The Monmouth Cap, the Saylors thrum,
And that wherein the tradesmen come,
The Physick, Lawe, the Cap divine,
And that which crowns the Muses nine,
The Cap that Fools do countenance,
The goodly Cap of Maintenance,
And any Cap what e’re it be,
Is still the sign of some degree.
“The sickly Cap both plaine and wrought,
The Fuddling-cap however bought,
The quilted, furred, the velvet, satin,
For which so many pates learn Latin,
The Crewel Cap, the Fustian pate,
The Perriwig, the Cap of Late,
And any Cap what e’er it be
Is still the sign of some degree.”
—“Ballad of the Caps,” 1656.
We seldom have in manuscript or print, in America, titles or names given to caps or hats, but one occasionally seen is the term “montero-cap,” spelled also mountero, montiro, montearo; and Washington Irving tells of “the cedar bird with a little mon-teiro-cap of feathers.” Montero-caps were frequently recommended to emigrants, and useful dress they were, being a horseman’s or huntsman’s cap with a simple round crown, and a flap which went around the sides and back of the cap and which could be worn turned up or brought down over the back of the neck, the ears and temples, thus making a most protecting head-covering. They were, in general, dark colored, of substantial woollen stuff, but Sterne writes in Tristram Shandy of a montero-cap which he describes as of superfine Spanish cloth, dyed scarlet in the grain, mounted all round with fur, except four inches in front, which was faced with light blue lightly embroidered. It is a montero-cap which is seen on the head of Bamfylde Moore Carew, the “King of the Mumpers,” a most genial English rogue, sneak-thief, and cheat of the eighteenth century, who spent some of his ill-filled years in the American colonies, whither he was brought after being trepanned, and where he had to bear the ignominy of wearing an iron collar welded around his neck.
A montero-cap seems to have been the favorite dress of rogues. In Head’s English Rogue we read, “Beware of him that rides in a montero-cap and of him that whispers oft.” The picaro Guzman wore one; and as montero is the Spanish word for huntsman, Head may have obtained the word from that special scamp, Guzman, whose life was published in 1633. It is a very ancient name, being given in Cotgrave as a hood, or as the horseman’s helmet. It is worn still by Arctic travellers and Alpine climbers. Sets of knitted montero-caps were presented by the Empress Eugenie to the Arctic expedition of 1875, and the Jackies dubbed them “Eugenie Wigs.”
Another and widely different class of men wore likewise the montero-cap, the English and American Quakers. Thomas Ellwood, in the early days of his Quaker belief, suffered much for his hat, both from his fellow Quakers and his father, a Church of England man. The Quakers thought his “large Mountier cap of black velvet, the skirt of which being turned up in Folds looked somewhat above the common Garb of a Quaker.” A young priest at another time snatched this montero-cap off because he wore it in the presence of magistrates, and then Ellwood’s father fell upon it in this wise:—
“He could not contain himself but running upon me with both hands, first violently snatcht off my Hat and threw it away and then giving me some buffets in the head said Sirrah get you up to your chamber. I had now lost one hat and had but one more. The next Time my Father saw it on my head he tore it violently from me and laid it up with the other, I know not where. Wherefore I put my Mountier Cap which was all I had left to wear on my head, and but a little while I had that, for when my Father came where I was, I lost that also.”
Fulke Greville (Lord Brooke).
Finally the father refused to let him wear his “Hive,” as he called the hat, at the table while eating, and thereafter Ellwood ate with his father’s servants.
The vogue of beaver hats was an important factor in the settlement of America.