Wigs first appear in England during the reign of Stephen, but are seldom mentioned until the Tudor period. The "Maiden Queen" is popularly supposed to have had her head shaved, and to have worn a wig. Mary Queen of Scots had a most complete collection of wigs, and it is recorded that she wore one at her execution.
The periwig first appears in history as the headgear of a fool. In the privy purse expenses of Henry VIII. for December, 1522, occurs the entry: "For a peryke for Sexton the King's fool xx shillings." By the middle of the same century their use had become general, and it was dangerous for children to wander alone, as they were liable to be deprived of their hair for the manufacture of these articles.
The periwig blossomed out during the reign of Charles II., and attained enormous proportions; it was often gaily decked with ribbons and allowed to hang over the front and back for some distance.
The gossiping Pepys, complaining in his diary of October 30, 1663, of his extravagant purchases in wigs, clothes, &c., mentions, amongst other things, two periwigs, "one whereof cost me £3 and the other 40s. I have worn neither yet, but will begin next week, God willing."
"A Londoner into the country went,
To visit his tennants, and gather in rent;
He on a brave gelding did gallantly ride,
With boots and with spurs, and a sword by his side.
Because that the Innkeepers they will not score
He lined his pockets with silver good store;
And he wore a wigg cost three guineas and more;
His hat was cockt up, Sir, behind and before."
Roxburghe Ballads, 1688.
Wigs when first worn were extremely expensive, costing as much as a hundred guineas, and their value often led to their being stolen from the head.
The different shapes which the wig assumed were innumerable, and the different classes of society were identified with particular shaped wigs. There were the clerical and the physical; the huge tie peruke for the man of law, the brigadier and the tremendous fox-ear or cluster of temple curls with a pigtail behind, for the Army and Navy. (The Army pigtail was shortened to seven inches in 1804, and in 1808 was cut off altogether.) The merchant, the man of business and of law affected the grave full-bottom; the tradesman was distinguished by the snug bob or natty scratch; the country gent by the natural fly and hunting peruke; "the coachman wore his, as do some to this day, in imitation of the curled hair of a water-dog."
There were also, as a writer in the London Magazine of 1753 informs us, the pigeon's wing, the comet, the cauliflower, the royal bird, the staircase, the ladder, the brush, the wild boar's back, the temple, the rhinoceros, the corded wolf's paw, Count Saxe's mode, the she-dragon, the rose, the crutch, the negligent, the chancellor, the cut bob, the long bob, the half natural, the chain-buckle, the corded buckle, the snail back, and many others.