THE WOMEN
One cannot call to mind pictures of this time without, in the first instance, seeing the form of Henry rise up sharply before us followed by his company of wives. The fat, uxorious giant comes straight to the front of the picture, he dominates the age pictorially; and, as a fitting background, one sees the six women who were sacrificed on the political altar to pander to his vanity. Katherine of Aragon—the fine and noble lady—a tool of political desires, cast off after Henry had searched his precious conscience, after eighteen years of married life, to find that he had scruples as to the spirituality of the marriage. Anne Boleyn, tainted with the life of the Court, a pitiful figure in spite of all her odious crimes; how often must a ghost, in a black satin nightdress edged with black velvet, have haunted the royal dreams. And the rest of them, clustered round the vain king, while in the background the great figures of the time loom hugely as they play with the crowned puppets.
The note of the time, as we look at it with our eyes keen on the picture, is the final evolution of the hood. Bit by bit, inch by inch, the plain fabric has become enriched, each succeeding step in an elaboration of the simple form; the border next to the face is turned back, then the hood is lined with fine stuff and the turnover shows this to advantage; then the sides are split and the back is made more full; then a tag is sewn on to the sides by which means the cut side may be fastened off the shoulders. The front is now stiffened and shaped at an angle, this front is sewn with jewels, and, as the angle forms a gap between the forehead and the point of the hood, a pad is added to fill in the vacant space. At last one arrives at the diamond-shaped head-dress worn in this reign, and, in this reign, elaborated in every way, elaborated, in fact, out of existence. In order to make the head-dress in its 1509 state you must make the white lining with the jewelled turnover as a separate cap. However, I think that the drawings speak for themselves more plainly than I can write.
Every device for crowding jewels together was used, criss-cross, in groups of small numbers, in great masses. Pendants were worn, hung upon jewelled chains that wound twice round the neck, once close to the neck, the second loop loose and passed, as a rule, under the lawn shift. Large brooches decorated the bodices, brooches with drop ornaments, the body of the brooch of fine gold workmanship, many of them wrought in Italy. The shift, delicately embroidered with black silk, had often a band of jewellery upon it, and this shift was square cut, following the shape of the bodice.
The bodice of the gown was square cut and much stiffened to a box-like shape. The sleeves of the gown were narrow at the shoulders, and after fitting the arm for about six inches down from the shoulders, they widened gradually until, just below the elbow, they became square and very full; in this way they showed the false under-sleeve. This under-sleeve was generally made of a fine rich-patterned silk or brocade, the same stuff which formed the under-gown; the sleeve was a binding for the very full lawn or cambric sleeve which showed in a ruffle at the wrist and in great puffs under the forearm. The under-sleeve was really more like a gauntlet, as it was generally held together by buttoned tags; it was puffed with other coloured silk, slashed to show the shift, or it might be plain.
Now the sleeve of the gown was subject to much alteration. It was, as I have described, made very square and full at the elbow, and over this some ladies wore a false sleeve of gold net—you may imagine the length to which net will go, studied with jewels, crossed in many ways, twisted into patterns, sewn on to the sleeve in sloping lines—but, besides this, the sleeve was turned back to form a deep square cuff which was often made of black or coloured velvet, or of fur.
In all this I am taking no account of the German fashions, which I must describe separately. Look at the drawings I have made of the German fashion. I find that they leave me dumb—mere man has but a limited vocabulary when the talk comes to clothes—and these dresses that look like silk pumpkins, blistered and puffed and slashed, sewn in ribs, swollen, and altogether so queer, are beyond the furious dashes that my pen makes at truth and millinery. The costumes of the people of this age have grown up in the minds of most artists as being inseparable from the drawings of Holbein and Dürer.