ROYALTY AND FASHION
Some two hundred and fifty years ago, a fashionable colour was a
peculiar shade of brown known as the “couleur Isabelle,” and this was
its origin: Soon after the siege of Ostend commenced at the beginning of
the seventeenth century, Isabella Eugenia, Gouvernante of the
Netherlands, is said to have made a vow that she would not change her
chemise till the town surrendered. Despite the fact that the siege
lasted over three years, the ladies and gentlemen of the Court, in no
way dismayed, resolved to keep their mistress in countenance, and hit
upon the expedient of wearing garments of the presumed colour finally
attained by that which clung to the imperial Archduchess by force of
religious obstinacy.
This is only one of many instances in which royalty has been responsible
for inaugurating silly and eccentric fashions from some circumstance of
an untoward nature. Thus when Francis I., owing to a wound he received
in his head, was obliged to wear his hair short, this became a Court
fashion. Charles V. suffered so intensely from headache that he had his
hair cut close, and thence arose the mode of wearing it short. Charles
VII. of France introduced long coats to hide his ill-made legs, and
full-bottomed wigs were invented by a French barber, named Duviller, to
conceal an elevation in the shoulder of the Dauphin. Tradition, too,
tells how Queen Blanche provided her consort, Louis IX., with a wig to
hide his baldness, for, said she, “our bald kings have never been lucky,
and it ill befits a sovereign that he should not be better provided with
flowing locks than a mendicant at the gates of Notre Dame. It shall
never be said that Louis, our well-beloved consort, went about with as
little hair on his crown as a monarch retired from his vocation, and
shut up in a cloister.” By this incident the perruque was popularised in
France, and Louis became the patron of “artists in hair.”
When Louis XIII. succeeded Henry IV. at the age of nine years, the
courtiers, because “the new king could have no beard, resolved that they
would have none themselves; and every wrinkled face appeared at Court as
beardless as possible,” with the exception of the honest Sully, who,
although jeered at for his old-fashioned appearance, made no change.
Shoes with very long points were invented by Henry Plantagenet, Duke of
Anjou, to conceal a large excrescence on one of his feet, whereas the
charming Isabella of Bavaria introduced the fashion of leaving the
shoulders and part of the neck uncovered to show off her beautiful skin.
The reign of Charles II., it has been remarked, “was the dominion of
French fashions,” and the custom of baring the bosom was made the
subject of frequent comment by the moralists of the day. Catherine of
Braganza, it is said, “exposed her breast and shoulders without even the
gloss of the lightest gauze,” and in one of her portraits “the tucker
instead of standing up on her bosom, is with licentious boldness turned
down, and lies upon her stays.”[117] Anne Boleyn is said to have had on
her throat a large mole, which she carefully concealed with an
ornamental collar-band, a fashion which was imitated by the ladies of
the Court, who had never thought of wearing anything of the kind before.
Nor was this her Majesty’s only defect, for it appears she had a
malformation of the little finger of her left hand, on which there was a
double nail, with something like an indication of a sixth finger. “But
that,” says Wyatt, “which in others might be regarded as a defect, was
to her an occasion of additional grace, by the skilful manner in which
she concealed it from observation.” On account of this peculiarity she
wore the hanging sleeves mentioned as her peculiar fashion when in
France, a practice which was quickly followed by the ladies of the Court
in this country. It may be mentioned, too, that Anne Boleyn had great
taste and skill in dress, and we are told that “she was unrivalled in
the gracefulness of her attire and the fertility of her invention in
devising new patterns, which were imitated by all the Court belles, by
whom she was regarded as the glass of fashion.”
Some sovereigns attended to the dress of their subjects, as the Emperor
Paul of Russia, whose instructions were regulated by the police. It was
ordered that ordinary dress should consist of a cocked hat, or for want
of one a round hat pinned up with three corners, a single-breasted coat
and waistcoat, knee-buckles instead of strings, and buckles in the
shoes. A lady at Court, it is said, wearing her hair rather lower in her
neck than was consistent with the decree, was ordered into close
confinement, to be fed on bread and water.
Similarly, it seems that James regulated the dress of his subjects in
Scotland, for in 1621 he enacted that the fashion of clothes in use be
not changed by man or woman “under the pain of forfeiture of the cloths,
and an hundred pounds to be paid by the wearer, and as much by the maker
of the said cloths.” According to the fashion in use, no person could
wear lawns or cambrics, or cloth trimmed with gold, or feathers on their
heads, or pearls and precious stones, &c. But, to make this law more
arbitrary and invidious, it exempted from its operation “noblemen,
prelates, lords of session, barons of quality, their wives, sons, and
daughters, as also heralds, trumpeters, and minstrels.” And, it may be
remembered, short and tight breeches were so much the rage in France
that Charles V. was compelled to banish this fashion by edict.
Louis XI. greatly disliked finery, and on one occasion dismissed a
_gendarme_ from his service for appearing before him in a velvet
doublet; and his Majesty had an open quarrel with the Duke of Cleves by
showing his disapprobation of his extravagance in dress. Similarly,
Ferdinand V., the Catholic, is reported one day to have turned to a
gallant of the Court noted for his finery, and, laying his hand on his
own doublet, to have exclaimed, “Excellent stuff this; it has lasted me
three pair of sleeves!” But this spirit of economy was carried so far as
to bring on him the reproach of parsimony.[118] Henry IV. of France
curtailed as much as possible his wardrobe expenses, usually wearing a
plain grey habit, with a doublet of either satin or taffeta, without any
ornament. Oftentimes, when he saw a courtier in his costly apparel, he
would humorously remark that he “carried his castle and his wood on his
shoulders.”
During the closing years of his life Charles V. was singularly
indifferent to his apparel, and, according to a contemporary account,
“when he rode into the towns, amidst a brilliant escort of courtiers and
cavaliers, the Emperor’s person was easy to be distinguished among the
crowd by the plainness of his attire.” In the latter part of his reign
he dressed wholly in black. Roger Ascham, who was admitted to an
audience by him some years before his abdication, says that his Majesty
“had on a gown of black taffety, and looked somewhat like the parson of
Epurstone.” His natural parsimony came in aid of his taste. It is told
of him that once being overtaken by a storm in the neighbourhood of
Naumburg, he took off his new velvet cap and remained uncovered whilst
he sent into the town for an old one. “Poor Emperor,” thought one of the
company, who tells the anecdote, “spending tons of gold on his wars and
standing bareheaded in the rain for the sake of his velvet bonnet.” But
his Majesty had not always shown this disregard of dress, having been
inordinately fond of finery, especially of jewellery. At one time,
writes Dr. Doran, “his toilet-table was covered with miscellaneous
articles, like that of Charles of Burgundy, and there was as much
variety in its drawers.”
Frederick William I. in his early life ignored fashion, and showed a
great aversion to regal pomp and luxury. One day he threw a
dressing-gown of gold brocade into the fire, and, it is said, he would
often lie for hours in the sun with his face greased to give it a
tanned, soldier-like appearance. Frederick the Great was slovenly in his
person, a defect that increased as he grew older; for he so far
disregarded fashion as to wear ragged linen, dirty shirts, old clothes,
and cracked boots.
Similarly, James I. of England was quite indifferent to his dress, and
is said to have worn his clothes as long as they would hang together. On
one occasion, when a pair of shoes adorned with rosettes were brought to
him, he inquired whether it was intended to make “a ruffe-footed dove”
of him; and at another time when a new-fashioned Spanish hat was shown
him, he pushed it contemptuously away, remarking that he neither liked
the Spanish, nor their fashions. It is even said that on one occasion he
went so far as to borrow a pair of scarlet stockings with gold clocks
from one of his courtiers when he was anxious to make a special
impression on the French Ambassador. According to Walpole, James hunted
“in the most cumbrous and inconvenient of all dresses, a ruff and
trouser breeches,” which must have presented a somewhat quaint
appearance.
Perhaps one of the greatest sensations made by royalty in the matter of
dress was that of Christina of Sweden, who on passing through France on
her visit to Louis XIV., in her strange dress and uncurled wig, looked,
according to public criticism, “very like a half-tipsy gipsy.” Her coat
has been described as a garment neither of man nor woman, and it fitted
so ill that her higher shoulder appeared above the neck of the dress.
Mesdames de Montpensier and de Motteville describe her chemise, which
was made according to the fashion of a man’s shirt, as appearing and
disappearing through, under, or over, other parts of the royal costume
in a very puzzling way; but what most astonished and horrified the
ladies of fashion, “who wore trains from the moment they rose in bed,
were the short petticoats worn by Christina, which left her ankles
exposed to the sight and criticism of all who chose to look at
them.”[119]
But if some sovereigns have been naturally parsimonious in their dress,
some were so from force of circumstances, as in the case of Isabella of
Angoulême, consort of King John, for, although his Majesty never spared
his own personal expenses, he was mean to his queen. Thus we find in one
of his wardrobe rolls an order for a grey cloth pelisson for Isabella,
guarded with nine bars of grey fur. There is another order for cloth to
make two robes for the Queen, each to consist of five ells, one of green
cloth, the other of brunet; also cloth for a pair of purple sandals and
four pairs of women’s boots, one pair to be embroidered round the
ankles. The richness, however, of his own dress and the costly splendour
of his jewellery partly occasioned the demands he made on the purses of
his people.
Edward I., on the other hand, disliked show, and, according to his
chronicler, “he went about in the plain garments of a citizen, excepting
on days of festival.” When remonstrated with by a bishop on his unkingly
attire, his Majesty answered: “What could I do more in royal robes,
father, than in this plain gabardine?” And Catherine of Aragon
apparently was much of the same opinion, for she was accustomed to say
that she considered no part of her time so much wasted as that passed in
dressing and adorning herself. Henry VIII. was fond of show in dress,
and Queen Elizabeth’s excessive love of fashion and finery, like that of
her namesake, queen of Philip II. of Spain, has long been proverbial.
Indeed, it has been said that “her toilet was an altar of devotion, of
which she was the idol, and all her ministers were her votaries: it was
the reign of coquetry and the golden age of milliners.” The list of her
Majesty’s wardrobe in 1600 shows us that she had at that time 99 robes,
126 kirtles, 269 gowns, 136 foreparts, 125 petticoats, and 27 fans, in
addition to 96 cloaks, 83 save-guards, 85 doublets, and 18 lap mantles.
As Elizabeth grew older she tried more and more to hide the
dilapidations of nature by the resources of art; and, if we are to
believe all that has been said of her, “she was the mistress of many
million hearts and full a thousand dresses.” She inaugurated a reign of
extravagance; and, as Mr. Thornbury has remarked, “she seems to have
lost her jewels upon public occasions almost as frequently as Prince
Esterhazy, who used to shake off so many pounds’ worth of diamonds every
time he went to the opera. At Westminster, on one occasion, the Queen
drops a golden acorn and oak leaf; on another, two gold buttons shaped
like tortoises; on another, a diamond clasp given her by the Earl of
Leicester, and which fastened a gown of purple cloth of silver.” Her
Majesty, it is said, was never seen _en déshabille_ by the male sex but
on two occasions. The first time was on “a fair May morning when Gilbert
Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury’s son, walking in the tilt-yard about
eight o’clock, chanced to look up, and saw her at the window in her
night-cap. ‘My eye,’ said he, ‘was full towards her, and she showed to
be greatly ashamed thereof, for that she was unready and in her
nightstuff. So when she saw me after dinner as she went to walk, she
gave me a great fillip on the forehead, and told my lord chamberlain,
who was the next to see her, how I had seen her that morning, and how
much she was ashamed thereof.’” Twenty years later the luckless Essex
surprised her in the hands of her tire-woman, and he paid severely for
his blunder.
With the wardrobe of Elizabeth may be compared in size that of Augustus
III., second Saxon King of Poland, which filled two halls of the palace,
there having been for each dress a special watch, snuff-box, sword, and
cane. Every dress was painted in miniature in a book, which every
morning was presented to “his most serene Excellency,” as he caused
himself to be called. He had as many as 1500 wigs, so that when his
palace was occupied by Frederick the Great during the Seven Years’ War,
he exclaimed contemptuously, “So many perrukes for a man who has no
head.”
The portraits of Anne of Denmark, queen of James I., indicate, it is
said, a masculine character, and “display a tawdry and tasteless style
of dress.” And it was at this period that the enormous fardingale was
worn at Court, concerning which “unnatural disguisement” Lord Lytton, in
his pedigree of the English gallant, tells the following amusing story:
“When Sir Peter Wych was sent ambassador to the Grand Seignor from James
I., his lady accompanied him to Constantinople, and the Sultaness,
having heard much of her, desired to see her; whereupon Lady Wych,
attended by her waiting-women, all of them dressed in their great
fardingales, which was the Court dress of the English ladies at that
time, waited upon her Highness. The Sultaness received her visitors with
great respect, but, struck with the extraordinary extension of the hips
of the whole party, seriously inquired if that shape was peculiar to
the natural formation of English women, and Lady Wych was obliged to
explain the whole mystery of the dress in order to convince her that she
and her companions were not really so deformed as they appeared to be.”
A pleasant little anecdote would lead us to imply that Henrietta Maria,
consort of Charles I., relied on her own natural charms; for on her
arrival in this country, when Charles seemed surprised to find her
taller than he had expected, and cast his eyes upon her feet, as it
suspecting that she had made use of artificial means to improve her
stature, she immediately raised one of her feet, and pointed to the
shoe. “Sir,” she said, “I stand upon my own feet. I have no helps of
art. Thus high I am, and I am neither higher nor lower.”[120]
This incident reminds us of Catherine of Braganza, who tried to
introduce short skirts, being desirous, as Lady Carteret told Pepys, “to
have the feet seen,” probably, it is said, owing to her having, like
most of her countrywomen, small, well-turned feet; but, despite her
exhibiting herself in this new fashion, she found few imitators, the
ladies of the Court adhering to their long-flowing draperies.
Another queen who had a strong aversion to artificial adjuncts was Mary
Beatrice of Modena, wife of James II. It was the fashion for the ladies
of the Court to paint, and, when the King told her that he wished her to
do the same, she refused not only as a matter of taste, but from a
religious scruple. But at last she consented and put on rouge, which,
when Father Seraphin, a Capuchin friar of great sanctity, to his grief
and surprise saw, he exclaimed, “Madame, I would rather see your Majesty
yellow, or even green, than rouged”--a remark which much amused the
Queen.
William III. one day asked Peter the Great what he thought of London, to
which he replied “that he had been particularly pleased to see a
simplicity, meekness, and modesty of dress in the richest nation of
Europe.” The Czar was always very plain in his own dress, and a
diplomatic agent who resided many years at his Court says: “I saw him in
1721 give a public audience to the ambassadors of Persia, when he
entered the hall of audience in nothing more that a surtout of coarse
brown cloth. When he was seated on the throne, the attendants brought
him a coat of blue _gros de Naples_, embroidered with silver, which he
discarded as soon as the ambassadors were gone. Catherine, who was
present, was much amused at seeing the Czar in his spangled silk vest.
He introduced the dress of Western Europe among his courtiers, but his
subjects generally, it is said, were not so easily reconciled to the new
fashion, which necessitated his laying tax on long coats, as he had
already done on long beards.
Queen Anne was extremely particular in all matters of dress; and, it may
be remembered, the wig costume of the Court was a source of much
discomfort to Eugene of Savoy, in 1712. When Lord Bolingbroke once
appeared before her in a simple tie-wig instead of a full-bottomed
one--having been summoned in the utmost haste--she exclaimed, “I
suppose that the next time his lordship appears at Court he will come in
his night-cap.” Addison speaks in high praise of the coiffure then in
fashion, which, as may be seen by the later portraits of Queen Anne, was
elegant, the hair clustering in graceful curls down the back of the
neck, “and though hair-powder was worn by some, her Majesty’s chestnut
ringlets are unsullied by that composition.”[121]
An amusing anecdote is told of George I., who was somewhat indifferent
to the fashions of dress. During the war of 1743, a victory gained over
the French was celebrated by an ode written and set to music for the
occasion, and performed several nights before his Majesty in the great
council chamber. On these occasions George appeared in a hat, coat,
sword, and scarf which he had worn at the battle of Oudenarde, and as
after forty years fashion had much changed, it can be easily understood
that the company assembled could with difficulty restrain from laughing
on seeing their King attired in these “antiquated habiliments. And when
the following couplet proclaimed that--
“‘Sure such a day was never known,
Such a king, and such a throne!’
there was a general titter, which soon exceeded all the bounds of Court
decorum,” at which one of the lords of the bedchamber clapped his
hands. The company took the hint and joined in a general plaudit, at
which the old king was highly pleased, without knowing the real cause of
the compliment.
“Our tars,” writes Mr. Planché, “are too gallant to feel annoyed by the
fact that their uniform was first worn by a lady. In 1748 George II.
accidentally met the Duchess of Bedford on horseback in a riding-habit
of blue faced with white, and was so pleased with the effect of it, that
a question having been raised as to the propriety of deciding upon some
general dress for the royal navy, he immediately commanded the adoption
of those colours.”[122]
Caroline Matilda, the posthumous child of Frederick, Prince of
Wales--who at the age of fifteen became the wife of Christian VII., King
of Denmark--gave great offence to the graver Danish matrons by riding in
that costume astride like a man. “An abominable riding-habit,” writes
Sir Robert Keith, “with a black slouched hat has been almost universally
introduced here, which gives every woman the air of an awkward
_postillion_. In all the time I have been in Denmark I have never seen
the Queen out in any other garb.”[123] Her horsemanship, however, was
the admiration of the ladies of Denmark.
When Queen Charlotte arrived in England, out of respect for the women
of her adopted country, she appeared in the dress which was then most in
vogue among the English ladies. She was attired in a gold brocade with a
white ground, “had a stomacher ornamented with diamonds, and a fly cap
with richly laced lappets”--a mode of dress which was much appreciated.
As D’Israeli has remarked in his “Anecdotes of Fashion,” “the Court in
all ages and in every country are the modellers of fashions;” but
occasionally, it must be acknowledged, they have incurred their own
ridicule, or discomfort. When Louis VII., for instance--to obey his
bishops--cropped his hair and shaved his beard, his consort, Eleanor,
revenged herself as she thought proper, disgusted at his unusual and
ridiculous appearance. His Majesty obtained a divorce, after which
Eleanor married the Count of Anjou, afterwards our Henry II.
The chief majesty of Louis XIV. lay in his wig, a fact which he
recognised. Every night he allowed his valets to undress his body, but
not his head, and when the disrobing was completed--save the head--he
retired behind the curtains, which were carefully closed. With his own
royal hand he then removed his wig, and thrusting it between the
curtains gave it to a valet. Before the curtains were opened in the
morning the wig was passed back to the monarch, who was never seen
without his wig.
Similarly, Catherine II. of Russia kept her perruquier for more than
three years in an iron cage in her bedchamber, to prevent his telling
people that she wore a wig.[124]
In the reign of Louis XVI. dress was carried to an height, and the story
goes that when M. Roland, on his appointment as Minister for the Home
Department, was presented to his Majesty, the simplicity of his apparel
excited the ridicule of the Court satellites, who derived from etiquette
their sole importance. “Oh dear, sir,” said the master of the
ceremonies, whispering to Dumourier and glancing at Roland, “he has no
buckles in his shoes.” “Oh, shocking,” re-echoed Dumourier, “we shall be
ruined and undone.”
The mention of shoes reminds us that, according to one authority, silk
stockings were first worn by Henry II. of France at the marriage of his
sister in 1559, but before that time Edward VI. had secured a pair from
Sir Thomas Gresham, who imported them from Spain, where they were first
manufactured. The story goes that a loyal-minded grandee thought he
could not do better than present a pair of silk stockings to his queen,
and to that end placed them in the hands of the first minister of the
Crown, who astonished him by returning them, bidding him remember that
the “Queen of Spain had no legs.” Another version tells us how when
Maria Anne, mother of Charles II., was on her way across Spain as the
bride of Philip IV., she stopped at a town famous for the manufacture of
stockings, some of which the Alcáide of the place offered her, when he
was thrust out by the Mayordom with the words, “You must know the Queen
of Spain has no legs.” Upon hearing which the young Queen began to cry,
saying, “I must go back to Vienna; if I had known before I set out that
they would have cut my legs off, I would have died rather than come
here.” This remark made even Philip smile, although he is said to have
laughed only three times in his life.
Before Mademoiselle Bertin became so celebrated as Marie Antoinette’s
milliner, she was not only very plain in her attire, but very
economical, a circumstance which she was wont to say gave great umbrage
to the other princesses of the Court of Versailles, who never showed
themselves from the moment they rose till they returned to bed, except
in full dress, while she herself made all her morning visits in a simple
white cambric gown and straw hat.
Many amusing anecdotes have been recorded in connection with her
Majesty’s toilette. It appears that Mademoiselle Bertin had invented a
new head ornament of gauze, ribbons, flowers, beads, and feathers for
her Majesty; but when the royal hairdresser, according to custom,
attended on her, he had with him some steps of which she did not
perceive the use. “What are these steps for?” exclaimed she to the
tire-woman. The knight of the comb advanced, and making a most profound
bow, humbly represented to her Majesty that Mademoiselle Bertin, having
so enormously increased the height of the head ornaments, it would be
impossible for him to establish them upon a firm foundation unless he
could have a complete command of the head they were to be fixed upon;
and being but of the middle size and her Majesty very tall, he could not
achieve the duty of his office without mounting three or four steps,
which he did to the great amusement of the Queen and the party
present.[125]
According to another anecdote, on the day of the great fête of the
_Cordon Bleu_, when it was the etiquette to wear diamonds and pearls,
her Majesty had omitted putting them on. As there had been a greater
affluence of visitors than usual that morning, writes Princess Lamballe,
and her Majesty’s toilette du chambre was overthronged by princes and
princesses, “I fancied that the omission proceeded from forgetfulness.
Consequently, I sent the tire-woman in the Queen’s hearing to order the
jewels to be brought in. Smilingly her Majesty replied, ‘No, no! I have
not forgotten these gaudy things, but I do not intend that the lustre of
my eyes should be out-done by the one, or the whiteness of my teeth by
the other; however, as you wish art to eclipse nature, I’ll wear them to
satisfy you, _ma belle dame_!’”
Alas! as it has been often remarked, who would have dared on such an
occasion, and among those smiles, to have prognosticated the cruel fate
of the head which then attracted such general admiration.