Anne of Denmark, the next Queen of England, did not look queenly even in Elizabeth’s robes. Her taste in dress was extremely bad. She patronized especially the huge farthingales, high behind, low before, and swelling out into unlimited space on all sides. These monstrous dresses were kept in countenance by the as monstrous padded costumes of the courtiers; and it was not very unusual for a bevy of the bearers of them to stick fast in the narrow passages, whence only dexterity could decently disentangle them. The King issued a proclamation against the farthingales; but the ladies, to show their contempt for his authority in matters of fashion, continued to wear them till he died,—and then left them off. Spirited women!
King Charles wore a white mantle at his coronation, and when his poor hearse, poorly attended, crossed the yard of Windsor Castle, the snow descended upon it, and covered the coffin as it was taken out with its silently-falling flakes; and so, from crown to grave, Charles was, as his servants used to call him, “the White King.” His consort, Henrietta Maria, was fond of the colour,—that in which Mary Tudor had mourned. But poor Henrietta, less fortunate than the sister of Henry VIII., gay and graceful as she was at her husband’s court, was too ill-conditioned in France to dress becomingly even in weeds. She was one of the founders of good taste in England; and in her exile she wore contentedly the coarsest stuffs. But then Louis XIV. buried her splendidly at his own cost; and Charles II. and his people spent twice as much in a six months’ mourning for her as would have sufficed to have kept her and her household for ever.
When Katherine of Braganza landed in England as Queen Consort of Charles II., she excited mirth by the stiff outlandish fashion in which her luxuriant tresses were done up by her Majesty’s “barber,” and her exceedingly ugly maids of honour. Indeed she had as little taste for dress as she had for the fine arts; though she had a taste for music. In full court dress, however, she looked a handsome woman,—without studying how she might best become so. Pepys has recorded that he saw her and the King dining together once, on which occasion she wore a loose white wrapping gown, as was supposed to become her imaginary condition; and Pepys adds, that she looked handsomer in it than in her robes of state and ceremony.
Mary Beatrice of Modena, the wife of James II., is remarkable for her detestation of rouge, and for her wearing it in obedience to her husband’s wishes. Ladies will be pleased to make a note, not so much of the fact as of the motive. Father Seraphine, her Capuchin confessor gave an impudent stare of horror when he beheld it; and as she murmured something about the paleness of her complexion, he exclaimed,—and in the very face of the King too,—“Madam, I would rather see your Majesty yellow or green than rouged;” at which the good lady fell a laughing, as servilely as a barrister at a judicial bad joke, such as Baron Alderson’s light puns, with which he cuts short heavy suits.
This is almost the only trait of interest told in connection with her toilet. It was simply observed that in England she dressed as became her state; and in exile, as became a lady whose dower was stolen by William III. and appropriated to his own use. Apply it as he would, he could never look so well as the owner. She cared little for that of which Elizabeth thought so much; and when, in after-days, it was remarked that she dressed as plainly as a citizen’s wife, and wore no jewels, it was known that she had sold her jewels, to profit her son. As often happens with mothers who despoil themselves to benefit their boys, the gift profited neither the recipient nor the giver. The splendour of the silver ornaments of her toilet was well known; and the ladies of France could well appreciate the sacrifice, which was in truth no sacrifice to her who made it.
Queen Mary II., if she rolled joyously over the couches from which her affectionate father had just before been rolled off, the unfilial romp was, at least, a private bit of ingratitude. She did not, like her sister Anne, go to the play in a dress covered with orange ribbons.
Mary, in her later days, patronized the cornette head-dresses of monumental elevation, and the fontanges, of which she was desirous to deprive, by royal decree too, the “city minxes;” but the ladies beyond Temple Bar would neither heed her decrees nor wear the high-crowned hat, which had fallen into disuse save by the pagani, and they continued to “flaunt in cornettes and top-knots, after her own gracious example.”
Anne was too lame to walk at her coronation, and accordingly she was carried in a low sedan chair; and as she could not take her huge train with her, the same was as gravely carried by the privileged bearers behind the chair, as though it had been hanging from the back of her most sacred person. She was indifferently dressed for the occasion, but there were two figures present whose appearance compensated for whatever lacked. The Queen, being “Queen of France” as well as of England, must necessarily be attended by her French nobility; but as the real article was not to be had, a spurious one was invented, and two men, named Clarke and Andrews, were dressed up to represent the Dukes of Normandy and Aquitaine. They stood at the foot of the throne, answered to their fictitious titles, and looked, like all shams, very much embarrassed and supremely ridiculous. If this Queen was not a very splendid dresser, the makers and washers of her dresses had profitable places under her. Mrs. Abrahal enjoyed a pension of one hundred a year, in return for having “washed and starched the Queen’s heads (triple-tiered caps, brought into fashion by Maintenon) when she was princess, for twenty pounds a year.” The Queen’s sempstress came off more fortunately still; for Mrs. Ravensford pricked the heart of a gallant as easily as she could pierce her own pincushion, and ultimately married the son of the Bishop of Ely. And such lawn sleeves she made for her father-in-law!
But it was a reign in which the devisers of garments had a lucky time of it. I may instance John Duddlestone, the bodice-maker of Bristol, who asked Prince George to dinner when none of the Bristol merchants had the hospitality to do so. The Prince accepted the invitation, kissed Dame Duddlestone, ate his beef and pudding with more appetite after such a grace, and ultimately presented the pair to the Queen at Windsor. Anne not only invited them to dine with her, but, like the French lady who used to find all her male visitors in black velvet breeches, attired him in a suit of violet velvet at her own cost; and when the bottle had gone a round or two, drew her husband’s sword, and laying it on the bodice-maker’s shoulder, bade him “stand up, Sir John!”