By command of Charles II., members of the University of Cambridge were forbidden to wear perriwigs; and, on another occasion, when a chaplain was preaching before him in a wig, he bid the Duke of Monmouth, then chancellor of the university, to cause the statutes concerning decency of apparel to be more strictly enforced. To be deprived of their wigs was a clerical grievance. In France, a turbulent priest at the cathedral of Beauvais insisted on his right to wear one at mass, but was hindered from doing so, when he solemnly placed the objectionable wig in the hands of a notary at the church doors, and protested against the indignity which had been put upon him.
The year of the Great Plague was one of the most terrible in our annals—Death smote his victims by thousands—the voice of lamentation and mourning stilled for a time the gaieties of a dissolute court. The men of fashion became alarmed lest the poison of the plague might lurk insidiously in the curls of their wigs. Pepys entertained the same fear:—“September 3, (1664).—Up, and put on my coloured silk suit, very fine, and my new perriwig, bought a good while since, but durst not wear, because the plague was in Westminster when I bought it; and it is a wonder what will be the fashion after the plague is done as to perriwigs, for nobody will buy any hair for fear of infection, that it had been cut off the heads of people dead of the plague.”
Wigs were first worn by barristers about 1670. The judges were at first somewhat opposed to the innovation, as suited only to fops, and unbecoming so learned a profession; and some of the more zealous leaders of the fashion were not suffered to plead in their new attire. Time has long since reconciled us to the forensic head-dress; and if the public be at all sceptical as to the merits of horse-hair, the rare talents it has fostered would alone command respect. Custom and precedent have now securely enthroned the wig in the Halls of Justice, and authority looks with suspicion on any attempt to interfere with its prerogative. Lord Campbell tells us that when he argued the great Privilege Case, and had to speak for sixteen hours, “he obtained leave to speak without a wig; but under the condition that it was not to be drawn into a precedent.”
As early as 1654, Evelyn had been shocked at the discovery that ladies of fashion painted their cheeks; and Pepys records that in the galleries at Whitehall he beheld the ladies of honour “just for all the world like men with doublets buttoned up to the breast, and with perriwigs and hats.” How closely French fashions were imitated at Whitehall we may judge from an entry in Evelyn’s diary:—“Following his majesty this morning through the gallery, I went with the few who attended him into the Duchess of Portsmouth’s dressing-room, where she was in her morning loose garment, her maids combing her, newly out of her bed, his majesty and the gallants standing about her.” Although modesty, which ever accompanies good taste, had fled the court of Charles, some fine examples might be selected from the Court Beauties, as illustrating the special beauty of a natural and becoming coiffure. De Grammont has not failed to notice the hair of La Belle Hamilton, which was well set, and fell with ease into that natural order which is so difficult to imitate. Miss Jenning’s hair was of a most beauteous flaxen, adorning the brightest complexion that ever was seen. And the portraits of Nell Gwynn show that sprightly damsel with short ringlets about the temples, massed like bunches of grapes, in most tempting clusters.
Among the smaller works of art which the perruquier produced for the fair sex, we may mention a description of false hair set on wires, so as to stand out like wings from each side of the head; and the merkin, so called, which was arranged in a group of curls at each side of the face, small over the forehead and thence increasing like the lower part of a pyramid.
During the brief reign of James II. wigs grew larger still, and false hair put the natural ornament of a man’s head completely in the shade. Holme, writing in 1688, assures his readers that the custom of wearing wigs, then so much used by the generality of men, “was quite contrary to the custom of their forefathers, who got estates, loved their wives, and wore their own hair,” and adds pathetically, “in these days there be no such things.” The love-lock was soon engrafted on the wig, to which allusion is made in Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Cupid’s Revenge:”
“He lay in gloves all night, and this morning I
Brought him a new perriwig with a lock at it.”
There was, also, a long perriwig in vogue with a pole-lock or suffloplin, as the perruquiers termed it, the prototype of the giant pig-tails, once so dear to the army and navy, who never turn tail on the enemy. We read, likewise, of the travelling or campaign-wig, with long knots or twisted tails tied with ribbon, depending from the bottom of the wig laterally—technically styled “knots or bobs, or a dildo on each side with a curled forehead.”
In the next reign wigs still went on increasing in size. Combing the curls in public, or when flirting with the ladies, was esteemed haut ton. Ivory or tortoiseshell combs of large size were carried in the gentlemen’s pockets, with which they imitated Mascarille, we make no doubt, very abominably. They certainly manage these things much better in France: in fashion we are content to be servile imitators of the French, and the copy is usually very inferior to the original. Madame Sevigné, in one of her charming letters, gossiping about the Duchess de Bourbon, writes:—“Rien n’est plus plaisant que d’assister à sa toilette, et de la voir se coiffer; j’y fus l’autre jour: elle s’éveilla à midi et demi, prit sa robe de chambre, vint se coiffer, et manger un pain au pot; elle se frise et se poudre elle-même, elle mange en même tems; les mêmes doigts tiennent alternativement la houppe et le pain au pot; elle mange sa poudre et graisse ses cheveux; le tout ensemble fait un fort bon déjeuné et une charmante coiffure.” To this age belongs the extraordinary head-dress usually called a commode: the hair was combed upwards from off the forehead, and upon this was built a huge pile of ribbons and lace, arranged in tiers, and over all a scarf or veil drooping on the neck and shoulders. It rivalled the fabled turrets which crown the head of Cybele, and was worn by Queen Mary herself as part of the court costume. In England these were Halcyon days for wig-makers. In later years wigs were more generally worn by all classes; but, for the most part, they were wigs for the million, more moderate in their pretensions, till at last they dwindled down to a mere apology for a wig. The quantity of hair alone in a wig for a nobleman or gentleman in those high and palmy days of wig-making was more than ten natural crops could furnish. The material was most costly. In 1700, a young country girl received £60 for her head of hair; and the grey locks of an old woman, after death, sold for fifty pounds: the ordinary price of a wig was about forty pounds. Full-bottomed wigs, invented by one Duviller, to conceal, it is said, a want of symmetry in the shoulders of the Dauphin, were appropriated by the learned professions and those who studied to look uncommonly grave and sagacious.