Figures from Funeral Procession of the Duke of Albemarle, 1670.
Of course the king changed his dress many times after this solemn assumption of a lifelong garment. It was a restless, uncertain, trying time in men’s dress. They had lost the doublet, and had not found the skirted coat, and stood like the Englishman of Andrew Borde—ready to take a covering from any nation of the earth. I wonder the coat ever survived—that it did is proof of an inherent worth. Knowing the nature of mankind and the modes, the surprise really is that the descendants of Charles and all English folk are not now wearing shawls or peplums or anything save a coat and waistcoat.
Some of the sturdy rich members of the governors’ cabinets and the assemblies and some of our American officers who had been in his Majesty’s army, or had served a term in the provincial militia, and had had a hot skirmish or two with marauding Indians on the Connecticut River frontier, and some very worthy American gentlemen who were not widely renowned either in military or diplomatic circles and had never worn armor save in the artist’s studio,—these were all painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller and by Sir Peter Lely, and by lesser lights in art, dressed in a steel corselet of the artist, and wearing their own good Flanders necktie and their own full well-buckled wig. There were some brave soldiers, too, who were thus painted, but there were far more in armor than had ever smelt smoke of powder. It was a good comfortable fashion for the busy artist. It must have been much easier when you had painted a certain corselet a hundred times to paint it again than to have to paint all kinds of new colors and stuffs. And the portrait in armor was almost always kitcat, and that disposed of the legs, ever a nuisance in portrait-painting.
While the virago-sleeves were growing more and more ornamental, and engageants were being more and more worn by women, men’s sleeves assumed a most interesting form. The long coat, or cassock, had sleeves which were cut off at the elbow with great cuffs and were worn over enormous ruffled undersleeves; and they were even cut midway between shoulder and elbow, were slashed and pointed and beribboned to a wonderful degree. This lasted but a few years, the years when the cassock was shaping itself definitely into a skirted coat. Perhaps the height of ornamentation in sleeves was in the closing years of the reign of Charles II, though fancy sleeves lingered till the time of George I.
Earl of Southampton.
In an account of the funeral of George Monck, the Duke of Albemarle, in the year 1670, the dress is very carefully drawn of those who walked in the procession. (Some of them are given [here].) It may be noted, first, that all the hats are lower crowned and straight crowned, not like a cone or a truncated cone, as crowns had been. The Poor Men are in robes with beards and flowing natural hair; they wear square bands, and carry staves. The Clergymen wear trailing surplices; but these are over a sort of cassock and breeches, and they all have high-heeled shoes with great roses. They also have their own hair. The Doctors of Physic are dressed like the Gentlemen and Earls, save that they wear a rich robe with bands at the upper arm, over the other fine dress. The gentlemen wear a cassock, or coat, which reaches to the knee; the pockets are nearly as low as the knee. These cassocks have lapels from neck to hem, with a long row of gold buttons which are wholly for ornament, the cassock never being fastened with the buttons. The sleeves reach only to the elbow and turn back in a spreading cuff; and from the elbow hang heavy ruffles and under-sleeves, some of rich lace, others of embroidery. The gentlemen and earls wear great wigs.
This coat was called a surcoat or tunic. The under-coat, or waistcoat, was also called a vest, as by Charles the king.