’Prentices wore a dress very much like that of the Blue Coat Boys, but with a flat cap. A citizen’s servant wore a blue livery. Knots of ribbons were tied on the shoes. The women gathered round the conduit and the bakehouse for gossip. The tradesmen issued their own tokens which passed current. Girls who served in the shops were taken on Sundays by their sweethearts to Islington or Pimlico. Shops were furnished with cudgels for the use of ’prentices in case of a fight. The cudgels were called by various endearing names, but the favourite name was a “Plymouth Cloak.” Clothes were washed at the riverside on wood or a flat stone. The love of fine dress is charged as a fault of the fair Londoners. Why they should be blamed for desiring what all men desire, viz. the appearance of bravery and splendour, is hard to understand. The sumptuary laws which were passed from time to time appear to have been intended not so much to prevent the gratification of this instinctive desire as to make different classes proclaim their rank and station by their dress. A tradesman, in fact, must not appear as a gentleman; nor a craftsman as a master. In a word, there was a constant feeling that rank should be indicated by outward apparel, and that every one should proclaim his station by his garments. Thus the Act of 1464 ordered
“That none below the dignity of a lord or knight of the garter, or their wives, should be allowed to wear purple, or any manner of cloth of gold, velvet or sable furs, under a penalty of 20 marks. That none below knights, bachelors, mayors, and aldermen, and their wives, should wear satin or ermine, under a penalty of 10 marks. That none but such as had possessions to the amount of 40s. per annum should be permitted to wear fustian, bustian, or scarlet cloth, and no fur, but black or white lamb, on forfeiture of 40s.
That no yeoman, nor any under that degree, should be allowed to stuff or bolster their doublets, to wear short cloaks or jackets, or shoes with pikes passing the length of eleven inches, under a penalty of 20s.
That no husbandman should use broad cloth at above 11s. a yard, nor hose above 14d. a pair: nor their wives kerchiefs whereof the price should exceed 12d. nor girdles harnessed with silver, upon pain of forfeiting at every default 40d.
And because foreign kerchiefs were brought into the country, and sold at such extravagant prices, it was ordained that any one selling lawne, nyfell, umple, or other manner of kerchief whereof the price should exceed 10s. the seller should forfeit a mark for every one that he sold above that price.”
COURT OF WARDS AND LIVERIES IN THE TIME OF ELIZABETH
From Planché’s Cyclopædia of Costume.
The person at the head of the table appears to be Lord Burghley; on either side of him is a judge, who may have been there as assessors. The next on the left side is Thomas Seckford, who held the office of Surveyor from 1580 to 1589. The one opposite may be Richard Kingsmill, Attorney from 1582 to 1589. The third on the left side may be George Goring, Receiver-General from 1583 to 1593. The opposite person with a book open may be William Tooke, Auditor 1551 to 1588. The three persons at the lower end of the table are clerks. At the left hand side next the end is the Usher with a rod. In 1578 Marmaduke Servant held this office. Opposite to him on the other side stands the Messenger, who in 1565 was Leonard Taylor. This picture was probably made about 1585.
To those who take the worthy Philip Stubbes quite seriously and literally, the Elizabethan age will appear more than commonly wicked and unscrupulous; to those who are ready to make allowance for the exaggerated indignation of the satirist, the narrowness of the Puritan, and the real and genuine craving after equity, justice, and honesty, it will become manifest that the age contained, like every other age, grave abuses, great injustices, and much small meanness and trickery. Laws were passed attempting to restrain the tricks of clothiers, tanners, shoemakers, and “brokers,” i.e. pawnbrokers and marine store-dealers. These laws failed, as all such laws must fail, because men who wish to cheat will cheat in spite of any laws that may be passed. In truth there is very little in Stubbes but does not belong to every town and every age. He laments the pride of the age. So does every satirist. Especially he laments Pride of Apparel. Take their hats for instance:—
“Sometimes they use them sharp on the crowne, pearking up like a spere, or shafte of a steeple, standing a quarter of a yard above the crowne of their heades; some more, some lesse, as please the phantasies of their inconstant mindes. Othersome be flat and broad on the crowne, like the battlementes of a house. An other sort have round crownes, sometymes with one kinde of bande, sometymes with an other; now blacke, now white, now russet, now red, now grene, now yellowe, now this, nowe that, never content with one colour or fashion two daies to an ende....
And as the fashions bee rare and straunge, so is the stuffe wherof their hattes be made, divers also; for some are of silke, some of velvet, some of taffatie, some of sarcenet, some of wooll, and, whiche is more curious, some of a certaine kind of fine haire.... And so common a thinge it is, that everie servingman, countrieman, and other, even all indifferently, do weare of these hattes. For he is of no account or estimation amongst men, if hee have not a velvet or a taffatie hatte, and that muste bee pincked and cunningly carved of the beste fashion. And good profitable hattes bee these, for the longer you weare them the fewer holes they haue. Besides this, of late there is a new fashion of wearyng their hattes sprung up amongst them, which they father upon the Frenchmen, namely, to weare them without bandes; but how unseemely (I will not saie how assie) a fashion that is, let the wise judge; notwithstanding, howe ever it be, if it please them, it shall not displease me. And an other sort (as phantasticall as the rest) are content with no kinde of hat without a greate bunche of feathers of divers and sundrie colours, peakyng on top of their heades, not unlike (I dare not saie) Cockescombes, but as sternes of pride and ensigns of vanitie.” (Stubbes, 1836 edition, p. 38.)
Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford.
