hanging sleeves and broad turn-over collars of velvet or fur; long hose of two or more colours, and broad-toed shoes or slippers, or (for riding) high boots to the knees. The shirts were worn low in the neck, and showed a few inches above the stomacher or doublet. The hood during this reign was abandoned to official habits, and in lieu of it were worn broad felt hats and caps, and bonnets of velvet and fur of various shapes, profusely laden with ostrich and other feathers. Sometimes the large plumed cap or hat is seen slung behind the back, the head being covered with a smaller cap of velvet or gold net-work. The hair was worn exceedingly long, the face closely shaved; soldiers and aged persons alone wearing beards or moustaches. In support of some of these statements we may quote-1st. The Boke of Kervynge,' in which the king's chamberlain is directed to warm his sovereign's "petticoate, his doublet, and his stomacher, and then put on his hosen, and then his shoes or slippers, then straiten up his hosen mannerly, and tie them up, then lace his doublet hole by hole." 2ndly. Barklay's Ship of Fooles,' first printed in 1508, in which mention is made of fops who had their necks

"Then shall his hosen by stryped

With corselettys of fyne velvet slyped

Down to the hard kue,

And fro the kne downward

Hys hozen shall be freschly gard

With colours ij or thre."

The same personage says:—

"I love yt well to have syde here (side or long hair or locks) Half a wote (foot) byneth myne ere,

For ever more I staud in fere

That myne neck sholde take cold."

It may be as well to mention here, that the family colours of the House of Tudor were white and green; those of Lancaster white and red; and those of York murrey (or purple) and blue. Red and blue, from the colours of the royal arms, were still the national colours. In the twentyseventh of Henry VII. payment was made to a tailor for making four coats of white and green sarcenet for four of the king's minstrels; and four coats of white and green sarcenet for four of the king's trumpets at 2s. the coat.

The same authorities may be referred to for the female costume of the period, in which the great variety of fashions apparent at the same time renders a verbal description almost impossible. principal features, however, are the slashing or dividing of the sleeves, the square cut of the bodies in the neck, and the laced stomachers. High head-dresses are seldom seen during this reign. Simple cauls of gold network, from under which VOL. II.,

the hair hangs negligently down the back; turbans, of an eastern size and magnificence; and a sort of hood which looks as if it were the lower part of the steeple head-dress with a round crown to it, fitting close to the head, are the prevailing modes of coiffure; and rich girdles, with chains or ends pendent in front nearly to the feet, the principal novelty in the way of ornament.

The military costume of the time is distinguished by the war-helmet, taking the form of the head, and being furnished with a pipe behind instead of on the top, from which one or more feathers of enormous length trail down the back to the very crupper of the horse. The passguards or plates rising perpendicularly on the shoulders to guard the neck are of this reign; and the globular breastplate of one piece, with a petticoat or puckered skirt of velvet over an apron of chainmail, and sometimes a steel skirt made in imitation of the velvet one, and called lamboys, from the

SUIT OF FLUTED CAP-A-PIE ARMOUR. Temp. Hen. VII. 5 R

SUIT OF BLACK ARMOUR OF A KNIGHT OF ST. GEORGE. Temp. Hen. VII.

French lambeaur, are characteristics of the armour of this reign. Long tapets or cuishes, composed of overlapping plates to the knee, below which the armour was occasionally discontinued, were worn by the demi-lancers and infantry. Fluted suits, as they are called, are first seen about this time; and the toes of the sollerets are made preposterously wide in conformity with the shoes of the period.

TILTING HELMET OF THE TIME OF HENRY VII.

The tilting-helmet is very flat-topped, with a salient angle in front, instead of rounding off as in the reign of Henry VI. It is still surmounted by the orle or chaplet and crest.

The shape of the shield becomes more and more

SUIT OF DEMI-LANCER'S ARMOUR. Temp. Hen. VII.

fantastic. The tabard of arms is still occasionally worn, but much less frequently, and disappears altogether after this reign. The sword is distinguished by a ridge down the centre on both sides of the blade; and the halberd, first mentioned in the reign of Edward IV., became, about this time, a regular weapon of infantry.

use.

The hand-gun, improved into the harquebus, and furnished with a matchlock in form of the letter S reversed, was also brought into common In Hans Burgmair's Triumph of Maximilian the arquebussier of the commencement of the sixteenth century is seen fully equipped. The yeomen of the guard, which corps was established by Henry VII., were armed half with bows and arrows and half with harquebusses.

The costume of the reigns of Henry VIII. and

Edward VI. has been made familiar to every schoolboy by the numberless prints of those monarchs after the portraits by Holbein. It consisted of a doublet with full bases or skirts, and large sleeves, over which was worn a short, full cloak, with arm-holes, through which the sleeves of the doublet passed, but to which other sleeves were occasionally attached, either over those of the doublet, or hung loose by way of ornament behind. It had also a broad rolling collar of fur, velvet, or satin. The hose were either long and fitting close to the shape like the Norman chausses, or divided

2.-SWORD ENGRAVED BY ALBERT DURER BEFORE 1528. 4. ALBERT-IIEADS OF THE TIME OF HENRY VII.

into two portions, called the upper and nether stocks, the latter of which finally retained the name of stocking; "to stock the hose" being to add the inferior portion, and various entries occurring of velvet, satin, cloth, &c., for "stocking of hose."*

Caps bordered with feathers, and what were called Milan bonnets, "dressed with aglets," i.e. aiguillettes, were the general head-coverings of the beaux of the day. Mr. Ady Repton, in the 24th volume of the Archæologia, has exhibited a curious collection of the most remarkable hats, caps, and bonnets of this period. The shoes were worn exceedingly broad at the toes, and slashed and puffed, as was frequently the whole habit in every direction. Hall speaks of a garment called a frock, which he says was a sort of coat, jacket, or jerkin, made like them occasionally, with bases or skirts. He also mentions the chammer or shameu, which he describes as "a gown cut in the middle." A vestment called a glaudkyn is mentioned in some of the earlier inventories. The materials of which the dresses of the nobility and gentry were composed were of the most magnificent description; and the common people, as in all ages, attempted to vie with them in splendour of apparel, which occasioned a sumptuary law to be promulgated in the twenty-fourth year of Henry's reign, limiting the use of furs of black jennets to the royal family, and furs of sables to the nobility above the rank of a viscount. Crimson or blue velvet, embroidered apparel or garments, guarded (bordered) with gold sunken work, were forbidden to any person

So, in France, the upper part being called the "haut de chausses," and the lower the "bus," the word BAS alone has since been used to signify what we call the stocking.

lower than the sons and heirs of barons and knights; and velvet dresses of any colour, furs of martens, chains, bracelets, and collars of gold, were forbidden to all persons possessing less than two hundred marks per annum. The sons and heirs of such persons might, however, wear coats of black velvet or damask, tawney-coloured russet or camlet. Satin and damask gowns were confined to the use of persons possessing at least one hundred marks per annum; and the wearing of pinched, i.e. plaited, shirts, garnished with gold, silver, or silk, was forbidden to all persons under the rank of knighthood. The commonalty and serving-men were limited to the use of cloth of a certain price and lambs' fur only, and forbidden the wearing of any ornaments, or even buttons of gold, silver, or gilt work, excepting the badge of their lord or master. Howe, the continuator of Stow's Annals, tells us that the apprentices of London wore about this time blue cloaks in summer, and in winter blue coats or gowns (such being a badge of servi tude); their stockings being of white broad cloth, sewed close up to their round slops or breeches, as if they were all but of one piece.

The hair, which had been worn so exceedingly long in the preceding reign, was now cut as remarkably close; Henry having issued peremptory orders to all his attendants and courtiers to "poll their heads." Beards and moustaches were worn at pleasure.

The principal novelty during the reign of Edward VI. appears to have been the introduction of the very small flat cap (like that still worn by the Blue-coat boys of Christ Church Hospital, founded by him) placed on the side of the head,

and ornamented by the higher classes with a small tuft of feathers, jewels, &c.

The general costume of this period is represented in the series of prints published by Vertue, of which the greater portion are engraved in this work, viz., the meeting of Henry VIII. and Francis at the Field of the Cloth of Gold; Henry VIII. granting a Charter to the Company of BarberSurgeons; the Procession of Edward VI. from the Tower to Westminster; and the same monarch founding Christ Church Hospital. The same artists who have made us so well acquainted with the male habit of this period have also familiarised us with the appearance of the females in the foregoing reign. The portraits of Henry's six queens, particularly those of the three first, Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, and Jane Seymour, are as well known as those of their husband and his offspring, and leave little for the pen to do beyond the naming of the separate articles composing their visible attire. The gown appears to be cut square in the neck, as in the last reign, but to open in front to the waist, so as to show the kirtle or petticoat. The sleeves of the gown varied in form, but were generally composed of materials richer even than the gown itself, and were attached to it at pleasure. Waistcoats are mentioned in this reign, for women as well as for men, and, as we find them described sometimes as being of the richest stuffs, such as "cloth of silver embroidered," and "with sleeves," it follows they must have been partially seen. The neck, which had been left uncovered during the preceding century, was now enveloped in a sort of habit-shirt, with a high collar and small ruff, called a partlet. In the inventories of the period we meet with "partlets of Venice gold knit," "partlets of Venice gold caul fashion," "partlets of white thread,"

and "of white lawn wrought with gold about the collars."

The gowns had trains or not, according to the prevailing fashion. Anne of Cleves, on her first interview with Henry, wore "a rich gowne of cloth of gold raised, made round without any trayne, in the Dutch fashion ;" and the gown of Catherine Parr, in 1543, is said to have had a train "more than two yards long." The wife of John Whitcomb, the famous clothier, is described as being attired in a fair train gown stuck full of silver pins, having a white cap on her head with cuts of curious needlework under the same, and an apron before her as white as driven snow. Her maidens were dressed in stamel red petticoats with milkwhite kerchers on their head, and their smocksleeves like the winter's snow, tied with silken bands at the wrist. The head-dress of the higher classes of females at this period concealed almost entirely the hair. The most frequently named are "the French hood," and "the Milan bonnet," which latter they wore as well as the men. The former was most probably the head-dress in which Jane Seymour is represented," and which is so commonly seen in portraits of this age. Yet this in some measure answers the description of the miniver caps, which Stow says were worn in this reign, and which he describes as being white, three square, and the peakes full three or four inches from the head. The aldermen's wives, he says, made bonnets of velvet after the fashion of these miniver caps; but at the time he wrote, he adds, they were almost forgotten. It is very difficult to recognise some articles of dress from written descriptions, however elaborate. This sort of head

*

Except in bridal dresses, when it was allowed, as in older times, to stream down the shoulders from under the caul. See ante, p. 394.