By two fair arms about his waist;
Nor did the lady blush vermilion,
Dancing on the lover’s pillion.
Why? Because all modes and actions
Bow’d not then to Vulgar Fractions;
Nor were tested all resources
By the power to purchase horses.”
There is little said about Anne’s style of dressing; but two things are told of her, better worth the telling. She ruled her husband without his ever suspecting it, and she did this by a soft voice and gentle ways;—this to the newly-espoused ladies. The second circumstance was not publicly known until after her death. It was told at her grave-side at Westminster, by Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, who stated, that this good Queen passed her leisure hours in reading the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue. This was perhaps in the Bohemian tongue; for Bohemia possessed a translation long before England.
Richard’s second wife, Isabella of Valois, was as inordinately fond of dress as her husband was; and never, perhaps, were royal couple so profusely provided with means whereby to look well in the eyes of men. But she was but a little child, and he, man-grown, treated her as a daughter. Little did Isabella have cause to wear in England but the trappings of woe; and the gems of tears, ever set in her eyes, were brighter than the jewels in her famous casket, and about which, the two Crowns ultimately quarrelled with no more dignity than a couple of Abigails.
Queen Joanna of Navarre, spouse of Henry IV., and her ladies, appear to have been attired at her coronation after much the same fashion as was observed at the crowning of Queen Victoria. In after-days Joanna, who was terribly “near,” dressed as ladies do who labour under that infirmity: even her mourning for the King was calculated like a widow of small means; and a black cloth gown at seven shillings and eightpence per yard, with one and sixpence for the making, and shoes at sevenpence per pair, tend to show that the royal widow furnished herself at what may be called the “mitigated affliction department.”