons.
What a choice of coats the gentlemen had, and still might be in the
fashion! Most common among these was the long coat like a
dressing-gown, hanging upon the ground all round, with a wide collar,
square behind, and turning back in the front down to the waist--this
was the general shape of the collar, and you may vary it on this idea
in every way: turn it back and show the stuff to the feet, close it up
nearly to the neck, cut it off completely. Now for the sleeves of such
a coat. I have shown in the illustrations many varieties, the most
common was the wide sleeve, narrow at the shoulder, and hanging over
the hand in folds. The slashes, which show the white shirt, are usual,
and of every order. The shirt itself was often ornamented with fine
gathers and fancy stitching, and was gathered about the neck by a
ribbon. As the years went on it is easy to see that the shirt was worn
nearer to the neck, the gathers became higher and higher, became
more ornamented, and finally rose, in all extravagant finery, to
behind the ears--and we have the Elizabethan ruff.
[Illustration: COATS--HATS]
Next to the shirt a waistcoat, or stomacher, of the most gorgeous
patterned stuff, laced across the breast sometimes, more often fastened
behind. This reached to the waist where it met long hose of every scheme
of colour--striped, dotted, divided in bands--everything--displaying the
indelicate but universal pouch in front, tied with coloured ribbons.
On the feet, shoes of all materials, from cloth and velvet to leather
beautifully worked, and of the most absurd length; these also were
slashed with puffs of white stuff. Many of these shoes were but a sole
and a toe, and were tied on by thongs passing through the sole.
Of course the long coat would not alone satisfy the dandy, but he must
needs cut it off into a short jacket, or petti-cote, and leave it open
to better display his marvellous vest. Here we have the origin of the
use of the word 'petticoat'--now wrongly applied; in Scotland, to this
day, a woman's skirts are called her 'coats.'
About the waists of these coats was a short sash, or a girdle, from
which hung a very elaborate purse, or a dagger.
Stick in hand, jewel in your hat, dandy--extravagant, exquisite dandy!
All ages know you, from the day you choose your covering of leaves
with care, to the hour of your white duck motoring-suit: a very bird
of a man, rejoicing in your plumage, a very human ass, a very narrow
individual, you stride, strut, simper through the story of the
universe, a perfect monument of the Fall of Man, a gorgeous symbol of
the decay of manhood. In this our Henry's reign, your hair busheth
pleasantly, and is kembed prettily over the ear, where it glimmers as
gold i' the sun--pretty fellow--Lord! how your feathered bonnet
becomes you, and your satin stomacher is brave over a padded chest.
Your white hands, freed from any nasty brawls and clean of any form of
work, lie in their embroidered gloves. Your pride forbids the carriage
of a sword, which is borne behind you--much use may it be!--by a
mincing fellow in your dainty livery. And if--oh, rare disguise!--your
coiffure hides a noble brow, or your little, neat-rimmed coif a clever
head, less honour be to you who dress your limbs to imitate the
peacock, and hide your mind beneath the weight of scented clothes.
[Illustration: SLEEVES]
In the illustrations to this chapter and the next, my drawings are
collected and redrawn in my scheme from works so beautiful and highly
finished that every student should go to see them for himself at the
British Museum. My drawings, I hope, make it quite clear what was worn
in the end of the fifteenth century and the first nine years of the
sixteenth, and anyone with a slight knowledge of pictures will be able
to supply themselves with a large amount of extra matter. I would
recommend MS. Roy 16, F. 2; MS. Roy 19, C. 8; and especially Harleian
MS. 4425.
Of the lower classes, also, these books show quite a number. There are
beggars and peasants, whose dress was simply old-fashioned and very
plain; they wore the broad shoes and leather belts and short coats,
worsted hose, and cloaks of fair cloth. 'Poverty,' the old woman with
the spoon in her hat, is a good example of the poor of the time.
When one knows the wealth of material of the time, and has seen the
wonder of the stuffs, one knows that within certain lines imagination
may have full scope. Stuffs of silk, embroidered with coupled birds
and branches, and flowers following out a prescribed line, the
embroideries edged and sewn with gold thread; velvet on velvet,
short-napped fustian, damasked stuffs and diapered stuffs--what
pictures on canvas, or on the stage, may be made; what marvels of
colour walked about the streets in those days! It was to the eye an
age of elaborate patterns--mostly large--and all this broken colour
and glitter of gold thread must have made the streets gay indeed.
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Henry VII.}]
Imagine, shall we say, Corfe Castle on a day when a party of ladies
and gentlemen assembled to 'course a stagge,' when the huntsmen, in
green, gathered in the outer ward, and the grooms, in fine coloured
liveries, held the gaily-decked horses; then, from the walls lined
with archers, would come the blast of the horn, and out would walk my
lord and my lady, with knights, and squires, and ladies, and gallants,
over the bridge across the castle ditch, between the round towers.
Behind them the dungeon tower, and the great gray mass of the
keep--all a fitting and impressive background to their bravery.
The gentlemen, in long coats of all wonderful colours and devices,
with little hats, jewelled and feathered, with boots to the knee of
soft leather, turned back in colours at the top; on their left hands
the thick hawking glove on which, jessed and hooded, sits the
hawk--for some who will not go with the hounds will fly the hawk on
the Isle of Purbeck.
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Henry VII.}]
Below, in the town over the moat, a crowd is gathered to see them
off--merchants in grave colours, and coats turned back with fur, their
ink-horns slung at their waists, with pens and dagger and purse;
beggars; pilgrims, from over seas, landed at Poole Harbour, in long
gowns, worn with penitence and dusty travels, shells in their hats,
staffs in their hands; wide-eyed children in smocks; butchers in blue;
men of all guilds and women of all classes.
The drawbridge is down, the portcullis up, and the party, gleaming
like a bed of flowers in their multi-coloured robes, pass over the
bridge, through the town, and into the valley.
The sun goes in and leaves the grim castle, gray and solemn, standing
out against the green of the hills....
And of Henry himself, the great Tudor, greater, more farseeing than
the eighth Henry, a man who so dominates the age, and fills it with
his spirit, that no mental picture is complete without him. His fine,
humorous face, the quizzical eye, the firm mouth, showing his
character. The great lover of art, of English art, soon to be
pulverized by pseudo-classic influences; the man who pulled down the
chapel at the west end of Westminster Abbey with the house by
it--Chaucer's house--to make way for that superb triumph of ornate
building, his chapel, beside which the mathematical squares and angles
of classic buildings show as would boxes of bricks by a gorgeous
flower.