"Your subjects spend and waste great sums in their abuse of costly garb with so many varieties of trimmings that the making costs more than the garments themselves, and as soon as they are made there is a change of fashion and the money has to be spent over again. When they marry, the vast wealth they squander on dress alone ruins them, and they are in debt for the rest of their lives; and although this expenditure may be voluntary, it has become, so to speak, obligatory, and such is the excess that the wife of an artisan nowadays needs as much finery as a lady, even though she and her husband have to get the money for it by dishonest means, to the offence of God. Many weddings, indeed, are prevented by the excessive cost and the vassals are therefore unable to serve your Majesty as they ought. They are unable to pay their debts, the costs incurred in the recovery of which still further reduce their fortunes.... As for collars also, the disorder in their use is very great, for a single one of linen, with its making and ravelling, will cost over 200 reals, and six reals every time it is goffered, which at the end of the year doubles the cost of them and much money is thus wasted. Besides this, many strong young men are employed in goffering them, who might be better employed in work necessary for the commonwealth or in tilling the soil. The servants, too, have to be paid higher wages in respect of the money they have to spend in collars, which consumes most of what they earn, and a great quantity of wheat is wasted in starch, which is wanted for food. In addition to this, the fine linens to make these collars are brought from abroad, and money has to be sent out of the country to pay for them. With respect to coaches, great evil is caused and offence given to God, seeing the disquiet they bring to the women who own them, as they never stay at home but leave their children and servants to run riot with the bad example of the mistress being always abroad. The praiseworthy and necessary art of horsemanship too is dying out, and those who ought to be mounted crowd, six or eight of them together in a carriage, talking to wenches rather than learning how to ride. It must be evident how different gentlemen must grow up who have all their lives been rolling about in coaches instead of riding, besides which the breed of horses is deteriorating and money is being squandered by the keeping of coaches often by people of moderate means who can ill afford it but who are over-persuaded by their wives, who say that because So-and-so, who is no better off than they, have a coach they must have one as well, and so the bad example spreads."
Don Mateo proposed some very drastic remedies, and, whether in consequence of this or not, the King and his favourite, the masterful Count-Duke of Olivares, put their heads together during the first few weeks of the reign, and came out with tremendous series of pragmatics repeating the most stringent provisions of the decree of 1611 with regard to the use of gold or silver, either in dress, furniture, saddlery, or upholstery. No trimmings were to be allowed of any sort, and no silk capes, cloaks, or overalls were to be worn, cloth, frieze, and duffel being substituted in those garments. Above all Don Mateo's suggestion about the ruffs was adopted. No person was permitted, on pain of the pillory and exile, to pleat or goffer linen in any shape. Starch was placed in the index expurgatoris again, and ruffs were to be for ever suppressed in favour of the large, square, flat Walloon collar, which fell over the shoulders and breast like a bib.
The expenses of the palace were cut down to a minimum, and Philip himself, the most prodigal and lavish of men in after years, went on short commons. Amongst other efforts at economy made by him one originated a fashion which became deeply rooted in the Spanish character, and which the Italian minister of another Philip—the Frenchman—a hundred years afterwards, said had a large share in making Spaniards the leisurely and dignified people they were. The wide, falling Walloon collar, with little or no stiffening,—as will be seen in portraits of the time—was apt to wrinkle round the neck and very soon became dirty; so an ingenious tailor in the Calle Mayor submitted to the young King and his brother Carlos a new device, consisting of a high square collar of cardboard covered with light-coloured silk inside and with the same stuff as the doublet outside. By means of heated rollers and shellac the cardboard was permanently moulded into a graceful curve which bent outwards at the height of the chin.[[4]] Philip was pleased with the novelty and ordered some of the new "golillas," as they were called, for himself and his brother. The tailor, in high glee, went to his shop to make them, but alas! heated rollers turned with handles and smoking pots of shellac were suspicious things in those days, and the spies of the Council promptly haled the tailor and his uncanny instruments before the President, who sagely decided that there was some devilish witchcraft behind it all; and if not—well, the accursed things he was making were lined with light blue silk in violation of the pragmatic, so he must be punished anyhow. A bonfire was made of the poor man's stock before his door and he was put under lock and key; but when Olivares heard of it he was furious. He and the Duke of Infantado sent for the President and rated him soundly as a meddling old fool for burning the King's new collars. The President declared his ignorance that they were for the King, but pointed out how outrageous they were in shape, and how they sinned against the pragmatic; but he was soon silenced by the Count-Duke, who told him they were the best and most economical things ever invented, as they did away with the need for constant washing of collars, and would last ten years without further expense or trouble.
The golilla "caught on" with high and low. It is true that heads had to be carried stiffly and turned slowly, but Spanish heads were intended so to be used and no complaint was made. No more pragmatics against ruffs, moreover, were ever needed again, and the costly, cumbrous fashion went out for good. This was in 1623, the same year as Charles Stuart went on his hairbrained trip to Madrid, and during his stay all the pragmatics were suspended, in order that he might see how splendid the Madrileños could be if left to themselves. They did their best to sustain their reputation and the poverty-stricken country was again plunged into the maddest vortex of prodigality that even dissolute Madrid had ever seen, and flaunting Buckingham himself was outshone in brilliancy and lavishness by the nobles of Philip's Court. The strict law of Charles V. limiting the wearing of jewellery and precious stones had been re-imposed, but the list of gems displayed, given, and received as presents during Charles' visit, and the sumptuous dresses worn, has been left on record, down to the smallest detail, by one of the King's attendants;[[5]] and shows an inconceivable lavishness which naturally would, and did, make it difficult to revert in Madrid to the severe orders of the pragmatics again.
The tendency of the time, however, was against barbaric splendour, and gradually the taste for gold and silver tissues and embroideries in civil costume was modifying itself, but new extravagancies sprang up as old ones languished. Philip's sister Anna had married Louis XIII. of France in 1615 with great pomp, and all the Spanish Court had assembled on the historic ford of the Bidasoa which marked the French frontier. They brought back some new fashions with them, caught from the Parisians. Since Charles V., for good reasons, was obliged to have his curls cropped at Barcelona, Spaniards of all classes had worn the hair short, and parted as it is in England at present. The French wore it longer and the Spaniards now followed their lead. But not all at once. They first adopted the mode of having two ugly locks like long, limp Newgate-knockers, called "guedejas," hanging before the ears, the back of the head being cropped and the top surmounted by a twist or curl called a "copete." In the early portraits of Philip IV. this style of headdress may be seen.
Another fashion brought from France was much more objectionable, but took a stronger hold in Spain than elsewhere. Round hoop-skirts or farthingales had been common in most parts of Europe for over fifty years before, but the new refinement, called a "guarda-infante," was a very large, farthingale flattened back and front so as to stick out inordinately at the sides, particularly at the hips. The jaunty Madrileñas added to it a new feature, which made it worse than ever, namely, a metal section or facing to the bottom hoop which resounded against a similar plate on the heels of their clogs, or clanked upon the ground, so that a musical clickety-click accompanied them wherever they went; even as it did that aged equestrienne of Banbury famed in English nursery lore. As the bold wenches minced along they prided themselves upon the eccentric or rhythmical effects they produced. They would be neither shamed, coerced, nor persuaded to abandon the foolish caprice until they tired of it themselves, but Don Philip did his best by pragmatics to suppress it. In 1639 the famous fulmination against female extravagance in dress was issued, part of which ran as follows:
"His Majesty orders that no woman, whatever her quality, shall wear a guarda-infante; which is a costly, superfluous, painful, ugly, disproportionate, lascivious, indecent article of dress, giving rise to sin on the part of the wearers and on that of men for their sakes. The only exception to this rule shall be public prostitutes.
"No skirts shall consist of more than eight yards of silk or a proportionate quantity of other stuff, nor shall they measure more than four yards round; the same rule shall apply to polonaises, over-skirts, hen-coop skirts and petticoats.
"No woman wearing shoes shall have a bottom hoop, farthingale, or anything else in the skirt for the purpose of making a noise, and bottom hoops or farthingales shall not be worn except with pattens at least five inches high.