This was a plentiful year in wine, corn, and fruits, which were all good, and the corn of a quality fit for preservation.
In this year also, the ladies and damsels laid aside their long trains to their gowns, and in lieu of them had deep borders of furs of minever, martin, and others, or of velvet, and various articles of a great breadth. They also wore hoods on their heads of a circular form, half an ell, or three quarters, high, gradually tapering to the top. Some had them not so high, with handkerchiefs wreathed round them, the corners hanging down to the ground. They wore silken girdles of a greater breadth than formerly, with the richest shoes, with golden necklaces much more trimly decked in divers fashions than they were accustomed to wear them.
At the same time, the men wore shorter dresses than usual, so that the form of their buttocks, and of their other parts, was visible, after the fashion in which people were wont to dress monkies, which was a very indecent and impudent thing. The sleeves of their outward dress and jackets were slashed, to show their wide white shirts. Their hair was so long that it covered their eyes and face,—and on their heads they had cloth bonnets of a quarter of an ell in height. Knights and esquires, indifferently, wore the most sumptuous golden chains. Even the varlets had jackets of silk, satin, or velvet; and almost all, especially at the courts of princes, wore peaks at their shoes of a quarter of an ell in length. They had also under their jackets large stuffings[61] at their shoulders, to make them appear broad, which is a very vanity, and, perchance, displeasing to God; and he who was short-dressed to-day, on the morrow had his robe training on the ground. These fashions were so universal that there was not any little gentleman but would ape the nobles and the rich, whether they dressed in long or short robes, never considering the great expense, nor how unbecoming it was to their situation.
FOOTNOTES:
[59] Anthony Widville earl Rivers, lord Scales and Newsels, and lord of the Isle of Wight. This accomplished nobleman, one of the first restorers of learning to this country, was son to sir Richard Widville, by Jacqueline of Luxembourg, widow to the regent duke of Bedford. Caxton printed several of his works.
For further particulars, see Walpole's Noble Authors, last edition, by Park.
[60] The following extract from Dr. Henry's Hist. of England, vol. v. pp. 536, 537, 4to. edit. will place the event of this tournament in a different light.
'The most magnificent of these tournaments was that performed by the bastard of Burgundy and Anthony lord Scales, brother to the queen of England, in Smithfield, A.D. 1467. The king and queen of England spared no expense to do honour to so near a relation,—and Philip duke of Burgundy, the most magnificent prince of that age, was no less profuse in equipping his favourite son. Several months were spent in adjusting the preliminaries of this famous combat, and in performing all the pompous ceremonies prescribed by the laws of chivalry.
'Edward IV. granted a safe conduct, October 29, A.D. 1466, to the bastard of Burgundy earl of La Roche, with a thousand persons in his company, to come into England to perform certain feats of arms with his dearly beloved brother Anthony Widville, lord Scales and Newsels; but so many punctilios were to be settled, by the intervention of heralds, that the tournament did not take place until June 11, A.D. 1467.