Look at the portrait of another courtier, Sir Robert Dudley, who died in 1639; not the Robert Dudley who was tickled in the neck by Queen Elizabeth while he was being dubbed earl; not the Dudley who murdered Amy Robsart, but his disowned son by a noble lady whom he secretly married and dishonored. This son was a brave sailor and a learned man. He wrote the Arcana del Mare, and he was a sportsman; “the first of all that taught a dog to sit in order to catch partridges.” His portrait shows clumsy armor and showy rings, a great jewel and a vast tie of gauze ribbon on one arm; on the other a cord with many aglets; he wears marvellously embroidered, slashed, and bombasted breeches, tight hose, a heavily jewelled, broad belt; and a richly fringed scarf over one shoulder, and ridiculous garters at his calf. It is so absurd, so vain a dress one cannot wonder that sensible gentlemen turned away in disgust to so-called Puritan plainness, even if it went to the extreme of Puritan ugliness.
But in truth the eccentrics and extremes of Puritan dress were adopted by zealots; the best of that dress only was worn by the best men of the party. All Puritans were not like Philip Stubbes, the moralist; nor did all Royalists dress like Buckingham, the courtier.
I have spoken of the influence of the word “sad-color.” I believe that our notion of the gloom of Puritan dress, of the dress certainly of the New England colonist, comes to us through it, for the term was certainly much used. A Puritan lover in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1645, wrote to his lass that he had chosen for her a sad-colored gown. Winthrop wrote, “Bring the coarsest woolen cloth, so it be not flocks, and of sad colours and some red;” and he ordered a “grave gown” for his wife, “not black, but sad-colour.” But while sad-colored meant a quiet tint, it did not mean either a dull stone color or a dingy grayish brown—nor even a dark brown. We read distinctly in an English list of dyes of the year 1638 of these tints in these words, “Sadd-colours the following; liver colour, De Boys, tawney, russet, purple, French green, ginger-lyne, deere colour, orange colour.” Of these nine tints, five, namely, “De Boys,” tawny, russet, ginger-lyne, and deer color, were all browns. Other colors in this list of dyes were called “light colours” and “graine colours.” Light colors were named plainly as those which are now termed by shopmen “evening shades”; that is, pale blue, pink, lemon, sulphur, lavender, pale green, ecru, and cream color. Grain colors were shades of scarlet, and were worn as much as russet. When dress in sad colors ranged from purple and French green through the various tints of brown to orange, it was certainly not a dull-colored dress.
Let us see precisely what were the colors of the apparel of the first colonists. Let us read the details of russet and scarlet. We find them in The Record of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, one of the incontrovertible sources which are a delight to every true historian. These records are in the handwriting of the first secretary, Washburn, and contain lists of the articles sent on the ships Talbot, George, Lion’s Whelp, Four Sisters, and Mayflower for the use of the plantation at Naumkeag (Salem) and later at Boston. They give the amount of iron, coal, and bricks sent as ballast; the red lead, sail-cloth, and copper; and in 1629, at some month and day previous to 16th of March, give the order for the “Apparell for 100 men.” We learn that each colonist had this attire:—
“4 Pair Shoes.
2 Pair Irish Stockings about 13d. a pair.
1 Pair knit Stockings about 2s. 4d. a pair.
1 Pair Norwich Garters about 5s. a dozen.
4 Shirts.
2 Suits of Doublet and Hose; of leather lined with oiled skin leather, the hose and doublet with hooks and eyes.
1 Suit of Northern Dussens or Hampshire Kerseys lined, the hose with skins, the doublet with linen of Guildford or Gedleyman serges, 2s. 10d. a yard, 4-1/2 to 5 yards a suit.
4 Bands.
2 Plain falling bands.
1 Standing band.
1 Waistcoat of green cotton bound about with red tape.
1 Leather Girdle.
2 Monmouth Cap, about 2s. apiece.
1 Black Hat lined at the brim with leather.
5 Red knit caps milled; about 5d. apiece.
2 Dozen Hooks and eyes and small hooks and eyes for mandillions.
1 Pair Calfs Leather gloves (and some odd pairs of knit and sheeps leather gloves).
A number of Ells Sheer Linen for Handkerchiefs.”
On March 16th was added to this list a mandillion lined with cotton at 12d. a yard. Also breeches and waistcoats; a leather suit of doublet and breeches of oiled leather; a pair of breeches of leather, “the drawers to serve to wear with both their other suits.” There was also full, yes, generous for the day, provision of rugs, bedticks, bolsters, mats, blankets, and sheets for the berths, and table linen. There were fifty beds; evidently two men occupied each bed. Folk, even of wealth and refinement, were not at all sensitive as to their mode of sleeping or their bedfellows. The pages of Pepys’s Diary give ample examples of this carelessness.
Arms and armor were also furnished, as will be explained in a later chapter.
A private letter written by an engineer, one Master Graves, the following year (1630), giving a list of “such needful things as every planter ought to provide,” affords a more curt and much less expensive list, though this has three full suits, two being of wool stuffs:—
“1 Monmouth Cap.
3 Falling Bands.
3 Shirts.
1 Waistcoat.
1 Suit Canvass.
1 Suit Frieze.
1 Suit of Cloth.
3 Pair of Stockings.
4 Pair of Shoes.
Armour complete.
Sword &; Belt.”
The underclothing in this outfit seems very scanty.