“2 Pair Old Knit Stockins.
2 Pair Old Yrish Stockins.
2 Pair Cloth Stockins.
2 Pair Wadmoll Stockins.
4 Pair Linnen Stockins,”

which would indicate that Goodman Wright had stockings for all weathers, or, as said a list of that day, “of all denominations.” He had also two pair of boot-hose and two pair of boot-briches; evidently he was a seafaring man. I must note that he had more ample underclothing than many “plain citizens,” having cotton drawers and linen drawers and dimity waistcoats.

That petty details of propriety and dignity of dress were not forgotten; that the articles serving to such dignity were furnished to the colonists, and the use of these articles was expected of them, is shown by the supply of such additions to dress as Norwich garters. Garters had been a decorative and elegant ornament to dress, as may be seen by glancing at the portraits of Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Robert Orchard, and the English Antick, in this book. And they might well have been decried as offensive luxuries unmeet for any Puritan and unnecessary for any colonist; yet here they are. The settlers in one of the closely following ships had points for the knee as well as garters.

From all this cheerful and ample dress, this might well be a Cavalier emigration; in truth, the apparel supplied as an outfit to the Virginia planters (who are generally supposed to be far more given over to rich dress) is not as full nor as costly as this apparel of Massachusetts Bay. In this as in every comparison I make, I find little to indicate any difference between Puritan and Cavalier in quantity of garments, in quality, or cost—or, indeed, in form. The differences in England were much exaggerated in print; in America they often existed wholly in men’s notions of what a Puritan must be.

At first the English Puritan reformers made marked alterations in dress; and there were also distinct changes in the soldiers of Cromwell’s army, but in neither case did rigid reforms prove permanent, nor were they ever as great or as sweeping as the changes which came to the Cavalier dress. Many of the extremes preached in Elizabeth’s day had disappeared before New England was settled; they had been abandoned as unwise or unnecessary; others had been adopted by Cavaliers, so that equalized all differences. I find it difficult to pick out with accuracy Puritan or Cavalier in any picture of a large gathering. Let us glance at the Puritan Roundhead, at Cromwell himself. His picture is given [here], cut from a famous print of his day, which represents Cromwell dissolving the Long Parliament. He and his three friends, all Puritan leaders, are dressed in clothes as distinctly Cavalier as the attire of the king himself. The graceful hats with sweeping ostrich feathers are precisely like the Cavalier hats still preserved in England; like one in the South Kensington Museum. Cromwell’s wide boots and his short cape all have a Cavalier aspect.

Cromwell dissolving Parliament.

While Cromwell was steadily working for power, the fashion of plain attire was being more talked about than at any other time; so he appeared in studiously simple dress—the plainest apparel, indeed, of any man prominent in affairs in English history. This is a description of his appearance at a time before his name was in all Englishmen’s mouths. It was written by Sir Philip Warwick:—

“The first time I ever took notice of him (Cromwell) was in the beginning of Parliament, November, 1640. I came into the house one morning, well-clad, and perceived a gentleman speaking whom I knew not, very ordinary apparelled, for it was a plain cloth suit which seemed to have been made by an ill country tailor. His linen was plain and not very clean, and I remember a speck or two of blood upon his band which was not much larger than his collar; his hat was without a hat-band; his stature was of good size; his sword stuck close to his side.”