English Costume Part 27

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {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 b.u.t.tons.

His hose of gray kersey, with a large slop barred all across the pocket holes with three fair guards, st.i.tched 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.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: {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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {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_, princ.i.p.ally of a yellow colour. Every now and again she consults the looking-gla.s.s hanging on her girdle; sometimes she dresses her hair with chains of gold, from which jewels or gold-work ta.s.sels 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 Pla.s.se, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF ELIZABETH (1558-1603)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: {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 cla.s.s were not allowed to wear velvet except for sleeves.

This jerkin was sometimes worn b.u.t.toned 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 b.u.t.toned 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {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 gla.s.s 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-gla.s.ses, 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 st.i.tched 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {Four women of the time of Elizabeth}]

[Ill.u.s.tration: {Two women of the time of Elizabeth}]

Falstaff will not wear coa.r.s.e 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF ELIZABETH (1558-1603)

Compare this with the other plate showing the opposite fashion.]

With great care she seats herself on a broad chair, and a perfect army of ruffs is laid before her. As the tire-woman is displaying the ruffs she talks to the Queen, and tells her that peculiar story, then current, of the Lady of Antwerp, who was in a great way because she could not get her ruff to set aright, and when in a pa.s.sion she called upon the devil to take it, as if in answer to the summons a young and handsome gentleman appeared. Together they tried the ruff, and the young gentleman suddenly strangled the lady and vanished. Now when they came to carry away the coffin of the lady some days later, it was found that no one could lift it, so, in the end, it was opened, and there, to the surprise of everybody, sat a great black cat setting a ruff. The Queen's eyes twinkle on this story, for she has a great fund of dry humour--and so, to the business of the ruffs. First one and then another is discarded; and finally the choice falls between one of great size, shaped like a catherine-wheel and starched blue, and the other of three depths but not of such great circ.u.mference, starched yellow, after the receipt of Mrs. Turner, afterwards hung at Tyburn in a ruff of the same colour.

The Queen wavers, and the tire-woman recommends the smaller bands: 'This, madame, is one of those ruffs made by Mr. Higgins, the tailor near to St. James's, where he has set up an establishment for the making of such affairs--it is a picadillie, and would----'

The Queen stops her and chooses the ruff; it is very much purled into folds, and it bristles with points.

The women approach with a crimson over-gown and slips it over the Queen's head--it is open in front to show the rich petticoat, and it has great stuffed wings, epaulettes, or mahoitres on the shoulders.

The tight-fitting bodice of the gown is b.u.t.toned up to the throat, and is stuffed out in front to meet the fall of the hoops; it has falling sleeves, but the real sleeves are now brought and tied to the points attached to the shoulders of the gown. They are puffed sleeves of the same material as the under-gown, and the falling sleeves of the upper gown are now tied with one or two bows across them so that the effect of the sleeves is much the same as the effect of the skirts; an embroidered stuff showing in the opening of a plain material. These are called virago sleeves.

This done, the strings of pearls are placed around the Queen's neck, and then the underpropper or supporta.s.se of wire and holland is fastened on her neck, and the picadillie ruff laid over it. The Queen exchanges her slippers for cork-soled shoes, stands while her girdle is knotted, sees that the looking-gla.s.s, fan, and pomander are hung upon it, and then, after a final survey of herself in the gla.s.s, she calls for her muckinder or handkerchief, and--Queen Elizabeth is dressed.

So in this manner the Queen struts down to posterity, a wonderful woman in ridiculous clothes, and in her train we may dimly see Mr.

Higgins, the tailor, who named a street without knowing it, a street known in every part of the civilized world; but, nowadays, one hardly thinks of connecting Piccadilly with a lace ruff....

SHAKESPEARE AND CLOTHES

There are not so many allusions to Elizabethan dress in the plays of Shakespeare as one might suppose upon first thought. One has grown so accustomed to Shakespeare put on the stage in elaborate dresses that one imagines, or one is apt to imagine, that there is a warrant for some of the dresses in the plays. In some cases he confounds the producer and the ill.u.s.trator by introducing garments of his own date into historical plays, as, for example, Coriola.n.u.s. Here are the clothes allusions in that play:

'When you cast your stinking greasy caps, You have made good work, You and your ap.r.o.n-men.'

'Go to them with this bonnet in your hand.'