In the train of wealth came indulgence and luxury. Sad lamentations were expressed on account of the extravagance of the upper classes, who spent their money in the city on "excess of apparel, provided from foreign parts to the enriching of other nations, and the unnecessary consumption of the treasures of the realm, and on other vain delights and expenses, even to the wasting of their estates." London, during the sitting of the law courts, seems to have been deluged with people, who came up from the country, and vied with each other in their expensive mode of living; so that, at the Christmas of 1622, the monarch, with a very paternal care of his subjects, ordered the country nobility and gentry forthwith to leave the metropolis, and go home and keep hospitality in the several counties. St. Paul's Cathedral was desecrated at this time, by its middle walk being made a lounging and loitering place for the exhibition of extravagant fashions, and for indulgence in all kinds of pursuits. There the wealthy went to exhibit their riches, and the needy to make money, the dissolute to enjoy their pleasures, the mere idler to while away his time. Bishop Earle, in his Microcosmographic, published in 1628, gives the following description of the place, and thereby throws light on the habits of the Londoners: "It is the land's epitome, or you may call it the lesser isle of Great Britain. It is more than this; the world's map, which you may here discern in its perfectest motion justling and turning. It is a heap of stones, and men with a vast confusion of languages; and, were the steeple not sanctified, nothing liker Babel. The noise in it is like that of bees, a strange humming or buz mixed of walking, tongues, and feet. It is a kind of still roar or loud whisper. It is the great exchange of all discourse, and no business whatsoever but is here stirring and a-foot. It is the synod of all pates politic, jointed and laid together in the most serious posture, and they are not half so busy at the parliament. It is the market of young lecturers, whom you may cheapen here at all rates and sizes. It is the general mint of all famous lies, which are here, like the legends of popery, first coined and stamped in the church. All inventions are emptied here, and not few pockets. The best sign of a temple in it is, that it is the thieves' sanctuary, which rob more safely in a crowd than a wilderness, while every searcher is a bush to hide them. The visitants are all men without exception, but the principal inhabitants and possessors are state knights and captains out of service—men of long rapiers and breeches, which after all turn merchants here and traffic for news. Some make it a preface to their dinner, and travel for a stomach; but thrifty men make it their ordinary, and board here very cheap."
Riding about in coaches, as well as walking in smart array about St. Paul's, was a method of display which those who could afford it were very fond of. Hackney coaches made their appearance in 1625, and so greatly did they multiply, that the king, the queen, and the nobility, could hardly get along; while, to add to the annoyance, the pavements were broken up, and provender much advanced in price. "Wherefore," says a proclamation, "we expressly command and forbid that no hackney or hired coaches be used or suffered in London, Westminster, or the suburbs thereof, except they be to travel at least three miles out of the same. And also that no person shall go in a coach in the said streets, except the owner of the coach shall constantly keep up four able horses for our service when required."
The increasing wealth of the citizens made them covetous of honor, and king James, to replenish his exhausted coffers, was willing to sell them titles of knighthood. The attainment of these distinctions led to some curious displays of human vanity, and excited those mean jealousies which our fallen and debase nature is so apt to cherish. It was a question keenly agitated among the civic dignitaries and their ladies,—Whether a knight commoner should rank before an untitled alderman—whether a junior alderman just knighted should take precedence of a senior brother, without that distinction, who had long passed the chair? A marshal's court was at length held to decide the matter, and it was arranged that precedence in the city should be attached to the aldermanic office, rather than the knightly name—an instance of flattering respect to municipal rank.
While the wealthier classes were closely pressing on the heels of their more aristocratic neighbors, the humbler orders were, in their own way, seeking to imitate their superiors. The pride of dress was generally indulged in, and manifested, as is always the case, in times and countries distinguished by mercantile activity. To check extravagance in this respect, sumptuary laws were adopted, after the fashion of former ages, and with a like unsuccessful result. With tailor-like minuteness, the dress of the inferior citizens was prescribed. No apprentice was to wear a hat which cost more than five shillings, or a neck-band that was not plainly hemmed. His doublet was to be made of Kersey fustian, sackcloth, canvas, or leather, of two shillings and sixpence a yard, and under; his stockings to be of woolen, and his hair to be cut short and decent. Like minute directions were issued relative to the attire of servant maids. Linen was to be their clothing, and that not to exceed five shillings an ell.
Pageants, which had been so common in the days of the Tudors, reached an unexampled stage of extravagant and absurd display under the first two monarchs of the house of Stuart. Even grave lawyers, including the great Mr. Selden himself, took part in getting up these exhibitions; and a particular account is given of a masquerade of their devising, which was performed at the expense of the inns of court, before king Charles, in 1633.
Liveries, and dresses of gold and silver, glittering in the light of torches, horses richly caparisoned, and chariots sumptuously fitted up, were set off by contrast with beggars and cripples, who were introduced in the procession, riding on jaded hacks. Very odd devices, illustrative of the taste of the period, and of the way in which satirical feelings found vent, through the medium of emblematical characters, were combined with the other quaint arrangements of this show, such as boys disguised as owls and other birds, and persons representing the patented monopolists, who were extremely unpopular. A man was harnessed with a bit in his mouth, to denote a projector who wished to have the exclusive manufacture of that article; another, with a bunch of carrots on his head and a capon on his wrist, caricatured some one who wanted to engross the trade of fattening birds upon these vegetables. The object was to convey to the king an idea of the ridiculous nature of many of the monopolies then conferred. All sorts of pageants and shows, with a dramatic cast in them, were exhibited at Whitehall under royal patronage, and filled the edifice with revelry and riot at Christmas and other festivals. The genius of Inigo Jones was for many years chained down to the invention of scenery and decoration for these trifles, while Ben Jonson exercised his muse in writing verses and dialogues for the masquerades.
At a later period of the reign of Charles I., the year 1638, there was much excitement produced in London by the grand entry of Mary de'Medici, mother of the queen Henrietta, upon which occasion a spectacle of unusual grandeur was exhibited. A very full account of this was published by the Historiographer of France, the Sieur de la Sierre.
After detailing the order of procession, reporting the speeches delivered, and describing the rooms and furniture of the palace, and the manner of the reception of the queen-mother by her daughter Henrietta, the author dwells with wonderful delight on the public illuminations and fireworks on the evening of the day: "For the splendor of an infinite number of fireworks, joined to that of as many stars, which shone forth at the same time, both the heavens and the earth seemed equally filled with light. The smell had all its pleasures of the cinnamon and rosemary wood, which were burning in a thousand places, and the taste was gratified by the excellence of all sorts of wine, which the citizens vied with each other in presenting to passengers, in order to drink together to their majesties' health." "Represent to yourself that all the streets of this great city were so illuminated by an innumerable number of fires which were lighted, and by the same quantity of flambeaux with which they had dressed the balconies and windows, and from afar off to see all this light collected into one single object, one could not consider it but with great astonishment."
These festive transactions on the surface of London society little indicated the awful convulsion that was near at hand. In the chronicles of London pageantry, the waters look calm and bright, and no stormy petrel flaps his wing as an omen of an approaching tempest. But a time of controversy and confusion was near. A great struggle was impending, both political and religious. What has just been noticed of court and civic life was but
"The torrent's smoothness ere it dash below."