On the feet, shoes of all materials, from cloth and velvet to leather beautifully worked, and of the most absurd length; these also were slashed with puffs of white stuff. Many of these shoes were but a sole and a toe, and were tied on by thongs passing through the sole.
Of course the long coat would not alone satisfy the dandy, but he must needs cut it off into a short jacket, or petti-cote, and leave it open to better display his marvellous vest. Here we have the origin of the use of the word ‘petticoat’—now wrongly applied; in Scotland, to this day, a woman’s skirts are called her ‘coats.’
About the waists of these coats was a short sash, or a girdle, from which hung a very elaborate purse, or a dagger.
Stick in hand, jewel in your hat, dandy—extravagant, exquisite dandy! All ages know you, from the day you choose your covering of leaves with care, to the hour of your white duck motoring-suit: a very bird of a man, rejoicing in your plumage, a very human ass, a very narrow individual, you stride, strut, simper through the story of the universe, a perfect monument of the Fall of Man, a gorgeous symbol of the decay of manhood. In this our Henry’s reign, your hair busheth pleasantly, and is kembed prettily over the ear, where it glimmers as gold i’ the sun—pretty fellow—Lord! how your feathered bonnet becomes you, and your satin stomacher is brave over a padded chest. Your white hands, freed from any nasty brawls and clean of any form of work, lie in their embroidered gloves. Your pride forbids the carriage of a sword, which is borne behind you—much use may it be!—by a mincing fellow in your dainty livery. And if—oh, rare disguise!—your coiffure hides a noble brow, or your little, neat-rimmed coif a clever head, less [!-- original location - sleeves illustration --] honour be to you who dress your limbs to imitate the peacock, and hide your mind beneath the weight of scented clothes.
In the illustrations to this chapter and the next, my drawings are collected and redrawn in my scheme from works so beautiful and highly finished that every student should go to see them for himself at the British Museum. My drawings, I hope, make it quite clear what was worn in the end of the fifteenth century and the first nine years of the sixteenth, and anyone with a slight knowledge of pictures will be able to supply themselves with a large amount of extra matter. I would recommend MS. Roy 16, F. 2; MS. Roy 19, C. 8; and especially Harleian MS. 4425.
Of the lower classes, also, these books show quite a number. There are beggars and peasants, whose dress was simply old-fashioned and very plain; they wore the broad shoes and leather belts and short coats, worsted hose, and cloaks of fair cloth. ‘Poverty,’ the old woman with the spoon in her hat, is a good example of the poor of the time.
When one knows the wealth of material of the time, and has seen the wonder of the stuffs, one knows that within certain lines imagination may have full scope. Stuffs of silk, embroidered with coupled birds and branches, and flowers following out a prescribed line, the embroideries edged and sewn with gold thread; velvet on velvet, short-napped fustian, damasked stuffs and diapered stuffs—what pictures on canvas, or on the stage, may be made; what marvels of colour walked about the streets in those days! It was to the eye an age of elaborate patterns—mostly large—and all this broken colour and glitter of gold thread must have made the streets gay indeed.
Imagine, shall we say, Corfe Castle on a day when a party of ladies and gentlemen assembled to ‘course a stagge,’ when the huntsmen, in green, gathered in the outer ward, and the grooms, in fine coloured liveries, held the gaily-decked horses; then, from the walls lined with archers, would come the blast of the horn, and out would walk my lord and my lady, with knights, and squires, and ladies, and gallants, over the bridge across the castle ditch, between the round towers. Behind them the dungeon tower, and the great gray mass of the keep—all a fitting and impressive background to their bravery.