One notion about beaver must be told. Its great popularity for many years arose, it is conjectured, from its original use as a cap for curative purposes. Such a beaver cap would “unfeignedly” recover to a man his hearing, and stimulate his memory to a wonder, especially if the “oil of castor” was rubbed in his hair.
Elihu Yale.
The beaver hat was for centuries a choice and costly article of dress; it went through many bizarre forms. On the head of Henry IV of France and Navarre, as made known in his portrait, is a hat which effectually destroys all possibility of dignity. It is a bell-crowned stove-pipe, of the precise shape worn later by coachmen and by dandies about the years 1820 to 1830. It is worn very much over one royal ear, like the hat of a well-set-up, self-important coachman of the palmy days of English coaching, and gives an air of absurd modernity and cockney importance to the picture of a king of great dignity. The hat worn by James I, ere he was King of England, is shown [here]. It is funnier than any seen for years in a comic opera. The hat worn by Francis Bacon is a plain felt, greatly in contrast with his rich laced triple ruff and cuffs and embroidered garments. That of Thomas Cecil [here] varies slightly.
Two very singular shapings of the plain hat may be seen, one [here] on the head of Fulke Greville, where the round-topped, high crown is most disproportionate to the narrow brim. The second, [here], shows an extreme sugar-loaf, almost a pointed crown.
A good hat was very expensive, and important enough to be left among bequests in a will. They were borrowed and hired for many years, and even down to the time of Queen Anne we find the rent of a subscription hat to be £;2 6s. per annum! The hiring out of a hat does not seem strange when hiring out clothes was a regular business with tailors. The wife of a person of low estate hired a gown of Queen Elizabeth’s to be married in. Tailor Thomas Gylles complained of the Yeoman of the queen’s wardrobe for suffering this. He writes, “The copper cloth of gold gowns which were made last, and another, were sent into the country for the marriage of Lord Montague.” The bequest of half-worn garments was highly regarded. On the very day of Darnley’s funeral, Mary Queen of Scots gave his clothes to Bothwell, who sent them to his tailor to be refitted. The tailor, bold with the riot and disorder of the time, returned them with the impudent message that “the duds of dead men were given to the hangman.” The duds of men who were hanged were given to the hangman almost as long as hangings took place. A poor New England girl, hanged for the murder of her child, went to the scaffold in her meanest attire, and taunted the executioner that he would get but a poor suit of clothes from her. The last woman hanged in Massachusetts wore a white satin gown, which I expect the sheriff’s daughter much revelled in the following winter at dancing-parties.
Thomas Cecil.