Frederick William I. in his early life ignored fashion, and showed a great aversion to regal pomp and luxury. One day he threw a dressing-gown of gold brocade into the fire, and, it is said, he would often lie for hours in the sun with his face greased to give it a tanned, soldier-like appearance. Frederick the Great was slovenly in his person, a defect that increased as he grew older; for he so far disregarded fashion as to wear ragged linen, dirty shirts, old clothes, and cracked boots.
Similarly, James I. of England was quite indifferent to his dress, and is said to have worn his clothes as long as they would hang together. On one occasion, when a pair of shoes adorned with rosettes were brought to him, he inquired whether it was intended to make “a ruffe-footed dove” of him; and at another time when a new-fashioned Spanish hat was shown him, he pushed it contemptuously away, remarking that he neither liked the Spanish, nor their fashions. It is even said that on one occasion he went so far as to borrow a pair of scarlet stockings with gold clocks from one of his courtiers when he was anxious to make a special impression on the French Ambassador. According to Walpole, James hunted “in the most cumbrous and inconvenient of all dresses, a ruff and trouser breeches,” which must have presented a somewhat quaint appearance.
Perhaps one of the greatest sensations made by royalty in the matter of dress was that of Christina of Sweden, who on passing through France on her visit to Louis XIV., in her strange dress and uncurled wig, looked, according to public criticism, “very like a half-tipsy gipsy.” Her coat has been described as a garment neither of man nor woman, and it fitted so ill that her higher shoulder appeared above the neck of the dress. Mesdames de Montpensier and de Motteville describe her chemise, which was made according to the fashion of a man’s shirt, as appearing and disappearing through, under, or over, other parts of the royal costume in a very puzzling way; but what most astonished and horrified the ladies of fashion, “who wore trains from the moment they rose in bed, were the short petticoats worn by Christina, which left her ankles exposed to the sight and criticism of all who chose to look at them.”[119]
But if some sovereigns have been naturally parsimonious in their dress, some were so from force of circumstances, as in the case of Isabella of Angoulême, consort of King John, for, although his Majesty never spared his own personal expenses, he was mean to his queen. Thus we find in one of his wardrobe rolls an order for a grey cloth pelisson for Isabella, guarded with nine bars of grey fur. There is another order for cloth to make two robes for the Queen, each to consist of five ells, one of green cloth, the other of brunet; also cloth for a pair of purple sandals and four pairs of women’s boots, one pair to be embroidered round the ankles. The richness, however, of his own dress and the costly splendour of his jewellery partly occasioned the demands he made on the purses of his people.
Edward I., on the other hand, disliked show, and, according to his chronicler, “he went about in the plain garments of a citizen, excepting on days of festival.” When remonstrated with by a bishop on his unkingly attire, his Majesty answered: “What could I do more in royal robes, father, than in this plain gabardine?” And Catherine of Aragon apparently was much of the same opinion, for she was accustomed to say that she considered no part of her time so much wasted as that passed in dressing and adorning herself. Henry VIII. was fond of show in dress, and Queen Elizabeth’s excessive love of fashion and finery, like that of her namesake, queen of Philip II. of Spain, has long been proverbial. Indeed, it has been said that “her toilet was an altar of devotion, of which she was the idol, and all her ministers were her votaries: it was the reign of coquetry and the golden age of milliners.” The list of her Majesty’s wardrobe in 1600 shows us that she had at that time 99 robes, 126 kirtles, 269 gowns, 136 foreparts, 125 petticoats, and 27 fans, in addition to 96 cloaks, 83 save-guards, 85 doublets, and 18 lap mantles. As Elizabeth grew older she tried more and more to hide the dilapidations of nature by the resources of art; and, if we are to believe all that has been said of her, “she was the mistress of many million hearts and full a thousand dresses.” She inaugurated a reign of extravagance; and, as Mr. Thornbury has remarked, “she seems to have lost her jewels upon public occasions almost as frequently as Prince Esterhazy, who used to shake off so many pounds’ worth of diamonds every time he went to the opera. At Westminster, on one occasion, the Queen drops a golden acorn and oak leaf; on another, two gold buttons shaped like tortoises; on another, a diamond clasp given her by the Earl of Leicester, and which fastened a gown of purple cloth of silver.” Her Majesty, it is said, was never seen en déshabille by the male sex but on two occasions. The first time was on “a fair May morning when Gilbert Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury’s son, walking in the tilt-yard about eight o’clock, chanced to look up, and saw her at the window in her night-cap. ‘My eye,’ said he, ‘was full towards her, and she showed to be greatly ashamed thereof, for that she was unready and in her nightstuff. So when she saw me after dinner as she went to walk, she gave me a great fillip on the forehead, and told my lord chamberlain, who was the next to see her, how I had seen her that morning, and how much she was ashamed thereof.’” Twenty years later the luckless Essex surprised her in the hands of her tire-woman, and he paid severely for his blunder.
With the wardrobe of Elizabeth may be compared in size that of Augustus III., second Saxon King of Poland, which filled two halls of the palace, there having been for each dress a special watch, snuff-box, sword, and cane. Every dress was painted in miniature in a book, which every morning was presented to “his most serene Excellency,” as he caused himself to be called. He had as many as 1500 wigs, so that when his palace was occupied by Frederick the Great during the Seven Years’ War, he exclaimed contemptuously, “So many perrukes for a man who has no head.”
The portraits of Anne of Denmark, queen of James I., indicate, it is said, a masculine character, and “display a tawdry and tasteless style of dress.” And it was at this period that the enormous fardingale was worn at Court, concerning which “unnatural disguisement” Lord Lytton, in his pedigree of the English gallant, tells the following amusing story: “When Sir Peter Wych was sent ambassador to the Grand Seignor from James I., his lady accompanied him to Constantinople, and the Sultaness, having heard much of her, desired to see her; whereupon Lady Wych, attended by her waiting-women, all of them dressed in their great fardingales, which was the Court dress of the English ladies at that time, waited upon her Highness. The Sultaness received her visitors with great respect, but, struck with the extraordinary extension of the hips of the whole party, seriously inquired if that shape was peculiar to the natural formation of English women, and Lady Wych was obliged to explain the whole mystery of the dress in order to convince her that she and her companions were not really so deformed as they appeared to be.”
A pleasant little anecdote would lead us to imply that Henrietta Maria, consort of Charles I., relied on her own natural charms; for on her arrival in this country, when Charles seemed surprised to find her taller than he had expected, and cast his eyes upon her feet, as it suspecting that she had made use of artificial means to improve her stature, she immediately raised one of her feet, and pointed to the shoe. “Sir,” she said, “I stand upon my own feet. I have no helps of art. Thus high I am, and I am neither higher nor lower.”[120]
This incident reminds us of Catherine of Braganza, who tried to introduce short skirts, being desirous, as Lady Carteret told Pepys, “to have the feet seen,” probably, it is said, owing to her having, like most of her countrywomen, small, well-turned feet; but, despite her exhibiting herself in this new fashion, she found few imitators, the ladies of the Court adhering to their long-flowing draperies.
Another queen who had a strong aversion to artificial adjuncts was Mary Beatrice of Modena, wife of James II. It was the fashion for the ladies of the Court to paint, and, when the King told her that he wished her to do the same, she refused not only as a matter of taste, but from a religious scruple. But at last she consented and put on rouge, which, when Father Seraphin, a Capuchin friar of great sanctity, to his grief and surprise saw, he exclaimed, “Madame, I would rather see your Majesty yellow, or even green, than rouged”—a remark which much amused the Queen.