Wigs.—In the reign of Queen Anne, enormous full-bottomed wigs often cost twenty or thirty guineas each.
"Capillary Attraction."—When Charles II. was espoused to the Infanta of Portugal, a fleet was sent over to Lisbon, with proper attendants to bring her hither, but her majesty being informed that there were some particular customs in Portugal, with relation to the ladies, which the king would not easily dispense with, the fleet was detained six or seven weeks, at a great expense, till her majesty's hair grew.
(Mr. Prince, with his Russia Oil, would have prospered under Royal Patronage in those days; and Mr. Rowland would not have needed immortality in Byron's verse: "incomparable huile Macassar.")
The King of Kippen.—When James V. of Scotland, travelled in disguise, he used a name which was known only to some of the principal nobility and attendants. He was called the Goodman (the tenant, that is) of Ballangiech. Ballangiech is a steep pass, which leads down behind the Castle of Stirling. Once, when he was feasting in Stirling, the king sent for some venison from the neighbouring hills. The deer were killed and put on horses' backs to be transported to Stirling. Unluckily, they had to pass the castle gates of Ampryor, belonging to a chief of the Buchanans, who had a considerable number of guests with him. It was late, and the company were rather short of victuals, though they had more than enough of liquor. The chief, seeing so much fat venison passing his very door, seized on it; and, to the expostulations of the keepers, who told him that it belonged to King James, he answered insolently, that if James was king in Scotland, he, Buchanan, was king in Kippen, being the name of the district in which the Castle of Ampryor lay. On hearing what had happened, the king got on horseback, and rode instantly from Stirling to Buchanan's house, where he found a strong, fierce-looking Highlander, with an axe on his shoulder, standing sentinel at the door. This grim warder refused the king admittance, saying that "the Laird of Arnpryor was at dinner, and would not be disturbed." "Yet go up to the company, my good friend," said the king, "and tell him that the good man of Ballangiech is come to feast with the King of Kippen." The porter went grumbling into the house, and told his master that there was a fellow with a red beard who called himself the good man of Ballangiech, at the gate, and said he was come to dine with the King of Kippen. As soon as Buchanan heard these words, he knew that the king was there in person, and hastened down to kneel at James's feet, and to ask forgiveness for his insolent behavour. But the king, who only meant to give him a fright, forgave him freely, and, going into the castle, feasted on his own venison, which Buchanan had intercepted. Buchanan of Arnpryor was ever afterwards called King of Kippen.
W.G.C.
Remarkable Murder.—"Anno 1605: one William Calverly, of Calverly, in the county of York, esquire, murthered two of his own children at home at his own house, then stabbed his wife into the body, with full intent to have killed her, and then went out with intention to have killed his child, at nurse, but was prevented. He was pressed to death, at York, for this murther, because he stood mute, and would not plead."—Old History.
Law respecting Caps.—An old Law, enacted that every person above seven years of age, should wear on Sundays, and Holidays, a cap of wool, knit-made, thickened and dressed in England, by some of the trade of Cappers—under the forfeiture of three-farthings for every day's neglect; excepting Maids, Ladies, and Gentlemen, and every Lord, Knight, and Gentleman of Twenty marks of land, and their heirs, and such as had borne office of worship in any City, Town, or Place, and the Wardens of the London Companies.
T. GILL.
Splendid Biography.—Richard Neville, the Great Earl of Warwick and Salisbury, was well known in history by the appellation of the King Maker. His biographer says, "He was a man whose hospitality was so abundant, that the ordinary consumption of a breakfast, at his house in London, was six oxen; whose popularity was so great, that his absence was accounted as the absence of the sun from the hemisphere; whose service was so courted, that men of all degrees were proud to wear the badges of his livery; and whose authority was so potent, that kings were raised, or deposed, as suited his humour."
P.T.W.