Jack-boots. Owned by Lord Fairfax of Virginia.
Monstrous boots seem to have been the one frivolity in dress which the Puritans could not give up. In the reign of Charles I boots were superb. The tops were flaring, lined within with lace or embroidered or fringed; thus when turned down they were richly ornamental. Fringes of leather, silk, or cloth edged some boot-tops on the outside; the leather itself was carved and gilded. The soldiers and officers of Cromwell’s army sometimes gave up laces and fringes, but not the boot-tops. The Earl of Essex, his general, had cloth fringes on his boots. (See his portrait facing [here]; also the portrait of Lord Fairfax [here].) In the court of Charles II and Louis XIV of France the boot-tops spread to absurd inconvenience. The toes of these boots were very square, as were the toes of men’s and women’s shoes. Children’s shoes were of similar form. The singular shoes worn by John Quincy and Robert Gibbes are precisely right-angled. It was a sneer at the Puritans that they wore pointed toes. The shoe-ties, roses, and buckles varied; but the square toes lingered, though they were singularly inelegant. On the feet of George I (see portrait [here]) the square-toed shoes are ugly indeed.
James I scornfully repelled shoe-roses when brought to him for his wear; asking if they wished to “make a ruffle-footed dove” of him. But soon he wore the largest rosettes in court. Peacham tells that some cost as much as £;30 a pair, being then, of course, of rare lace.
Joshua Warner.
Friar Bacon’s Brazen Head Prophecie, set into a “Plaie” or Rhyme, has these verses (1604):
“Then Handkerchers were wrought
With Names and true Love Knots;
And not a wench was taught
A false Stitch in her spots;
When Roses in the Gardaines grew
And not in Ribons on a Shoe.
“Now Sempsters few are taught
The true Stitch in their Spots;
And Names are sildome wrought
Within the true love knots;
And Ribon Roses takes such Place
That Garden Roses want their Grace.”
Shoes of buff leather, slashed, were the very height of the fashion in the first years of the seventeenth century. They can be seen on the feet of Will Sommers in his portrait. Through the slashes showed bright the scarlet or green stockings of cloth or yarn. Bright-colored shoe-strings gave additional gaudiness. Green shoe-strings, spangled, gilded shoe-strings, shoes of “dry-neat-leather tied with red ribbons,” “russet boots,” “white silken shoe strings,”—all were worn.
Red heels appear about 1710. In Hogarth’s original paintings they are seen. Women wore them extensively in America.