This wearing of the hat in church, at table, and elsewhere that seems now strange to us, was largely as an emblem of dignity and authority. Miss Moore in the Caldwell Papers writes of her grandfather:—
“I’ my grandfather’s time, as I have heard him tell, ilka maister of a family had his ain seat in his ain house; aye, and sat there with his hat on, afore the best in the land; and had his ain dish, and was aye helpit first and keepit up his authority as a man should so. Parents were parents then; and bairns dared not set up their gabs afore them as they do now.”
That the covering of the head in church still has a significance on important occasions, is shown by a rubric from the “Form and Order” for the Coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra; this provides that the king remains uncovered during the saying of the Litany and the beginning of the Communion Service, but when the sermon begun that he should put on his “Cap of crimson velvet turned up with Ermine, and so continue,” to the end of the discourse.
Hatbands were just as important for men’s hats as women’s—especially during the years of the reign of James I. Endymion Porter had his wife’s diamond necklace to wear on his hat in Spain. It probably looked like paste beside the gorgeousness of the Duke of Buckingham, who had “the Mirror of France,” a great diamond, the finest in England, “to wear alone in your hat with a little blacke feather,” so the king wrote him. A more curious hat ornament was a glove.
Hat with a Glove as a Favor.
This handsome hat is from a portrait of George, Earl of Cumberland. It has a woman’s glove as a favor. This is said to have been a gift of Queen Elizabeth after his prowess in a tournament. He always wore this glove on state occasions. Gloves were worn on a hat in three meanings: as a memorial of a dead friend, as a favor of a mistress, or as a mark of challenge. A pretty laced or tasselled handkerchief was also a favor and was worn like a cockade.
An excellent representation of the Cavalier hat may be seen on the figure of Oliver Cromwell [(here]), which shows him dismissing Parliament. Cornelius Steinwyck’s flat-leafed hat has no feather.
The steeple-crowned hat of both men and women was in vogue in the second half of the seventeenth century in both England and America, at the time when the witchcraft tragedies came to a culmination. The long scarlet cloak was worn at the same date. It is evident that the conventional witch of to-day, an old woman in scarlet cloak and steeple-crowned hat, is a relic of that day. Through the striking circumstances and the striking dress was struck off a figurative type which is for all time.