(After Calthrop, by kind permission of Messrs. A. and C. Black.)
It will be noticed that the modern cockade shows the jagged edges sticking up, and it would appear that the rosette represents a coiled-up liripipe. Even to-day cockades are of various colours, and, as Mr. Calthrop points out, the servant’s chaperon from which it was derived used to bear the colours of the master’s livery. The chaperon is also to be seen on the robes of the Knights of the Garter at the present day, where it is fixed on the right shoulder as a kind of cape. (See Figure [144].) Mr. Calthrop also points out that the present head-dress of the French lawyer is another descendant of the chaperon, and that the buttons worn by the members of the Legion of Honour and other foreign Orders are connected with the same idea.
A writer in the Sketch[20] sees in the rosette and fan of the treble cockade the remnants of the crown and star which we see on military uniforms. He says that the earlier forms seem to have been made of metal, which must surely be a mistake, though the cock of the hat was, as we know, sometimes fastened up with a brooch. The example which he figures, however, and uses in support of his theory, is evidently a helmet plate which displays the star, garter, and St. George’s Cross, the whole being surmounted by a crown, and in the cockade he claims to see all these elements in a modified condition. If this derivation of the cockade were correct, it would be in keeping with the quotation which the same writer gives from Cussan’s “Handbook of Heraldry,” that the privilege of wearing a cockade is confined to the servants of officers in the King’s service, or those who by courtesy may be regarded as such. The theory is that the servant is a private soldier who when not wearing his uniform retains this badge as a mark of his profession. We cannot help thinking that Mr. Calthrop’s derivation of the cockade is more feasible, though it is not easy to see the remains of the coiled-up liripipe of the chaperon in the way which Mr. Calthrop represents it in his sketch.[21] In the majority of the cockades there is no trace of a spiral such as he indicates in his figure, though in the mourning cockade, concentric rings are very clearly shown. A word may now be said as to those whose coachmen and footmen wear cockades.
The Royal cockade is used by the servants of the King, and by those belonging to members of the Royal Household. It is large and circular, as we have seen, and half the disk projects above the top of the hat. The regent cockade, which has no fan, is worn by the servants of naval officers, and no part of it is allowed to project above the hat. The servants of the officers in the Army, Yeomanry, Militia, and Volunteers wear the treble cockade with the fan, as do also the Lords Lieutenant and their deputies, as well as the servants of the members of the Diplomatic Corps. Besides this, it appears that the same kind of cockade is worn by the servants of the following: All peers and their sons and daughters, baronets, knights, and sheriffs, judges, justices, and magistrates; members and high officers of Parliament and of the Civil Service; dignitaries of the Church, King’s Counsel, and law officers of the Crown.
English ambassadors have the fan painted with three stripes of red, white, and blue, and while the edge of the rosette is red, the next part is white, and the centre blue. In this case also the ribbon in the centre shows the same three colours. The cockade of the Danish ambassador is of ordinary black leather, but the centre is covered with a rosette of ribbon, red at the edge, with a circle of white next to it, and green in the centre, while the whole is finished off with an ornamental black button or knob. Other foreign ambassadors have their cockades coloured upon the same principle as the English; but in some the colours are shown on the fan in bands instead of in stripes, and the centre of the rosette may have segments of different colours instead of rings. In the case of the French ambassador the colours on the fan are in stripes, while those of the rosette are in segments.
Of recent years cockades have been reduced in size until they have become mere pigmies in connection with the uniform of “chauffeurs,” or motorcar drivers. The latter customarily wear a military kind of hat with a mushroom top, and as a cockade fastened on the side of one of these would not look elegant, a very small cockade is now made and fixed in the front of the cap just above the peak. Would not one of the wearers of the old cock’s-comb turbans be amazed if he could see the most recent outcome of his head-dress in its modern surroundings?
There seems to be little doubt but that the “cockade” forms part of the livery of many who have no recognized right to it. Perhaps the ease with which it can be assumed is shown by the price lists of jobmasters, in which we find, after the charge for the hire of broughams and victorias, a footnote to the effect that cockades are “6d. extra if required.”