THE MEN
This couplet may give a little sketch of the man we should now see before us:
‘His ruffe is set, his head set in his ruff;
His reverend trunks become him well enough.’
We are still in the times of the upstanding ruff; we are watching, like sartorial gardeners, for the droop of this linen flower. Presently this pride of man, and of woman too, will lose its bristling, super-starched air, and will hang down about the necks of the cavaliers; indeed, if we look very carefully, we see towards the end of the reign the first fruits of elegance born out of Elizabethan precision.
Now in such a matter lies the difficulty of presenting an age or a reign in an isolated chapter. In the first place, one must endeavour to show how a Carolean gentleman, meeting a man in the street, might say immediately, ‘Here comes one who still affects Jacobean clothes.’ Or how an Elizabethan lady might come to life, and, meeting the same man, might exclaim, ‘Ah! these are evidently the new fashions.’ The Carolean gentleman would notice at first a certain air of stiffness, a certain padded arrangement, a stiff hat, a crisp ornament of feathers. He would see that the doublet varied from his own in being more slashed, or slashed in many more degrees. He would see that it was stiffened into an artificial figure, that the little skirt of it was very orderly, that the cut of the sleeves was tight. He would notice also that the man’s hair was only half long, giving an appearance not of being grown long for beauty, but merely that it had not been cut for some time. He would be struck with the preciseness, the correct air of the man. He would see, unless the stranger happened to be an exquisite fellow, that his shoes were plain, that the ‘roses’ on them were small and neat. His trunks, he would observe, were wide and full, but stiff. Mind you, he would be regarding this man with seventeenth-century eyes—eyes which told him that he was himself an elegant, careless fellow, dressed in the best of taste and comfort—eyes which showed him that the Jacobean was a nice enough person in his dress, but old-fashioned, grandfatherly.
To us, meeting the pair of them, I am afraid that a certain notion we possess nowadays of cleanliness and such habits would oppress us in the company of both, despite the fact that they changed their linen on Sundays, or were supposed to do so. And we, in our absurd clothes, with hard hats on our heads, and stiff collars tight about our necks, creases in our trousers, and some patent invention of the devil on our feet, might feel that the Jacobean gentleman looked and was untidy, to say the least of it, and had better be viewed from a distance.
To the Elizabethan lady the case would be reversed. The man would show her that the fashions for men had been modified since her day; she would see that his hair was not kept in, what she would consider, order; she would see that his ruff was smaller, and his hat brim was larger. She would, I venture to think, disapprove of him, thinking that he did not look so ‘smart.’
For ourselves, I think we should distinguish him at once as a man who wore very large knickerbockers tied at the knee, and, in looking at a company of men of this time, we should be struck by the padding of these garments to a preposterous size.
There has come into fashion a form of ruff cut square in front and tied under the chin, which can be seen in the drawings better than it can be described; indeed, the alterations in clothes are not easy to describe, except that they follow the general movement towards looseness. The trunks have become less like pumpkins and more like loose, wide bags. The hats, some of them stiff and hard, show in other forms an inclination to slouch. Doublets are often made loose, and little sets of slashes appear inside the elbow of the sleeves, which will presently become one long slash in Cavalier costumes.
We have still:
‘Morisco gowns, Barbarian sleeves,
Polonian shoes, with divers far fetcht trifles;
Such as the wandering English galant rifles
Strange countries for.’
But we have not, for all that, the wild extravaganza of fashions that marked the foregoing reign. Indeed, says another writer, giving us a neat picture of a man:
‘His doublet is
So close and pent as if he feared one prison
Would not be strong enough to keep his soul in,
But his taylor makes another;
And trust me (for I knew it when I loved Cupid)
He does endure much pain for poor praise
Of a neat fitting suit.’
To wear something abnormally tight seems to be the condition of the world in love, from James I. to David Copperfield.
Naturally, a man of the time might be riding down the street across a Scotch plaid saddle cloth and pass by a beggar dressed in clothes of Henry VIII.’s time, or pass a friend looking truly Elizabethan—but he would find generally that the short, swollen trunks were very little worn, and also—another point—that a number of men had taken to walking in boots, tall boots, instead of shoes.
As he rides along in his velvet cloak, his puffed and slashed doublet, his silken hose, his hands gloved with embroidered gloves, or bared to show his rings, smelling of scents, a chain about his neck, he will hear the many street cries about him:
‘Will you buy any sand, mistress?’
‘Brooms, brooms for old shoes! Pouch-rings, boots, or buskings! Will ye buy any new brooms?’
‘New oysters, new oysters! New, new cockles!’
‘Fresh herrings, cockels nye!’
‘Will you buy any straw?’
‘Hay yee any kitchen stuff, maids?’
‘Pippins fine! Cherrie ripe, ripe, ripe!’
A MAN OF THE TIME OF JAMES I. (1603-1625)
He shows the merging of the Elizabethan fashion into the fashion of Charles I. The stiff doublet and the loose breeches, the plain collar, and the ribbons at the knees. On his hawking glove is a hawk, hooded and jessed.
And he will pass apprentices, most of them still in flat caps, blue doublets, and white cloth breeches and stockings, sewn all in one piece, with daggers on their backs or at their sides. And then, travelling with his man, he will come to his inn. For the life of me, though it has little to do with dress, I must give this picture of an inn from Fynes Moryson, which will do no harm, despite the fact that Sir Walter Besant quoted some of it.
‘As soon as a passenger comes to an Inn, the servants run to him’ (these would be in doublet and hose of some plain colour, with shirt-collars to the doublets turned down loose; the trunks would be wide and to the knee, and there buttoned), ‘and one takes his horse and walks him till he be cool, then rubs him and gives him meat, yet I must say that they are not much to be trusted in this last point, without the eye of the Master or his servant to oversee them. Another servant gives the passenger his private chamber, and kindles his fire, the third pulls off his boots and makes them clean’ (these two servants would be wearing aprons). ‘Then the Host or Hostess visits him, and if he will eat with the Host, or at a common table with the others, his meal will cost him sixpence, or in some places but fourpence, yet this course is less honourable and not used by Gentlemen; but if he will eat in his chamber’ (he will retain his hat within the house), ‘he commands what meats he will according to his appetite, and as much as he thinks fit for him and his company, yea, the kitchen is open to him, to command the meat to be dressed as he likes best; and when he sits at table, the Host or Hostess will accompany him, if they have many guests, will at least visit him, taking it for courtesy to be bid sit down; while he eats, if he have company especially, he shall be offered music, which he may freely take or refuse, and if he be solitary the musicians will give him good day with music in the morning.
‘It is the custom and in no way disgraceful to set up part of supper for his breakfast.
‘Lastly, a Man cannot more freely command at home in his own house than he may do in his Inn, and at parting if he give some few pence to the Chamberlin and Ostler they wish him a happy journey.’
Beyond this and the drawings I need say no more.
The drawings will show how the points of a doublet may be varied, the epaulette left or taken away, the little skirts cut or left plain. They show you how a hat may be feathered and the correct shape of the hat; how breeches may be left loose at the knee, or tied, or buttoned; of the frills at the wrist and the ruffs at the neck—of everything, I hope, that is necessary and useful.
