Queen Elizabeth, we gather from Hentzner and other authorities, wore false hair. We are told that ladies, in compliment to her, dyed their hair a sandy hue, the natural colour of the queen's locks.
Heart-Breakers.
It is recorded that Mary Queen of Scots obtained wigs from Edinburgh not merely while in Scotland, but during her long and weary captivity in England. From "The True Report of the Last Moments of Mary Stuart," it appears that when the executioner lifted the head by the hair to show it to the spectators, it fell from his hands owing to the hair being false.
We have previously mentioned Pepys' allusions to women and wigs in 1666. Coming down to later times, we read in the Whitehall Evening Post of August 17th, 1727, that when the King, George II., reviewed the Guards, the three eldest Princesses "went to Richmond in riding habits, with hats, and feathers, and periwigs."
With and Without a Wig.
It will be seen from the picture of a person with and without a wig that its use made a plain face presentable. There is a good election story of Daniel O'Connell. It is related during a fierce debate on the hustings, O'Connell with his biting witty tongue, attacked his opponent on account of his ill-favoured countenance. But, not to be outdone, and thinking to turn the gathering against O'Connell, his adversary called out, "Take off your wig, and I'll warrant that you'll prove the uglier." The witty Irishman immediately responded, amidst roars of laughter from the crowd, by snatching the wig from off his own head and exposing to view a bald pate, destitute of a single hair. The relative question of beauty was scarcely settled by this amusing rejoinder, but the laugh was certainly on O'Connell's side.
An interesting tale is told of Peter the Great of Russia. In the year 1716, the famous Emperor was at Dantzig, taking part in a public ceremony, and feeling his head somewhat cold, he stretched out his hand, and seizing the wig from the head of the burgomaster sitting below him, he placed it on his own regal head. The surprise of the spectators may be better imagined than described. On the Czar returning the wig, his attendants explained that his Majesty was in the habit of borrowing the wig of any nobleman within reach on similar occasions. His Majesty, it may be added, was short of hair.
Wigs were not confined to men. At the commencement of the eighteenth century little boys attended school in wigs and cocked hats. "Had I lived in the reign of good Queen Anne," wrote Lord Lyttelton, "my baby face must have been adorned with a full-bottomed periwig as large as that which bedecks the head and shoulders of Mr Justice Blackstone when he scowls at the unhappy culprit who is arraigned before him." We learn from Miss Agnes Strickland that "Marie Antoinette was the first person who broke the absurd fashion of dressing infant boys as droll miniatures of their fathers. She attired the unfortunate Dauphin in a simple blue jacket and trousers, for which she was reviled, as if little bag-wigs and tiny cocked-hats, and all the paraphernalia of full dress, had been points of moral obligation. There are noblemen yet in existence," she says, when writing her history, "who can remember, at six years old, joining the juvenile parties given by George III. and Queen Charlotte, dressed after the models of their fathers' court costumes, with powdered side-curls, single-breasted coat, knee-buckles, and shoe-buckles."