full skirts, no trains, big sleeves, and split to show the
under-gown, have the top part of the gown covering the bosom made of
a separate material, as, for instance, a gown of fine cloth will have
collar and yoke of velvet.
Women wear neat linen caps, made very plain and close to the head,
with small ear-pieces.
[Illustration: {Three men of the time of Mary}]
On the shoulders there is a fashion of wearing kerchiefs of linen or
silk, white as a rule; white, in fact, is frequently used for dresses,
both for men and women.
The custom of carrying small posies of flowers comes in, and it is
interesting to see the Queen, in her portrait by Antonio More,
carrying a bunch of violets arranged exactly as the penny bunches
sold now in our streets.
There was, in most dresses, a great profusion of gold buttons, and the
wearing of gold chains was common--in fact, a gold chain about the
neck for a man, and a gold chain girdle for a woman, were part of the
ordinary everyday dress.
[Illustration: {Two types of head-dress for women; two types of
collar}]
You will realize that to one born in the reign of Henry VIII. the
appearance of people now was very different, and, to anyone as far
away as we are now, the intervening reigns of Edward and Mary are
interesting as showing the wonderful quiet change that could take
place in those few years, and alter man's exterior from the appearance
of a playing-card, stiff, square, blob-footed, to the doublet and hose
person with a cart-wheel of a ruff, which recalls to us Elizabethan
dress.
[Illustration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF QUEEN MARY (1553-1558)
The habit of wearing flowers in the opening of the dress was
frequent at this time, was, in fact, begun about this reign. One can
easily see in this dress the ground-work of the Elizabethan fashion,
the earliest of which was an exaggeration of this costume.]
ELIZABETH
Reigned 45 years: 1558-1603.
THE MEN
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Elizabeth}]
Here we are in the middle of great discoveries with adventurers, with
Calvin and Michael Angelo, living and dying, and Galileo and
Shakespeare seeing light--in the very centre and heart of these
things, and we and they discussing the relations of the law to linen.
How, they and we ask, are breeches, and slop-hose cut in panes, to be
lined? In such writings we are bound to concern ourselves with the
little things that matter, and in this reign we meet a hundred little
things, little fussy things, the like of which we leave alone to-day.
But this is not quite true. To-day a man, whether he cares to admit
it or no, is for ever choosing patterns, colours, shades, styles to
suit his own peculiar personality. From the cradle to the grave we are
decked with useless ornaments--bibs, sashes, frills, little jackets,
neat ties, different coloured boots, clothes of ceremony, clothes
supposed to be in harmony with the country, down, at last, to the
clothes of an old gentleman, keeping a vague reminder of twenty,
thirty years ago in their style, and then--grave clothes.
How well we know the Elizabethan! He is a stock figure in our
imagination; he figured in our first schoolboy romances, he strutted
in the first plays we saw. Because it was an heroic time we hark back
to it to visualize it as best we may so that we can come nearer to our
heroes--Drake, Raleigh, and the rest. The very names of the garments
arouse associations--ruff, trunks, jumper, doublet, jerkin, cloak,
bone-bobbin lace, and lace of Flanders--they almost take one's breath
away.
Here comes a gentleman in a great ruff, yellow-starched, an egg-shaped
pearl dangles from one ear. One hand rests on his padded hip, the
other holds a case of toothpicks and a napkin; he is going to his
tavern to dine. His doublet is bellied like a pea's cod, and his
breeches are bombasted, his little hat is stuck on one side and the
feather in it curls over the brim. His doublet is covered with a
herring-bone pattern in silk stitches, and is slashed all over. He is
exaggerated, monstrous; he is tight-laced; his trunks stick out a foot
all round him, and his walk is, in consequence, a little affected;
but, for all that, he is a gallant figure.
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Elizabeth}]
Behind him comes a gentleman in loose knee-breeches barred with
velvet; at the knee he has a frill of lace. His jerkin is not stuffed
out, and his ruff is not starched to stick up round his head. His hair
is cut in three points, one over each ear and the third over the
centre of his forehead, where we see a twisted lock tied with ribbon.
We seem to know these people well--very well. The first, whose clothes
are of white silk sewn with red and blue, whose trunk hose have clocks
of silk sewn on them, reminds us of whom? And the second gentleman in
green and red, with heels of red on his shoes? Suddenly there flashes
across our memory the picture of a lighted stage, a row of shops, a
policeman, and then a well-known voice calling, 'Hello, Joey, here we
are again!'
Here we are again after all these centuries--clown and pantaloon, the
rustic with red health on his face, the old man in Venetian slops--St.
Pantaloone--just as Elizabethan, humour included, as anything can well
be.
Then, enter Harlequin in his clothes of gorgeous patches; the quick,
almost invisible thief, the instigator of all the evil and magic. His
patches and rags have grown to symmetrical pattern, his loose doublet
has become this tight-fitting lizard skin of flashing gold and
colours, but his atmosphere recalls the great days.
To these enter 1830--Columbine--an early Victorian lady, who contrives
to look sweetly modest in the shortest and frilliest of skirts; she
looks like a rose, a rose on two pink stalks. She, being so different,
gives the picture just the air of magic incongruity. Once, years ago,
she was dressed in rags like Harlequin, but I suppose that the age of
sentiment clothed her in her ballet costume rather than see her in her
costly tatters.
We are a conservative nation, and we like our own old jokes so much
that we have kept through the ages this extraordinary pleasing
entertainment straight down, clothes and all, from the days of Queen
Elizabeth.
Even as we dream of this, and the harlequinade dazzles our eyes, the
dream changes--a new sound is heard, a sound from the remote past,
too. We listen eagerly, clown, pantaloon, harlequin, and columbine
vanish to the sound of the pan-pipes and the voice of Punch.
'Root-ti-toot, rootity-toot!' There, by the corner of the quiet
square, is a tall box covered with checkered cloth. Above a man's
height is an opening, and on a tiny stage are two figures, one in a
doublet stiffened out like a pea pod, with a ruff hanging loose about
his neck, bands at his wrists, a cap on his head--Punch. The other
with a linen cap and a ruff round her neck--Judy. Below, on the ground
by the gentleman who bangs a drum and blows on the pan-pipes stuck in
his muffler, is a dog with a ruff round his neck--Toby. And we
know--delightful to think of it--that a box hidden by the check
covering, contains many curiously dressed figures--all friends of
ours. The world is certainly curious, and I suppose that an
Elizabethan revisiting us to-day would find but one thing the same,
the humour of the harlequinade and the Punch and Judy show.
Now let us get to the dull part. If you wish to swim in a sea of
allusions there are a number of books into which you may dive--
'Microcynicon.'
'Pleasant Quippes for Upstart Newfangled Gentlewomen.'
Hall's 'Satires.'
Stubbes' 'Anatomie of Abuses.'
'The Cobbler's Prophesie.'
'The Debate between Pride and Lowliness.'
'The Letting of Humours Blood in the Head Vaine.'
'The Wits Nurserie.'
Euphues' 'Golden Legacie.'
'Every Man out of his Humour.'
If you do not come out from these saturated with detail then you will
never absorb anything.
For the shapes, the doublet was a close-fitting garment, cut, if in
the Italian fashion, down to a long peak in front. They were made
without sleeves, like a waistcoat, and an epaulette overhung the
armhole. The sleeves were tied into the doublet by means of points
(ribbons with metal tags). These doublets were for a long time
stuffed or bombasted into the form known as 'pea's cod bellied' or
'shotten-bellied.'
The jerkin was a jacket with sleeves, and was often worn over the
doublet. The sleeves of the jerkin were often open from shoulder to
wrist to show the doublet sleeve underneath. These sleeves were very
wide, and were ornamented with large buttons.
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Elizabeth; a travelling cloak;
a jerkin}]
The jornet was a loose travelling cloak.
The jumper a loose jerkin, worn for comfort or extra clothing in
winter.
Both doublet and jerkin had a little skirt or base.
[Illustration: {Three types of doublet; two types of epaulette}]
The very wide breeches known as trunks were worn by nearly everybody
in the early part of the reign, until they vied with Venetian breeches
for fashion. They were sometimes made of a series of wide bands of
different colours placed alternately; sometimes they were of bands,
showing the stuffed trunk hose underneath. They were stuffed with
anything that came handy--wool, rags, or bran--and were of such
proportions that special seats were put in the Houses of Parliament
for the gentlemen who wore them. The fashion at its height appears to
have lasted about eight years.
[Illustration: A MAN OF THE TIME OF ELIZABETH (1558-1603)
He wears a double linen collar, nearly as usual at this time as
the ruff. His trunk hose will be seen through the openings of his
trunks. His boots are held up by two leather straps. His cloak is
an Italian fashion.]
The Venetian breeches were very full at the top and narrowed to the
knee; they were slashed and puffed, or paned like lattice windows with
bars of coloured stuffs or gold lace.
The French breeches were tight and ruffled in puffs about the thighs.
The stockings were of yarn, or silk, or wool. They were gartered about
the knee, and pulled up over the breeches; but the man most proud of
his leg wore no garters, but depended on the shape of his leg and the
fit of his stocking to keep the position. These stockings were sewn
with clocks at the ankles, and had various patterns on them, sometimes
of gold or silver thread. Openwork stockings were known.
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Elizabeth}]
The stockings and breeches were called, if the breeches were short and
the stockings all the way up the leg, trunk hose and trunks; if the
breeches came to the knee and the stockings just came over them, they
were known as upper stocks and nether stocks.
The shoes were shaped to the foot, and made of various leathers or
stuffs; a rose of ribbon sometimes decorated the shoes. There were
shoes with high cork soles called moyles. Of course, there were
gallants who did things no one else thought of doing--wearing very
square-toed shoes, for instance, or cock feathers in their hair.
The sturtops were boots to the ankle.
[Illustration: {Three types of hat for men; three type of breeches
and stockings}]
As for the hair, we have the love-lock tied with ribbons, the very
same that we see caricatured in the wigs of clown and pantaloon. We
have, also, hair left fairly long and brushed straight back from the
forehead, and short-cropped hair. Beards and moustaches are worn by
most.
They wore little cloaks covered with embroidery, lace, sometimes even
with pearls. For winter or for hard travelling the jornet or loose
cloak was worn.
The older and more sedate wore long stuff gowns with hanging sleeves;
these gowns, made to fit at the waist and over the trunks, gave an
absurd Noah's ark-like appearance to the wearers. Those who cared
nothing for the fashions left their gowns open and wore them loose.
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Elizabeth}]
The common people wore simple clothes of the same cut as their
lords--trunks or loose trousers, long hose, and plain jerkins or
doublets. In the country the fashions alter, as a rule, but little;
however, in this reign Corydon goes to meet Sylvia in somewhat
fashionable clothes. Lodge says: 'His holiday suit marvellous seemly,
in a russet jacket, welted with the same, and faced with red worsted,
having a pair of blue camblet sleeves, bound at the wrists with four
yellow laces, closed before very richly with a dozen pewter buttons.
His hose of gray kersey, with a large slop barred all across the
pocket holes with three fair guards, stitched on either side with red
thread.' His stockings are also gray kersey, tied with different
coloured laces; his bonnet is green, and has a copper brooch with the
picture of St. Dennis. 'And to want nothing that might make him
amorous in his old days, he had a fair shirt-band of white lockeram,
whipt over with Coventry blue of no small cost.'
[Illustration: {Three men of the time of Elizabeth; a sleeve}]
The hats worn vary in shape from steeple-crowned, narrow-brimmed
hats, to flat, broad-crowned hats; others show the coming tendency
towards the broad-brimmed Jacobean hat. Round these hats were hatbands
of every sort, gold chains, ruffled lace, silk or wool.
[Illustration: {Five types of hat for men}]
I think we may let these gallants rest now to walk among the shades--a
walking geography of clothes they are, with French doublets, German
hose, Spanish hats and cloaks, Italian ruffs, Flemish shoes; and these
with chalked faces, fuzzed periwigs of false hair, partlet strips,
wood busks to keep straight slim waists, will make the shades laugh
perhaps, or perhaps only sigh, for there are many in that dim wardrobe
of fashions who are still more foolish, still more false, than these
Elizabethans.
THE WOMEN
Now this is the reign of the ruff and the monstrous hoop and the wired
hair. As a companion to her lord, who came from the hands of his
barber with his hair after the Italian manner, short and round and
curled in front and frizzed, or like a Spaniard, long hair at his ears
curled at the two ends, or with a French love-lock dangling down his
shoulders, she--his lady--sits under the hands of her maid, and tries
various attires of false _hair_, principally of a yellow colour. Every
now and again she consults the looking-glass hanging on her girdle;
sometimes she dresses her hair with chains of gold, from which jewels
or gold-work tassels hang; sometimes she, too, allows a love-lock to
rest upon her shoulder, or fall negligently on her ruff.
Even the country girl eagerly waits for news of the town fashions, and
follows them as best she may.
In the early part of the reign the simple costume of the previous
reign was still worn, and even the court ladies were quietly, though
richly, dressed.
In the first two years the ruff remained a fairly small size, and was
made of holland, which remained stiff, and held the folds well; but
later, there entered several Dutch ladies, headed by Mistress Dingham
Vander Plasse, of Flanders, in 1564, who taught her pupils the art of
starching cambric, and the art of folding, cutting, and pinching ruffs
at five pounds a head, and the art of making starch, at the price of
one pound.
First, the lady put on her underpropper of wire and holland, and then
she would place with a great nicety her ruff of lace, or linen, or
cambric. One must understand that the ruff may be great or small, that
only the very fashionable wore such a ruff as required an
underpropper, and that the starched circular ruff would stand by
itself without the other appliance.
[Illustration: {Twelve types of head-dress and collar or ruff for
women}]
Before the advent of the heavily-jewelled and embroidered stomacher,
and the enormous spread of skirt, the dress was a modification of that
worn by the ladies in the time of Henry VIII. First, a gown cut square
across the bosom and low over the shoulders, full sleeves ending in
bands of cambric over the hands (these sleeves slit to show puffs of
cambric from the elbow to the wrist), the skirt full and long, but
without any train; the whole fitted well to the figure as far as
the waist, and very stiff in front. Over this a second gown, generally
of plain material, split above in a V-shape, split below at the waist,
and cut away to show the under-gown. The sleeves of this gown were
wide, and were turned back or cut away just by the elbow. Both gowns
were laced up the back. This second gown had, as a rule, a high,
standing collar, which was lined with some rich silk or with lace.
[Illustration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF ELIZABETH (1558-1603)]
[Illustration: {Four women of the time of Elizabeth}]
This shape gave way to a more exaggerated form, and finally to many
varieties of exaggeration. The lady might wear a jerkin like in shape
to a man's, except that often it was cut low and square over the
bosom, and was not stuffed quite so much in front; every variety of
rich material was used for this jerkin, and the sleeves were as varied
as were the man's, split and tied with ribbons. False sleeves
attached at the shoulders, and left to hang loose, puffed, slashed all
over, with or without bands of cambric or lace at the wrists; these
bands sometimes were frills, sometimes stiffened and turned back. No
person except royalty might wear crimson except in under-garments, and
the middle class were not allowed to wear velvet except for sleeves.
This jerkin was sometimes worn buttoned up, like a man's, to the neck,
and when the hoops came into fashion and were worn high up near the
waist, the basque or flounce at the bottom of the jerkin was made
long, and pleated full to the top of the hooped petticoat.
The plainer fashion of this was a gown buttoned high--up to the
ruff--and opened from the waist to the feet to show a full petticoat
of rich material; this was the general wear of the more sober-minded.
Sometimes a cape was worn over the head and shoulders, not a shaped
cape, but a plain, oblong piece of stuff. The ladies sometimes wore
the shaped cape, with the high collar that the men wore. The French
hood with a short liripipe was worn by country ladies; this covered
the hair, showing nothing but a neat parting in front.
The openwork lace bonnet, of the shape so well known by the portraits
of Queen Mary of Scotland, is not possible to exactly describe in
writing; one variety of it may be seen in the line drawing given. It
is made of cambric and cut lace sewn on to wires bent into the shape
required.
[Illustration: {Two women of the time of Elizabeth}]
In such a time of extravagance in fashion the additions one may make
to any form of dress in the way of ribbons, bows, sewn pearls, cuts,
slashes, and puffs are without number, and I can only give the
structure on which such ornamental fripperies can be placed. The hair,
for example, can be dressed with pearls, rings of gold, strings of
pearls, feathers, or glass ornaments. Men and women wore monstrous
earrings, but curiously enough this fashion was more common to men
than women. Hats were interchangeable, more especially the trim hat
with a feather, in shape like those worn by the Yeoman of the Guard,
but smaller.
The shoulder pinions of the jerkins were puffed, slashed, and
beribboned in every way. The wing sleeves, open from the shoulder all
the way down, were so long sometimes as to reach the ground, and were
left hanging in front, or thrown back over the shoulders, the better
to display the rich under-sleeve.
The ladies' shoes were cork-soled, high-heeled, and round-toed. The
girdles were of every stuff, from gold cord, curiously knotted, to
twisted silk; from these hung looking-glasses, and in them were stuck
the embroidered and scented gloves.
Ladies went masked about the streets and in the theatres, or if they
wished to be unconventional, they sat in the playing booths unmasked,
their painted faces exposed to the public gaze.
The shoes with the high cork soles, to which I have just alluded, were
in common use all over Europe, and were of all heights--from two
inches to seven or eight--and they were called _chopines_. They were
not such a foolish custom as might appear, for they protected the
wearer from the appalling filth of the streets. The tall chopines that
Hamlet mentions were really very high-soled slippers, into which the
richly-embroidered shoes were placed to protect them when the ladies
walked abroad. The shoes were made of leather and velvet stitched with
silk, embroidered with gold, or stamped with patterns, slashed
sometimes, and sometimes laced with coloured silk laces.
Some ladies wore bombazines, or a silk and cotton stuff made at
Norwich, and bone lace made at Honiton, both at that time the newest
of English goods, although before made in Flanders; and they imported
Italian lace and Venetian shoes, stuffed their stomachers with
bombast, and wore a frontlet on their French hoods, called a
_bongrace_, to keep their faces from sunburn.
Cambric they brought from Cambrai in France, and calico from Calicut
in India--the world was hunted high and low for spoil to deck these
gorgeous, stiff, buckramed people, so that under all this load of
universal goods one might hardly hope to find more than a clothes
prop; in fact, one might more easily imagine the overdressed figure to
be a marvellous marionette than a decent Englishwoman.
[Illustration: {Four women of the time of Elizabeth}]
[Illustration: {Two women of the time of Elizabeth}]
Falstaff will not wear coarse dowlas shirts, dandies call for ostrich
feathers, ladies must have Coventry blue gowns and Italian flag-shaped
fans; everybody is in the fashion from milkmaids to ladies of the
court, each as best as they may manage it. The Jew moves about the
streets in his long gaberdine and yellow cap, the lady pads about her
garden in tall chopines, and the gentleman sits down as well as he may
in his bombasted breeches and smokes Herbe de la Reine in a pipe of
clay, and the country woman walks along in her stamell red petticoat
guarded or strapped with black, or rides past to market in her
over-guard skirts.
Let us imagine, by way of a picture of the times, the Queen in her
bedchamber under the hands of her tiring-women: She is sitting before
a mirror in her embroidered chemise of fine Raynes linen, in her
under-linen petticoat and her silk stockings with the gold thread
clocks. Over these she wears a rich wrap. Slippers are on her feet. In
front of her, on a table, are rouge and chalk and a pad of
cotton-wool--already she has made up her face, and her bright
bird-like eyes shine in a painted mask, her strong face, her hawk-like
nose and her expressionless mouth reflect back at her from the mirror.
Beside the rouge pot is a Nuremberg egg watch, quietly ticking in its
crystal case. One of the women brings forward a number of attires of
false hair, golden and red, and from these the Queen chooses one. It
is a close periwig of tight red curls, among which pearls and pieces
of burnished metal shine. With great care this wig is fastened on to
the Queen's head, and she watches the process with her bright eyes and
still features in the great mirror.
Then, when this wig is fixed to her mind, she rises, and is helped
into the privie coat of bones and buckram, which is laced tightly by
the women at her back. Now comes the moment when they are about to
fasten on her whalebone hips the great farthingale--over which her
voluminous petticoats and skirts will fall. The wheel of bone is tied
with ribbons about her waist, and there securely fastened. After some
delay in choosing an under-gown, she then puts on several linen
petticoats, one over another, to give the required fulness to her
figure; and then comes the stiffly-embroidered under-gown--in this
case but a petticoat with a linen bodice which has no sleeves.
[Illustration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF ELIZABETH (1558-1603)
Compare this with the other plate showing the opposite fashion.]