The custom of livery servants wearing cockades dates from the commencement of the eighteenth century, and was at first purely a military distinction.
The cockade worn by the servants of the members of the Royal Family, and by all who claim to be of Royal descent, is slightly different in shape from that known as the badge of the reigning dynasty, i.e. the Hanoverian badge, and is round in shape and without a fan. The military cockade is of an oval shape, terminating in a fan. The civil cockade is of an oval shape also, but without the fan. The naval cockade is identical with the civil cockade.
The white cockade is the badge of the House of Stuart. The black cockade that of the House of Hanover. The servants of foreign ambassadors wear cockades in colour according to their nationalities. Black and white for Germany; black and yellow for Austria; the tricolour for France; scarlet for Spain; blue and white for Portugal; and black and yellow for Belgium.
The word cockade, according to a well-known authority, was borrowed from the French cocarde, having originally been applied to the plumes of cock's feathers worn by Croatian soldiers serving in the French army. Some such plume, or in its place a bunch of ribbons, came to be used in pinning up the flaps of the hat into a cocked position, and thus gradually the word passed for the name of the "cocked" hat itself.
CHAPTER XXXV
COUNTRY-HOUSE VISITS
September is actually the commencement of the country visiting season, the few visits that are paid in August are but a prelude to the programme that is to follow during the succeeding five months.
The visitors received in August are principally relatives. The exceptions to the August family parties are the August cricket parties in the counties where cricket is made a great feature during that month, where the cricket weeks and consequent large country-house parties are of annual recurrence, and where balls and private theatricals form part of the week's amusement. It often follows that people visit at the same houses year after year, they arrange their tour of visits with regard to those invitations which they annually receive; new acquaintances and new houses whereat to visit are added to the list from time to time and take the place of those which, as a matter of course, drop out of it. Sometimes the invitations fit into each other admirably, like the pieces of a puzzle; at others there is an awkward interval of a day, or two or three days, to be filled up between leaving one house and arriving at another. If the hostess is, in either case, a relation or an intimate friend, this difficulty is easily surmounted by staying on at one house until the day fixed for arrival at another, or vice versâ; but if a guest is on ceremony with her hostess, or if, as is often the case, new arrivals are expected for the following week, the alternative is to spend a few days in town, as although the house where the next visit to be paid might be within twenty or thirty miles of the house the visitor is about to leave, it would be unusual to spend the interval at an hotel in the adjacent town, as to do so might reflect upon the hospitality of the hostess. On the other hand, invitations are sometimes given independently of dates, but this friendly style of invitation is not given when a large party is invited, and it is understood to mean that the hostess may be quite alone, or may have guests staying with her, as the case may be. This form of invitation is frequently given to people visiting in Scotland, on account of the great distance from town.
It is a very general custom to give shooting parties the third week in September, harvest permitting. If the harvest is late on account of unfavourable weather the shooting parties are postponed until the first week in the ensuing month. The guests, or at least the crack guns, are usually invited for partridge driving, which is what partridge shooting now actually amounts to.