There remains another means of information of the dress of Puritan women in what was the nearest approach to a collection of fashion-plates which the times afforded.
Lady Catharina Howard.
In the year 1640 a collection of twenty-six pictures of Englishwomen was issued by one Wenceslas Hollar, an engraver and drawing-master, with this title, Ornatus Muliebris Anglicanus. The severall Habits of Englishwomen, from the Nobilitie to the Country Woman As they are in these Times. These bear the same relation to portraits showing what was really worn, as do fashion-plates to photographs. They give us the shapes of gowns, bonnets, etc., yet are not precisely the real thing. The value of this special set is found in three points: First, the drawings confirm the testimony of Lely, Van Dyck, and other artists; they prove how slightly Van Dyck idealized the costume of his sitters. Second, they give representations of folk in the lower walks of life; such folk were not of course depicted in portraits. Third, the drawings are full length, which the portraits are not. Four of these drawings are reduced and shown [here]. I give [here] the one entitled The Puritan Woman, though it is one of the most disappointing in the whole collection. It is such a negative presentation; so little marked detail or even associated evidence is gained from it. I had a baffled thought after examining it that I knew less of Puritan dress than without it. I see that they gather up their gowns for walking after a mode known in later years as washerwoman style. And by that very gathering up we lose what the drawing might have told us; namely, how the gowns were shaped in the back; how attached to the waist or bodice; and how the bodice was shaped at the waist, whether it had a straight belt, whether it was pointed, whether slashed in tabs or laps like a samare. The sleeve, too, is concealed, and the kerchief hides everything else. We know these kerchiefs were worn among the “fifty other ways,” for some portraits have them; but the whisk was far more common. Lady Catharina Howard, aged eleven in the year 1646, was drawn by Hollar in a kerchief.
There had been some change in the names of women’s attire in twenty years, since 1600, when the catalogue of the Queen’s wardrobe was made. Exclusive of the Coronation, Garter, Parliament, and mourning robes, it ran thus:—
“Robes.
Petticoats.
French gowns.
Cloaks.
Round gowns.
Safeguards.
Loose gowns.
Jupes.
Kirtles.
Doublets.
Foreparts.
Lap mantles.”
In her New Year’s gifts were also, “strayt-bodyed gowns, trayn-gowns, waist-robes, night rayls, shoulder cloaks, inner sleeves, round kirtles.” She also had nightgowns and jackets, and underwear, hose, and various forms of foot-gear. Many of these garments never came to America. Some came under new names. Many quickly disappeared from wardrobes. I never read in early American inventories of robes, either French robes or plain robes. Round gowns, loose gowns, petticoats, cloaks, safeguards, lap mantles, sleeves, nightgowns, nightrails, and night-jackets continued in wear.
I have never found the word forepart in this distinctive signification nor the word kirtle; though our modern writers of historical novels are most liberal of kirtles to their heroines. It is a pretty, quaint name, and ought to have lingered with us; but “what a deformed thief this Fashion is”—it will not leave with us garment or name that we like simply because it pleases us.
Doublets were worn by women.