The Year after the Armada, and Other Historical Studies

by Martin A. S. Hume

For the next hundred years the same process went on. The monarch of Spain and the Indies was reduced to beg his subjects in the name of charity to provide food for himself and his family, whilst the mines of Peru and Mexico were sending millions. The splendour of the polished Court of Philip IV. was only rivalled by that of his nephew, the Grand Monarque, but it was soaked to the core in sloth and squalor, whilst the humbler people found the purchasing power of gold grow less and less as the metal poured in and the workers, dazzled by wealth so lightly won, ceased to produce commodities for consumption. Philip III. was a narrow bigot without his father's industry or intellect, but he was well-meaning and sorely beset, and was unequal to the propping up of the great empire into which his father's narrow and halting policy had introduced the dry rot. The regulation of dress, however, and the repression of profane extravagance was just the task which appealed to his tastes and sympathies, and he set about it as soon as he mounted the throne.

His pragmatic of 1600 was a new departure in many things and was the pattern of all similar enactments for the next hundred years. It is very minute, but a few of its provisions are worth preserving, as they throw much light on the tastes of the time. The King in his preamble sets forth that he is informed that the sumptuary pragmatics are quite disregarded, and seeing that the great excess and extravagance in dress constitutes a national scandal which must be moderated, he has conferred with his wisest councillors and has decided to issue a new pragmatic which shall supersede all previous ones.

To begin with, the following sweeping order is given: No one of whatever rank, except the King and his children, shall wear any sort of brocade or cloth of gold or silver, or stuff shot with gold or silver, or silk in which metal is woven. No cord, gimp, ornamental stitching or quilting, either of silk or metal, is to be permitted, excepting on religious vestments and uniforms, and no precious stones or pearls are to be worn on housings or accoutrements in any shape. There is an absolute prohibition of the employment of lute-string, twist, ruchings, flat braid, cording, chainlets, crewels, cross-stitching, through-stitching, tangle trimming, puffs, and any sort of bead or steel trimmings; and the following dress is alone prescribed: The cape or other over-garment may be of any sort of silk with stripes, on each edge of which may be an ornamental stitching. Surcoats and ropillas (a sort of half-tight over-jacket with double sleeves, the outer ones hanging loose from the shoulder) may be also of silk and trimmed in the same way, and, if desired, a piping of another sort of silk, but not the same, may be put between the stripes. The inside of the capes may have similar stripes of silk, satin, or taffety, but not velvet. Shoulder capes may be made of velvet, and the hoods of riding-cloaks or rain-capes may be lined with the same. Silk gimp and frogs may be sewn on to duffel cloaks, &c. The trunks may be worn of any kind of silk, and each slashing may be edged with a velvet or silk piping and an "eyelash" border. If the slashing is a wide one this edging may be worn on both sides of it, but if otherwise only on one side. The slashings may be lined with taffety. Silk gimp or braid of any sort may be worn on the trunks excepting lutestrings or crewels. Galligaskins may also be made of silk, but with no trimming but a row of gimp on each side and at the opening. Dressing-gowns for women and men may be of any material or fashion, so long as gold or silver is not used. Doublets, ropillas, or trunks made of satin may be ornamented by silk stitching of any colour, but on no account may the stuff be pinked, ravelled, or fringed. The rules generally apply to women as well as men, but the former are allowed to wear jackets of light cloth of gold or silver, which may be trimmed with a braid of the same over the seams, and the whole jacket may be covered with "whirligigs" or scrolls of gold or silver, so long as there is no working in the stuff itself. The frills and flounces of these garments may also be ornamented in the same fashion. Hats, belts, baldricks, &c., were all treated in the same way; gold or silver gimp, braid, and lace were allowed to be sewn on, but not embroidered or woven in, the texture.

A rather curious point in this decree of 1600 is the distinction in it of different classes of citizens. Thus women of known evil life were allowed to wear what they liked inside the houses, but were to conform to the law in the streets; pages might dress in silk jackets, coats, trunks, and caps, but their capes were to be of cloth or frieze; no lackeys were to have silken clothes or velvet scabbards, but they were allowed to wear taffety caps. The punishments for the breaking the orders seem severe but unequal. Offending wearers were to lose the peccant garment and pay a sum equal to its value for pious uses, but tradesmen who made or sold the goods were to be condemned to four years' exile and a fine of twenty maravedis for a first offence, double the punishment for a second, and the pillory and ten years' exile from Spain for a third. All this sounds very severe, but there were plenty of ways out of it. For instance, garments already made might be worn for four years by men and six by women, although they were not in accordance with the law. This pragmatic was proclaimed with the usual ceremony by one of the Alcaldes de Casa y Corte with the sound of drum and trumpet in the High Street of Madrid on the 8th of June, 1600. The month must have been a busy one for the dignified officials in question; for during the first fortnight of it decrees regulating almost every conceivable subject were issued. The rigid and unpopular decree about courtesy titles was superseded, and nearly everybody of position might now be called Señoria. No gold or silver in any form was to be used in furniture or household decoration, "as the King is shocked at the waste of the estates of his subjects in such superfluities, and considers it high time that the money were employed in useful and necessary things." Velvet or silk might be employed in upholstery, but no gold or silver except a gold fringe on the edges. The same rule applied to the lining of carriages and litters, but no silk was to be used on the outside of vehicles.

The regulation of jewellery was just as minute and severe, and to judge from that which was in future to be allowed, the excess in this respect must have been very great, since after pages of prohibitions with regard to the fashions of jewellery, and the limitation of enamels and precious stones, men were still allowed to wear as many rings as they liked, chains and girdles of gold pieces, sets of cameos mounted in gold, and strings of pearls in their caps. The use of silver plate is also much limited, but still side-saddles might be made of silver, if plain, and the harness and horse-cloths covered with the same metal. Here, again, the same loophole for evasion was given; for all things already made were exempt if registered within six months.

Attempts were made at the same time, as on many subsequent occasions, to suppress the ostentatious promenading up and down the Calle Mayor, which grew more scandalous as the years went on, until it reached its apogee in the reign of Philip IV., and for which the taste has never yet quite died out. No women of loose life were to promenade in coaches, nor might coaches be hired for the purpose on pain of confiscation. No person but a grandee might have more than two torches carried before him under penalty of one hundred ducats fine, and if any person hired a lackey by the day, or for less than a month, he was to be put in the pillory and exiled for four years. The reasons for these regulations will be well understood by those who have studied the characteristic picaresque novels of the period, and have smiled at the amusing subterfuges adopted by impecunious scamps to pass themselves off as noble hidalgos, the better to prey upon their fellow-creatures.

Amongst other things Philip III. in his youthful zeal tried to deal with the vexed subject of ruffs. He made no attempt to stand against starch any longer—indeed, to judge from his portraits, no one ever wore such stiff or extensive ruffs as he did himself, but he sternly draws the line at trimming. There must be no lace edges or ravellings; they must be pure white, with two little pleats only, and not more than 4½ inches wide, half as wide again as had been allowed by his father. For the next few years pragmatics positively rained in Madrid, altering, restricting, relaxing this or the other detail of the various decrees; but all to no purpose apparently, for in 1611 Philip came out with another long proclamation, saying that the extravagant abuse of dress being worse than ever, he has consulted discreet experts and has decided to alter the rules. The use of gold and silver thread and foil, and of coloured silks, is more restricted than ever, the only exceptions being for church vestments and the dresses of officers actually engaged in war. In other respects, however, the trimmings allowed appear to be exceedingly elaborate, and in the pragmatic of 1611 about a dozen different specimen trimmings of trunks alone are described with all the finnicking minuteness of a modern Court dressmaker's bill; the sum total of it all being that the employment of silk, velvet, and other fine stuffs, stamped and plain, was now almost unrestricted, whilst bullion was more severely forbidden than before, except for ladies' jackets and a few of their trimmings.

Another desperate attempt was made in the same year to restrict the unprofitable idling in the streets with carriages and an order was issued that no new coaches were to be made without a license from the President of the Council, and no man was to ride in a coach without leave, "as the King is informed that gentlemen are forgetting how to ride." Women also are to refrain from covering up their heads and faces, in order that they may be seen and recognised, and they may only be accompanied by their husbands, fathers, sons, or grandfathers. The girls of a family may ride in a coach without the mistress of it, and the owners of coaches may be accompanied by a friend, but with this exception no coach is to go out without its owner, and may not be lent, exchanged, or sold without special license.

Ruffs had now apparently become general with all classes, as a pragmatic was issued in 1611, saying that, notwithstanding the former prohibition of the use of long-lawn and muslin for ruffs, frills, and collars, poor people would insist upon wearing them, and they consequently might now be made of those cheaper materials as well as of fine linen.

In March, 1621, Philip III. died, leaving luxury and extravagance in his capital more rampant than ever, and Philip IV., a mere boy, at once set to work to grapple the evil with as much confidence as if he were the first to attempt it. If economy had ever been needed it was so now, for the public treasury was empty, the people ruined with oppressive taxation, ecclesiastical extortion and official peculation, and the country was rapidly becoming depopulated. A curious pamphlet is still in existence which contains a series of exhortations addressed to the King in the year of his accession by a noble member of the Cortes of Castile, setting forth the various evils from which the country was suffering, and proposing remedies for them.[[3]] There is much plain speaking and boldness on many matters therein, and, amongst others, on the eternal question of sumptuary extravagance. The representation on this subject has so direct a bearing upon what has already been said as to the inoperativeness of the pragmatics, that some of it is worth transcribing.