those whom he kept to their work, and whom he despoiled of their
ill-gotten gains. He borrowed, but he paid back in full; he came into
a disordered, distressed kingdom, ruled it by fear--as had to be done
in those days--and left it a kingdom ready for the fruits of his
ordered works--to the fleshy beast who so nearly ruined the country.
What remained, indeed, was the result of his father's genius.
THE WOMEN
Take up a pack of cards and look at the queen. You may see the
extraordinary head-gear as worn by ladies at the end of the fifteenth
century and in the first years of the sixteenth, worn in a modified
form all through the next reign, after which that description of
head-dress vanished for ever, its place to be taken by caps, hats, and
bonnets.
The richest of these head-dresses were made of a black silk or some
such black material, the top stiffened to the shape of a sloping
house-roof, the edges falling by the face on either side--made stiff,
so as to stand parallel--these were sewn with gold and pearls on
colour or white. The end of the hood hung over the shoulders and down
the back; this was surmounted by a stole of stiffened material, also
richly sewn with jewels, and the whole pinned on to a close-fitting
cap of a different colour, the edge of which showed above the
forehead.
[Illustration: {Seven head-dresses for women; side and front view
of a shoe}]
The more moderate head-dress was of black again, but in shape nearly
square, and slit at the sides to enable it to hang more easily over
the shoulders. It was placed over a coif, often of white linen or of
black material, was turned over from the forehead, folded, and pinned
back; often it was edged with gold.
On either side of the hood were hanging ornamental metal-tipped tags
to tie back the hood from the shoulders, and this became, in
time--that is, at the end of the reign--the ordinary manner of wearing
them, till they were finally made up so.
The ordinary head-dress was of white linen, crimped or embroidered in
white, made in a piece to hang over the shoulders and down the back,
folded back and stiffened in front to that peculiar triangular shape
in fashion; this was worn by the older women over a white hood.
The plain coif, or close-fitting linen cap, was the most general wear
for the poor and middle classes.
The hair was worn long and naturally over the shoulders by young
girls, and plainly parted in the centre and dressed close to the head
by women wearing the large head-dress.
Another form of head-dress, less common, was the turban--a loose bag
of silk, gold and pearl embroidered, fitting over the hair and
forehead tightly, and loose above.
The gowns of the women were very simply cut, having either a long
train or no train at all, these last cut to show the under-skirt of
some fine material, the bodice of which showed above the over gown at
the shoulders. The ladies who wore the long gown generally had it
lined with some fine fur, and to prevent this dragging in the mud, as
also to show the elegance of their furs, they fastened the train to a
button or brooch placed at the back of the waistband. This, in time,
developed into the looped skirts of Elizabethan times.
[Illustration: {Three women of the time of Henry VII.}]
The bodice of the gown was square cut and not very low, having an
ornamental border of fur, embroidery, or other rich coloured material
sewn on to it. This border went sometimes round the shoulders and
down the front of the dress to below the knees. Above the bodice was
nearly always seen the V-shaped opening of the under petticoat bodice,
and across and above that, the white embroidered or crimped chemise.
The sleeves were as the men's--tight all the way down from the
shoulder to the wrist, the cuffs coming well over the first joints of
the fingers (sometimes these cuffs are turned back to show elaborate
linings), or they were made tight at the shoulder and gradually looser
until they became very full over the lower arm, edged or lined with
fur or soft silk, or loose and baggy all the way from shoulder to
hand.
[Illustration: {A woman of the time of Henry VII.}]
At this time Bruges became world-famed for her silken texture; her
satins were used in England for church garments and other clothes. The
damask silks were greatly in use, and were nearly always covered with
the peculiar semi-Spanish pattern, the base of which was some
contortion of the pomegranate. Some of these patterns were small and
wonderfully fine, depending on their wealth of detail for their
magnificent appearance, others were huge, so that but few repeats of
the design appeared on the dress. Block-printed linens were also in
use, and the samples in South Kensington will show how beautiful and
artistic they were, for all their simple design. As Bruges supplied us
with silks, satins, and velvets, the last also beautifully damasked,
Ypres sent her linen to us, and the whole of Flanders sent us painters
and illuminators who worked in England at the last of the great
illuminated books, but this art died as printing and illustrating by
wood-blocks came in to take its place.
Nearly every lady had her own common linen, and often other stuffs,
woven in her own house, and the long winter evenings were great times
for the sewing chambers, where the lady and her maids sat at the
looms. To-day one may see in Bruges the women at the cottage doors
busy over their lace-making, and the English women by the sea making
nets--so in those times was every woman at her cottage door making
coarse linens and other stuffs to earn her daily bread, while my lady
was sitting in her chamber weaving, or embroidering a bearing cloth
for her child against her time.
However, the years of the Wars of the Roses had had their effect on
every kind of English work, and as the most elegant books were painted
and written by Flemings, as the finest linen came from Ypres, the best
silks and velvets from Bruges, the great masters of painting from
Florence, Germany, and Belgium, so also the elaborate and wonderful
embroidery, for which we had been so famous, died away, and English
work was but coarse at the best, until, in the early sixteen hundreds,
the new style came into use of raising figures some height above the
ground-work of the design, and the rich embroidery of the Stuart times
revived this art.
I have shown that this age was the age of fine patterns, as some ages
are ages of quaint cut, and some of jewel-laden dresses, and some of
dainty needlework.
A few ladies wore their gowns open to the waist to show the stomacher,
as the men did, and open behind to the waist, laced across, the waist
being embraced by a girdle of the shape so long in use, with long ends
and metal ornaments; the girdle held the purse of the lady.
[Illustration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY VII. (1485-1509)
Notice the diamond-shaped head-dress, the wide, fur-edged gown with
its full sleeves.]
The illustrations given with this chapter show very completely the
costume of this time, and, except in cases of royal persons or very
gorgeously apparelled ladies, they are complete enough to need no
description.
The shoes, it will be seen, are very broad at the toes, with thick
soles, sometimes made much in the manner of sandals--that is, with
only a toecap, the rest flat, to be tied on by strings.
As this work is entirely for use, it may be said, that artists who
have costumes made for them, and costumiers who make for the stage,
hardly ever allow enough material for the gowns worn by men and women
in this and other reigns, where the heaviness and richness of the
folds was the great keynote. To make a gown, of such a kind as these
good ladies wore, one needs, at least, twelve yards of material,
fifty-two inches wide, to give the right appearance. It is possible to
acquire at many of the best shops nowadays actual copies of
embroidered stuffs, velvets, and damask silks of this time, and of
stuffs up to Early Victorian patterns, and this makes it easy for
painters to procure what, in other days, they were forced to invent.
Many artists have their costumes made of Bolton sheeting, on to which
they stencil the patterns they wish to use--this is not a bad thing to
do, as sheeting is not dear and it falls into beautiful folds.
The older ladies and widows of this time nearly all dressed in very
simple, almost conventual garments, many of them wearing the 'barbe'
of pleated linen, which covered the lower part of the face and the
chin--a sort of linen beard--it reached to the breast, and is still
worn by some religious orders of women.
Badges were still much in use, and the servants always wore some form
of badge on their left sleeve--either merely the colours of their
masters, or a small silver, or other metal, shield. Thus, the badge
worn by the servants of Henry VII. would be either a greyhound, a
crowned hawthorn bush, a red dragon, a portcullis, or the red and
white roses joined together. The last two were used by all the Tudors,
and the red rose and the portcullis are still used. From these badges
we get the signs of many of our inns, either started by servants, who
used their master's badge for a device, or because the inn lay on a
certain property the lord of which carried chequers, or a red dragon,
or a tiger's head.
I mentioned the silks of Bruges and her velvets without giving enough
prominence to the fine velvets of Florence, a sample of which, a cope,
once used in Westminster Abbey, is preserved at Stonyhurst College; it
was left by Henry VII. to 'Our Monastery of Westminster,' and is of
beautiful design--a gold ground, covered with boughs and leaves raised
in soft velvet pile of ruby colour, through which little loops of gold
thread appear.
I imagine Elizabeth of York, Queen to Henry VII., of the subtle
countenance--gentle Elizabeth, who died in child-birth--proceeding
through London, from the Tower to Westminster, to her coronation; the
streets cleansed and the houses hung with tapestry, arras and gold
cloth, the fine-coloured dresses of the crowd, the armoured soldiers,
all the rich estate of the company about her, and the fine trappings
of the horses. Our Queen went to her coronation with some Italian
masts, paper flowers, and some hundreds of thousands of yards of
bunting and cheap flags; the people mostly in sombre clothes; the
soldiers in ugly red, stiff coats, were the only colour of note
passing down Whitehall, past the hideous green stuck with frozen
Members of Parliament, to the grand, wonderful Abbey, which has seen
so many Queens crowned.
HENRY THE EIGHTH
Reigned thirty-eight years: 1509-1547.
Born, 1491. Married, 1509, Katherine of Aragon; 1532,
Anne Boleyn; 1536, Jane Seymour; 1540, Anne of Cleves;
1540, Katherine Howard; 1548, Katherine Parr.
THE MEN
VERSES BY HENRY THE EIGHTH IN PRAISE OF CONSTANCY
'As the holy grouth grene with ivie all alone
Whose flowerys cannot be seen and grene wode levys be gone,
Now unto my lady, promyse to her I make
From all other only to her I me betake.
Adew myne owne ladye, adew my specyall
Who hath my hart trewly, be sure, and ever shall.'
So, with songs and music of his own composition, comes the richest man
in Europe to the throne of England. Gay, brave, tall, full of conceit
in his own strength, Henry, a king, a Tudor, a handsome man, abounding
in excellence of craft and art, the inheritance from his father and
mother, figures in our pageant a veritable symbol of the Renaissance
in England.
He had, in common with the marvellous characters of that Springtime of
History, the quick intelligence and all the personal charm that the
age brought forth in abundance. In his reign the accumulated mass of
brain all over the world budded and flowered; the time gave to us a
succession of the most remarkable people in any historical period, and
it is one of the triumphs of false reasoning to prove this, in
England, to have been the result of the separation from the Catholic
Church. For centuries the Church had organized and prepared the ground
in which this tree of the world's knowledge was planted, had pruned,
cut back, nursed the tree, until gradually it flowered, its branches
spread over Christian Europe, and when the flowering branch hanging
over England gave forth its first-fruits, those men who ate of the
fruit and benefited by the shade were the first to quarrel with the
gardeners.
In these days there lived and died Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci,
Raphael, Duerer, Erasmus, Holbein, Copernicus, Luther, Rabelais, and
Michael Angelo, to mention a few men of every shade of thought, and
in this goodly time came Henry to the English throne, to leave, at his
death, instead of the firm progress of order instituted by his father,
a bankrupt country with an enormously rich Government.
You may see for the later pictures of his reign a great bloated mass
of corpulence, with running ulcers on his legs and the blood of wives
and people on his hands, striding in his well-known attitude over the
festering slums his rule had produced in London. Harry, _Grace a
Dieu_!
The mental picture from our--costume--point of view is widely
different from that of the last reign. No longer do we see hoods and
cowls, brown, gray, white, and black in the streets, no longer the
throngs of fine craftsmen, of church-carvers, gilders, embroiderers,
candle-makers, illuminators, missal-makers; all these served but to
swell the ranks of the unemployed, and caused a new problem to
England, never since solved, of the skilled poor out of work. The
hospitals were closed--that should bring a picture to your eyes--where
the streets had been thronged with the doctors of the poor and of the
rich in their habits, no monks or lay brothers were to be seen. The
sick, the blind, the insane had no home but the overhung back
alleys where the foulest diseases might accumulate and hot-beds of
vice spring up, while in the main streets Harry Tudor was carried to
his bear-baiting, a quivering mass of jewels shaking on his corrupt
body, on his thumb that wonderful diamond the Regale of France, stolen
by him from the desecrated shrine of St. Thomas a Becket.
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Henry VIII.; collar; ruff}]
[Illustration: A MAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY VIII. (1509-1547)
He wears the club-toed shoes, the white shirt embroidered in black
silk, the padded shoulders, and the flat cap by which this reign is
easily remembered.]
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Henry VIII.; breeches}]
There are two distinct classes of fashion to be seen, the German-Swiss
fashion and the English fashion, a natural evolution of the national
dress. The German fashion is that slashed, extravagant-looking
creation which we know so well from the drawings of Albert Duerer and
the more German designs of Holbein. The garments which were known as
'blistered' clothes are excessive growths on to the most extravagant
designs of the Henry VII. date. The shirt cut low in the neck, and
sewn with black embroidery; the little waistcoat ending at the waist
and cut straight across from shoulder to shoulder, tied with thongs
of leather or coloured laces to the breeches, leaving a gap between
which showed the shirt; the universal pouch on the breeches often
highly decorated and jewelled. From the line drawings you will see
that the sleeves and the breeches took every form, were of any odd
assortment of colours, were cut, puffed, and splashed all over, so
that the shirt might be pushed through the holes, looking indeed
'blistered.'
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Henry VIII.}]
The shoes were of many shapes, as I have shown, agreeing in one point
only--that the toes should be cut very broad, often, indeed, quite
square.
Short or hanging hair, both were the fashion, and little flat caps
with the rim cut at intervals, or the large flat hats of the previous
reign, covered with feathers and curiously slashed, were worn with
these costumes.
Cloaks, as you may see, were worn over the dress, and also those
overcoats shaped much like the modern dressing-gown.
It is from these 'blistered,' padded breeches that we derive the
trunks of the next reign, the slashings grown into long ribbon-like
slits, the hose puffed at the knee.
Separate pairs of sleeves were worn with the waistcoats, or with the
petti-cotes, a favourite sleeve trimming being broad velvet bands.
The invention sprang, as usual, from necessity, by vanity to custom.
In 1477 the Swiss beat and routed the Duke of Burgundy at Nantes, and
the soldiers, whose clothes were in rags, cut and tore up his silk
tents, his banners, all material they could find, and made themselves
clothes of these odd pieces--clothes still so torn and ragged that
their shirts puffed out of every hole and rent. The arrival of the
victorious army caused all the non-fighters to copy this curious freak
in clothes, and the courtiers perpetuated the event by proclaiming
blistering as the fashion.
The other and more usual fashion springs from the habit of clothes in
bygone reigns.
Let us first take the shirt A. It will be seen how, in this reign, the
tendency of the shirt was to come close about the neck. The previous
reign showed us, as a rule, a shirt cut very low in the neck, with
the hem drawn together with laces; these laces pulled more tightly
together, thus rucking the material into closer gathers, caused the
cut of the shirt to be altered and made so that the hem frilled out
round the neck--a collar, in fact. That this collar took all forms
under certain limitations will be noticed, also that thick necked
gentlemen--Henry himself must have invented this--wore the collar of
the shirt turned down and tied with strings of linen. The cuffs of the
shirt, when they showed at the wrist, were often, as was the collar,
sewn with elaborate designs in black thread or silk.
Now we take the waistcoat B. As you may see from the drawing showing
the German form of dress, this waistcoat was really a petti-cote, a
waistcoat with sleeves. This waistcoat was generally of richly
ornamented material (Henry in purple satin, embroidered with his
initials and the Tudor rose; Henry in brocade covered with posies made
in letters of fine gold bullion). The material was slashed and puffed
or plain, and dependent for its effect on the richness of its
embroidery or design of the fabric. It was worn with or without
sleeves; in most cases the sleeves were detachable.
[Illustration: {Two types of sleeve; eight hats for men}]
The coat C. This coat was made with bases like a frock, a skirted
coat, in fact; the material used was generally plain, of velvet, fine
cloth, silk, or satin. The varieties of cut were numerous, and are
shown in the drawings--open to the waist, open all the way in front,
close to the neck--every way; where the coat was open in front it
generally parted to show the bragetto, or jewelled pouch. It was a
matter for choice spirits to decide whether or no they should wear
sleeves to their coats, or show the sleeves of their waistcoats. No
doubt Madame Fashion saw to it that the changes were rung sufficiently
to make hay while the sun shone on extravagant tastes. The coat was
held at the waist with a sash of silk tied in a bow with short ends.
Towards the end of the reign, foreshadowing the Elizabethan jerkin or
jacket, the custom grew more universal of the coat with sleeves and
the high neck, the bases were cut shorter to show the full trunks, and
the waistcoat was almost entirely done away with, the collar grew in
proportion, and spread, like the tail of an angry turkey, in ruffle
and folded pleat round the man's neck.
[Illustration: A MAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY VIII. (1509-1547)
This is the extreme German-English fashion. In Germany and
Switzerland this was carried to greater lengths.]
The overcoat D is the gown of the previous reign cut, for the dandy,
into a shorter affair, reaching not far below the knee; for the
grave man it remained long, but, for all, the collar had changed to a
wide affair stretching well over the shoulders. It was made, this
collar, of such stuff as lined the cloak, maybe it was of fur, or of
satin, of silk, or of cloth of gold. The tremendous folds of these
overcoats gave to the persons in them a sense of splendour and
dignity; the short sleeves of the fashionable overcoats, puffed and
swollen, barred with rich _applique_ designs or bars of fur, reaching
only to the elbow, there to end in a hem of fur or some rich stuff,
the collar as wide as these padded shoulders, all told in effect as
garments which gave a great air of well-being and richness to their
owner.
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Henry VIII.}]
Of course, I suppose one must explain, the sleeves varied in every
way: were long, short, full, medium full, according to taste.
Sometimes the overcoats were sleeveless. Beneath these garments the
trunks were worn--loose little breeches, which, in the German style,
were bagged, puffed, rolled, and slashed in infinite varieties. Let it
be noticed that the cutting of slashes was hardly ever a straight
slit, but in the curve of an elongated S or a double S curve. Other
slashes were squared top and bottom.
[Illustration: {Three men of the time of Henry VIII.}]
All men wore tight hose, in some cases puffed at the knee; in fact,
the bagging, sagging, and slashing of hose suggested the separate
breeches or trunks of hose.
[Illustration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY VIII. (1509-1547)
A plain but rich looking dress. The peculiar head-dress has a pad of
silk in front to hold it from the forehead. The half-sleeves are
well shown.]
The shoes were very broad, and were sometimes stuffed into a mound at
the toes, were sewn with precious stones, and, also, were cut and
puffed with silk.
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Henry VIII.}]
The little flat cap will be seen in all its varieties in the drawings.
The Irish were forbidden by law to wear a shirt, smock, kerchor,
bendel, neckerchor, mocket (a handkerchor), or linen cap coloured or
dyed with saffron; or to wear in shirts or smocks above seven yards of
cloth.
To wear black genet you must be royal; to wear sable you must rank
above a viscount; to wear marten or velvet trimming you must be worth
over two hundred marks a year.
Short hair came into fashion about 1521.
[Illustration: {Three men of the time of Henry VIII. (torso only);
three types of shoe; two types of boot; a cod-piece}]
So well known is the story of Sir Philip Calthrop and John Drakes the
shoemaker of Norwich, who tried to ape the fashion, that I must here
allude to this ancestor of mine who was the first of the dandies of
note, among persons not of the royal blood. The story itself, retold
in every history of costume, is to this effect: Drakes, the
shoemaker, seeing that the county talked of Sir Philip's clothes,
ordered a gown from the same tailor. This reached the ears of Sir
Philip, who then ordered his gown to be cut as full of slashes as the
shears could make it. The ruin of cloth so staggered the shoemaker
that he vowed to keep to his own humble fashion in future. No doubt
Sir Philip's slashes were cunningly embroidered round, and the gown
made rich and sparkling with the device of seed pearls so much in use.
This man's son, also Sir Philip, married Amy, daughter of Sir William
Boleyn, of Blickling, Norfolk. She was aunt to Queen Anne Boleyn.
THE WOMEN
One cannot call to mind pictures of this time without, in the first
instance, seeing the form of Henry rise up sharply before us followed
by his company of wives. The fat, uxorious giant comes straight to the
front of the picture, he dominates the age pictorially; and, as a
fitting background, one sees the six women who were sacrificed on the
political altar to pander to his vanity. Katherine of Aragon--the fine
and noble lady--a tool of political desires, cast off after Henry had
searched his precious conscience, after eighteen years of married
life, to find that he had scruples as to the spirituality of the
marriage. Anne Boleyn, tainted with the life of the Court, a pitiful
figure in spite of all her odious crimes; how often must a ghost, in a
black satin nightdress edged with black velvet, have haunted the royal
dreams. And the rest of them, clustered round the vain king, while in
the background the great figures of the time loom hugely as they play
with the crowned puppets.