Fig. 143.—The wig-bag or “flash” from a Court suit, showing the rosette held away and displaying the black silk bag. At the lower corners of the latter loops are seen, which are probably the remains of those through which a ribbon was passed, which went round the neck and fastened on the breast by a brooch.
In the case of the Knight of the Garter, the hood consists of a flat piece of crimson velvet about three-quarters of a yard across, slightly oval in shape, and at a spot a little on one side of the centre is to be found the remains of the turban of the chaperon. It is a thick ring covered outside with crimson velvet, and inside with white silk. To one side of this is fastened a long band of crimson velvet one and three-quarter times as long as the hood is wide. This represents, of course, the liripipe of the chaperon. (See page [166] and Figures [122]-[125].) The edges of the velvet in all cases are ornamented with a white silk piping. The hood is fixed on the right shoulder, and the band representing the liripipe is brought across the breast of the wearer. In addition there are some wide loops and ends of ribbon called the streamer, and narrow ribbons with which to fasten the structure to the mantle.
Fig. 144.—The hood from the mantle of a Knight of the Garter, showing the survival of the chaperon and its liripipe.
The hoods of the Orders of the Thistle and of St. Patrick are similar in construction, and in the case of the former the velvet of which they are made is blue in colour. On the mantles of other Orders only the streamer remains. On the left shoulder of the Knights of the Bath and of St. Michael and St. George there is a small vestige of aiguillettes. This is of silk cord in the former case, and of gold cord in the second. The under-dress, which is not commonly worn now, is furnished with trunk hose and silk tights, and from its appearance is known as the silver dress. Much the same style was carried out in all the Orders that we have up to the present had occasion to mention. In the more modern Orders there is, of course, no such ancient under-dress.
If we have Kings and Queens at Court, we also have Kings and Queens and Knaves among our playing-cards, and the costumes which survive on the curious pictures which represent them in double, but without their lower limbs, are worthy of some little attention. As a matter of fact, they are Tudor dresses, slightly modified perhaps of recent years, but nevertheless, a common and widespread relic of the fashions which were in vogue when Henry VIII was going through his matrimonial troubles, and shaking this country clear from its allegiance to the Pope.
There are two series of ceremonial dresses not immediately connected with the State which it may be worth while to investigate. They are, in the first place, the liveries of the City Companies, and in the second the insignia of Masons. In the first case, on some of the gowns we find again the chaperon appearing as a hood on the shoulder, and many of the caps that are worn have survived for some centuries. A few of the companies still possess their ancient embroidered hearse cloths, which recall the early semi-religious and provident purposes of the guilds out of which the great City Companies have developed.
There seems no doubt, too, but that the apron of the Masons is actually derived from that worn by the craftsmen when at work, and in some countries it is still of the same circular form as those which were used by the English masons of the eighteenth century. Other parts of the clothing of Masons are no doubt derived from the old guild liveries, and in the fact that some high officials wear gauntlets we have a reminder of the knights’ armour, and possibly a survival from the time when high officials were knights.