English Costume Part 22

Of the lower cla.s.ses, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A man of the time of Henry VII.}]

Imagine, shall we say, Corfe Castle on a day when a party of ladies and gentlemen a.s.sembled 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 ma.s.s 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {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, sh.e.l.ls in their hats, staffs in their hands; wide-eyed children in smocks; butchers in blue; men of all guilds and women of all cla.s.ses.

The drawbridge is down, the portcullis up, and the party, gleaming like a bed of flowers in their multi-coloured robes, pa.s.s 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 fa.r.s.eeing 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-cla.s.sic 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 cla.s.sic buildings show as would boxes of bricks by a gorgeous flower.

The stories against him are, in reality, stories for him, invented by 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {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 cla.s.ses.

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 b.u.t.ton or brooch placed at the back of the waistband. This, in time, developed into the looped skirts of Elizabethan times.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {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 ill.u.s.trating 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 coa.r.s.e 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 coa.r.s.e 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 ill.u.s.trations 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 pa.s.sing 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