This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: Two Centuries of Costume in America, Vol. 1 (1620-1820) Author: Alice Morse Earle Release Date: November 17, 2003 [eBook #10115] Language: English Chatacter set encoding: iso-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO CENTURIES OF COSTUME IN AMERICA, VOL. 1 (1620-1820)***
To George P. Brett
"An honest Stationer (or Publisher) is he, that exercizeth his Mystery (whether it be in printing, bynding or selling of Bookes) with more respect to the glory of God & the publike aduantage than to his owne Commodity & is both an ornament & a profitable member in a ciuill Commonwealth.... If he be a Printer he makes conscience to exemplefy his Coppy fayrely & truly. If he be a Booke-bynder, he is no meere Bookeseller (that is) one who selleth meerely ynck & paper bundled up together for his owne aduantage only: but he is a Chapman of Arts, of wisdome, & of much experience for a little money.... The reputation of Schollers is as deare unto him as his owne: For, he acknowledgeth that from them his Mystery had both begining and means of continuance. He heartely loues & seekes the Prosperity of his owne Corporation: Yet he would not iniure the Uniuersityes to advantage it. In a word, he is such a man that the State ought to cherish him; Schollers to loue him; good Customers to frequent his shopp; and the whole Company of Stationers to pray for him."
--GEORGE WITHER, 1625.
I. APPAREL OF THE PURITAN AND PILGRIM FATHERS
II. DRESS OF THE NEW ENGLAND MOTHERS
III. ATTIRE OF VIRGINIA DAMES AND THEIR NEIGHBORS
IV. A VAIN PURITAN GRANDMOTHER
V. THE EVOLUTION OF COATS AND WAISTCOATS
VII. CAPS AND BEAVERS IN COLONIAL DAYS
X. THE DRESS OF OLD-TIME CHILDREN
XIII. PATTENS, CLOGS, AND GOLOE-SHOES
XIV. BATTS AND BROAGS, BOOTS AND SHOES
Frontispiece
This fine presentation of the dress of a gentlewoman and infant child, in the middle of the seventeenth century, hung in old Plymouth homes in the Thomas and Stevenson families till it came by inheritance to the present owner, Mrs. Greely Stevenson Curtis of Boston, Mass. The artist is unknown.
Born in Dorchester, Eng., 1589. Died in Boston, Mass., 1665. He emigrated to America in 1628; became governor of the colony in 1644, and was major-general of the colonial troops. He hated Indians, the Church of Rome, and Quakers. He wears a velvet skull-cap, and a finger-ring, which is somewhat unusual; a square band; a richly fringed and embroidered glove; and a "stiletto" beard. This portrait is in the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.
Born in England, 1595; died at sea, 1655. One of the founders of the Plymouth colony in 1620; and governor of that colony in 1633, 1636, 1644. This portrait is dated 1651. It is in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, Mass.
Born in England, 1588; died in Boston, 1649. Educated at Trinity College, Cambridge; admitted to the Inner Temple, 1628. Made governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629. Arrived in Salem, 1630. His portrait by Van Dyck and a fine miniature exist. The latter is owned by American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass. This picture is copied from a very rare engraving from the miniature, which is finer and even more thoughtful in expression than the portrait. Both have the lace-edged ruff, but the shape of the dress is indistinct.
Born in England, 1603; died in Salem, Mass., 1697. He was governor of the colony when he was ninety years old. The Labadists, who visited him, wrote: "He is an old man, quiet and grave; dressed in black silk, but not sumptuously."
A mayor of London who came to Salem among the first settlers. The New England families of his name are all descended from him. He wears buff-coat and trooping scarf. This portrait was painted by Rembrandt.
Born in Devonshire, Eng., 1552; executed in London, 1618. A courtier, poet, historian, nobleman, soldier, explorer, and colonizer. He was the favorite of Elizabeth; the colonizer of Virginia; the hero of the Armada; the victim of King James. In this portrait he wears a slashed jerkin; a lace ruff; a broad trooping scarf with great lace shoulder-knot; a jewelled sword-belt; full, embroidered breeches; lace-edged garters, and vast shoe-roses, which combine to form a confused dress.
This print was owned by the author for many years, with the written endorsement by some unknown hand, Martin Frobisher and Son. I am glad to learn that it is from a painting by Zucchero of Raleigh and his son, and is owned at Wickham Court, in Kent, Eng., by the descendant of one of Raleigh's companions in his explorations. The child's dress is less fantastic than other portraits of English children of the same date.
ROBERT DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX
From an old print. A general of Cromwell's army.
OLIVER CROMWELL DISSOLVING PARLIAMENT
From an old Dutch print.
A general in Cromwell's army. Born, 1597; died, 1668. He served in the Thirty Years' War. This portrait is in the National Portrait Gallery.
A general in Cromwell's army. From an old print.
ALDERMAN ABELL AND RICHARD KILVERT
From an old print.
Born in Derby, Eng., 1585; died at Boston, Mass., in 1652. A Puritan clergyman who settled in Boston in 1633. He drew up for the colonists, at the request of the General Court, an abstract of the laws of Moses entitled Moses His Judicials, which was of greatest influence in the formation of the laws of the colony. This portrait is owned by Robert C. Winthrop, Esq.
Born in Boston, Mass., 1683; died in Boston, Mass., 1728. A clergyman, author, and scholar. His book, Magnalia Christi Americana, an ecclesiastical history of New England, is of much value, though most trying. He took an active and now much-abhorred part in the Salem witchcraft. This portrait is owned by the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.
From portraits temp. Charles I. The first is from a Van Dyck portrait of the Earl of Stanhope, and has a rich, lace-edged cuff. The second, with a graceful lawn undersleeve, is from a Van Dyck of Lucius Gary, Viscount Falkland. The third is from a painting by Mytens of the Duke of Hamilton. The fourth, by Van Dyck, is from one of Lord Villiers, Viscount Grandison.
Born, 1602; died, 1671. An English gentlewoman renowned in her day for her piety and charity.
An English lady of great piety, whose gifts to Christianize the Indians make her name appear in the early history of Massachusetts. Her black domino and frontlet are of interest. This portrait was painted about 1650.
An old print of a Quaker meeting. Probably by Marcel Lawson.
Owned by Mrs. Robert Fulton Crary of Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
The daughter of Edward Rawson, Secretary of State. Born in Boston in 1656; married in 1679 to an adventurer, Thomas Rumsey, who called himself Sir Thomas Hale. She died at sea, in 1692. This portrait is owned by New England Historic Genealogical Society.
Born in Plymouth, Mass., in 1641. Daughter of William Paddy; she married John Wensley of Plymouth. Their daughter Sarah married Dr. Isaac Winslow. This portrait is in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, Mass.
A wealthy Boston gentlewoman. This portrait was painted in the latter half of the seventeenth century. It is owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Owned by Mrs. Robert Fulton Crary, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
From a French portrait.
Born in Paris, 1615; died in 1705. Her dress has a slashed virago-sleeve and lace whisk.
Grandchild of the Earl of Arundel. Aged thirteen years. Drawn in 1646 by W. Hollar.
COSTUMES OF ENGLISHWOMEN OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
Plates from Ornatus Muliebris Anglicanus, or Several Habits of Englishwomen, 1640. By Wenceslaus Hollar, an engraver of much note and much performance; born at Prague, 1607; died in England, 1677. This book contains twenty-six plates illustrating women's dress in all ranks of life with absolute fidelity.
Second wife and widow of Robert Livingstone. The curiously plaited widow's cap can be seen under her hood.
Died in New York in 1730. Widow of Gerardus Beekman, who died in 1723.
Born, 1590. Daughter of George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland. Painted in 1603.
Of Bohemia Manor, Maryland. Wife of a pioneer settler. From Some Colonial Mansions. Published by Henry T. Coates & Co.
Mother of Oliver Cromwell. She died at Whitehall in 1654, aged 90 years. This portrait is at Hinchinbrook, and is owned by the Earl of Sandwich. It was painted by Robert Walker. Her dress is described as "a green velvet cardinal, trimmed with gold lace." Her hood is white satin.
Daughter of Powhatan, and wife of Mr. Thomas Rolfe. Born 1593; died 1619; aged twenty-one when this was painted. The portrait is owned by a member of the Rolfe family.
DUCHESS OF BUCKINGHAM AND CHILDREN
Painted in 1626 by Gerard Honthorst. In the original the Duke of Buckingham is also upon the canvas. He was George Villiers, the "Steenie" of James I, who was assassinated by John Felton. The duchess was the daughter of the Earl of Rutland. The little daughter was afterwards Duchess of Richmond and Lenox. The baby was George, the second Duke of Buckingham, poet, politician, courtier, the friend of Charles II. The picture is now in the National Portrait Gallery.
Worn by the infamous Mrs. Anne Turner.
Plate from Ornatus Muliebris Anglicanus.
Painted in 1651. Dress dull olive; mantle bright red; pearl necklace, ear-rings and pearl bandeau in hair. The hair is curled as the hair in portraits of Queen Henrietta Maria. In Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, Mass.
GOLD-FRINGED GLOVES OF GOVERNOR LEVERETT
In Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.
EMBROIDERED PETTICOAT-BAND, 1750
Bright-colored crewels on linen. Owned by the Misses Manning of Salem, Mass.
BLUE DAMASK GOWN AND QUILTED SATIN PETTICOAT
These were owned by Mrs. James Lovell, who was born 1735; died, 1817. Through her only daughter, Mrs. Pickard, who died in 1812, they came to her only child, Mary Pickard (Mrs. Henry Ware, Jr.), whose heirs now own them. They are in the keeping of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
This portrait is of Martin Frobisher, hero of the Armada; explorer in 1576, 1577, and 1578 for the Northwestern Passage, and discoverer of Frobisher's Bay. He died in 1594.
This portrait is of Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire. Owned by the Duke of Bedford. It shows a plain cloth doublet with double row of turreted welts at the shoulder. Horace Walpole says of this portrait, "He is quite in the style of Queen Elizabeth's lovers; red-bearded, and not comely."
Born, 1633. Afterwards James II of England. This scene in a tennis-court was painted about 1643.
This portrait is of George Carew, Earl of Totnes. It was painted by Zucchero, and is owned by the Earl of Verulam. He wears a rich jerkin with four laps on each side below the belt; it is embroidered in sprigs, and guarded on the seams. The sleeves are detached. He wears also a rich sword-belt and ruff.
Born in Greenwich, Eng., in 1614; died in 1659. A Puritan soldier, politician, and pamphleteer. He was fined, whipped, pilloried, tried for treason, sedition, controversy, libel. He was imprisoned in the Tower, Newgate, Tyburn, and the Castle. He was a Puritan till he turned Quaker. His sprawling boots, dangling knee-points, and silly little short doublet form a foolish dress.
Born in 1609. Died in 1672. He was a stanch Royalist. His portrait is by Jacob Huysmans, and is in the National Portrait Gallery.
SIR THOMAS ORCHARD KNIGHT, 1646
From an old print indorsed "S Glover ad vivum delineavit 1646." He is in characteristic court-dress, with slashed sleeves, laced cloak, laced garters, and shoe-roses. His hair and beard are like those of Charles II.
From a broadside of 1646.
Born in Hanover, 1660. Died in Hanover, 1727. Crowned King of England in 1714. This portrait is by Sir Godfrey Kneller, and is in the National Portrait Gallery. It is remarkable for its ribbons and curious shoes.
THREE CASSOCK SLEEVES AND A BUFF-COAT SLEEVE
Temp. Charles I. The first sleeve is from a portrait of Lord Bedford. The second, with shoulder-knot of ribbon, was worn by Algernon Sidney; the third is from a Van Dyck portrait of Viscount Grandison; the fourth, the sleeve of a curiously slashed buff-coat worn by Sir Philip Sidney.
HENRY BENNET, EARL OF ARLINGTON
Born, 1618; died, 1685. From the original by Sir Peter Lely. This is asserted to be the costume chosen by Charles II in 1661 "to wear forever."
FIGURES FROM FUNERAL PROCESSION OF THE DUKE OF ALBEMARLE IN 1670
These drawings of "Gentlemen," "Earls," "Clergymen," "Physicians," and "Poor Men" are by F. Sanford, Lancaster Herald, and are from his engraving of the Funeral Procession of George Monk, Duke of Albemarle.
EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, HENRY WRIOTHESLEY.
Born, 1573. Died in The Netherlands in 1624. He was the friend of Shakespere, and governor of the Virginia Company. This portrait is by Mierevelt.
This fine portrait is by a master's hand. The name of the subject is unknown. The initials would indicate that he was a Bowdoin, or a Baudouine, which was the name of the original emigrant. It has been owned by the Bowdoin family until it was presented to Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me., where it now hangs in the Walker Art Building.
Born, 1590; died, 1670. This portrait was painted in 1657. It is in an unusual dress, with the only double row of buttons I have seen on a portrait of that date. It also shows no hair under the close cap.
Born, Windsor, Conn., 1703. Died, Princeton, N.J., 1758. A theologian, metaphysician, missionary, author, and president of Princeton University.
Born in England, 1610; died in Salem, 1685. He came to Salem in 1638, where he was the most prominent merchant, and commanded a troop of horse, whereby he acquired his title of Captain. He is in military dress. Portrait owned by Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.
WALKING-STICK AND LACE FRILL, 1660
These articles are in the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.
Born in Leicestershire, Eng., 1601; died in Rhode Island, 1678. One of the founders of the Rhode Island Colony, and governor for many years.
Born, 1692; died, 1733, in Boston. Married, in 1718, Hannah Waldo, sister of Brigadier-general Samuel Waldo. This portrait is by Smybcrt. It is owned by his descendants, Miss Elizabeth L. Bond and Miss Catherine Harris Bond, of Cambridge, Mass.
Worn by "Bilious" Bale, who died in 1563. His square beard, coif, and citizen's flat-cap were worn by Englishmen till 1620.
This portrait was painted before he was king of England. It is now in the National Portrait Gallery.
In doublet, with curious slashed tabs or bands at the waist, forming a roll like a woman's farthingale. The hat, with jewelled hat-band, is of a singular and ugly shape.
His hat, band, and jerkin are unusual.
Born in Boston, Mass., in 1648. Died in England in 1721. He founded Yale College, now Yale University. This portrait is owned by Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
THOMAS CECIL, FIRST EARL OF EXETER
Died in 1621.
The wealthiest merchant of New Amsterdam in the seventeenth century. This portrait is owned by the New York Historical Society.
From portrait of George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland. He died in 1605.
First wife of William Penn. Born, 1644; died, 1694. The original painting is on glass. Owned by the heirs of Henry Swan, Dorking, Eng.
Second wife of William Penn; from a portrait now in Blackwell Hall, County Durham, Eng.
Born, 1629; died in Paris, 1696.
From Tempest's Cries of London.
OPERA HOOD, OR CARDINAL, OF BLACK SILK
It is now in Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
Owned by Miss Mary Atkinson of Doylestown, Pa.
Owned by Miss Alice Browne of Salem, Mass.
Owned by Miss Alice Browne of Salem, Mass.
This fine broadcloth cloak and hood were worn by Judge Curwen. They are in perfect preservation, owing, in later years, to the excellent care given them by their present owner, Miss Bessie Curwen, of Salem, Mass., a descendant of the original owner.
From Hogarth.
From Hogarth.
Daughter of Duke of Buccleuch. Painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1776.
Born, 1686. This portrait is owned by Brooks Adams, Esq., Boston, Mass.
From Andrew W. Tuer's History of the Hornbook. This portrait has hung for two centuries in an Essex manor-house. Its date, 1661, is but nine years earlier than the portraits of the Gibbes children, and the dress is the same. The cavalier hat and cuffs are the only varying detail.
Tambour work, 1790.
Born, 1746. She married Dr. Nathaniel Coffin, of Portland, Me., and became the mother of the beautiful Martha, who married Richard C. Derby. This portrait was painted in 1755. It is owned by Mrs. Greely Stevenson Curtis of Boston, Mass.
From an old print.
MRS. THEODORE S. SEDGWICK AND DAUGHTER.
Mrs. Sedgwick was Pamela Dwight. This portrait was painted by Ralph Earle, and exhibits one of his peculiarities. The home of the subject of the portrait is shown through an open window, though the immediate surroundings are a room within the house. The child is Catherine M. Sedgwick, the poet. This painting is owned in Stockbridge by members of the family.
INFANT CHILD OF FRANCIS HOPKINSON, THE SIGNER
A drawing in crayon by the child's father. The child carries a coral and bells.
1763. Died in 1800, aged forty. Married John Wilkes of New York. White frock and blue scarf.
Lady Temple and Governor James Bowdoin in childhood. The artist of this pleasing portrait is unknown. I think it was painted by Blackburn. It is now in the Walker Art Gallery, at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me.
Aged twelve years, daughter of Colonel James Robinson, Salem, Mass. Painted by M. Corné in 1808. Owned by the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.
These are knitted upon finest wire needles, of linen thread, which had been spun, and the flax raised and prepared by the knitter.
MRS. ELIZABETH (LUX) RUSSELL AND DAUGHTER.
CHRISTENING SHIRT AND MITTS OF GOVERNOR BRADFORD.
White linen with pinched sleeves and chaney ruffles and fingertips. Owned by Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.
These infant's mitts were worn in the sixteenth century, and came to Salem with the first emigrants. Owned by Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.
This has curious shirring-strings to make it fit heads of various sizes. It is home spun and woven, and the lace edging is home knit.
REV. JOHN P. DABNEY, WHEN A CHILD IN 1806
This portrait of a Salem minister in childhood is in jacket and trousers, with openwork collar and ruffles. It is now owned by the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.
Born, 1665. This portrait is dated 1670. It is owned by Miss Sarah B. Hager of Kendal Green, Mass.
NANKEEN BREECHES, WITH SILVER BUTTONS. 1790
RALPH IZARD, WHEN A LITTLE BOY
Born in Charleston, S. C., 1742; died in 1804. Painted in 1750. He was United States Senator 1789-1795. This debonair little figure in blue velvet, silk-embroidered waistcoat, silken hose, buckled shoes, and black hat, gold-laced, is a miniature courtier. The portrait is now owned by William E. Huger, Esq., of Charleston, S.C.
GOVERNOR AND REVEREND GURDON SALTONSTALL
Born in 1666; died in 1724. Governor of Connecticut, 1708-24. He was also ordained a minister of the church at New London.
Mayor of New York in 1710.
JUDGE ABRAHAM DE PEYSTER OF NEW YORK
GOVERNOR DE BIENVILLE, JEAN BAPTISTE LEMOINE
Born in Montreal, Can., 1680. Died in 1768. French Governor of Louisiana for many years. He founded New Orleans. The original is in Longeuil, Can.
Born in Boston, 1724; died in 1808. Married Rebecca Salisbury.
REV. JOHN MARSH, HARTFORD, CONN
Born in Braintree, Mass., 1735; died at Quincy, Mass., 1826. Second President of the United States, 1797-1801. He was a member of Congress, signer of Declaration of Independence, Commissioner to France, Ambassador to The Netherlands, Peace Commissioner to Great Britain, Minister to Court of St. James. This portrait in youth is in a wig. Throughout life he wore his hair bushed out at the ears.
Born in 1745; died in 1801. He was a son of the great Jonathan Edwards, and was President of Union College, Schenectady, 1799-1801. This portrait shows the fashion of dressing the hair when wigs and powder had been banished and the hair hung lank and long in the neck.
Born in Virginia, 1736; died in Charlotte County, Va., in 1799. An orator, patriot, and a leader in the American Revolution. He organized the Committees of Correspondence, was a member of Continental Congress, 1774, of the Virginia Convention, 1775, and was governor of Virginia for several terms. This portrait shows him in lawyer's close wig and robe.
Died, 1732.
JUDGE BENJAMIN LYNDE, OF SALEM AND BOSTON, MASS
Died, 1745. Painted by Smybert.
Born, Charleston, S.C., 1739; died, 1800. He was member of Congress, governor of South Carolina, chief justice of Supreme Court. His hair is tied in cue.
CAMPAIGN, RAMILLIES, BOB, AND PIGTAIL WIGS
From an engraving by Copley, his only engraving.
Born in London, 1709. Came to America in 1731. Married Mary Johnson in 1736. Made Judge of the Admiralty in 1741. Died in 1751. He was the father of Francis the Signer. This portrait is believed to be by Sir Godfrey Kneller.
A Connecticut clergyman.
Born, 1754; died, 1820. A Maryland gentleman of wealth and position.
Bishop of Hereford, Eng.
Born, 1483; died, 1577, aged ninety-four years. Yeoman of the Guard and usher to Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth. His beard is unique.
Worn by Alexander Ross, 1655.
Cathedral beard.
Born in London, 1527; died, 1608. An English mathematician, astrologer, physician, author, and magician. He wrote seventy-nine books, mostly on magic. His "pique-a-devant" beard might well "a man's eye out-pike."
IRON AND LEATHER PATTENS, 1760
Owned by author.
In Museum of Bucks County Historical Society, Penn.
Drawing from Chopines in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The tallest chopine had a sole about nine inches thick.
These clogs are of silk brocade, and were made to match brocade slippers. The one with pointed toe would fit the brocaded shoes of the year 1760. The other has with it a high-heeled, black satin slipper of the year 1780, to show how they were worn. They forced a curious shuffling step.
About 1780. Owned by Bucks County Historical Society.
This group, consisting of the artist, John Singleton Copley, his wife, who was formerly a young widow, Susannah Farnham; his wife's father, Richard Clarke, a most respected Boston merchant who was wealthy until ruined by the War of the Revolution; and the four little Copley children. Elizabeth is between four and five; John Singleton, Jr., is the boy of three, who afterwards became Lord Lyndhurst; Mary is aged two, and an infant is in the grandfather's arms. Copley was born in 1737, and must have been about thirty-seven when this was painted in 1775. It is deemed by many his masterpiece. The portrait is owned by Mr. Amory, but is now in the custody of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It is most pronounced, almost startling, in color, every tint being absolutely frank.
WEDDING SLIPPERS AND BROCADE STRIP, 1712
Owned by Mrs. Thomas Robinson Harris, of Scarboro on the Hudson, N.Y.
Owned by Lord Fairfax of Virginia.
A Portsmouth gentleman. This portrait is now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
They are shoe-buckles, breeches-buckles, garter-buckles, stock-buckles. Some are cut silver and gold; others are cut steel; some are paste. Some of these were owned by Dr. Edward Holyoke, of Salem, and are now owned by Miss Susan W. Osgood, of Salem, Mass.
Worn in 1760 by granddaughter of Governor Simon Bradstreet. Owned by Miss Mary S. Cleveland, of Salem, Mass. Their make and finish are curious; they have paste buckles.
Painted by Copley in Europe. Owned by Miss Annette Rogers, of Boston, Mass.
Worn by Mrs. Carroll with the brocade silk sacque. They are embroidered in the colors of the brocade.
Owned by author.
"Deep-skirted doublets, puritanic capes
Which now would render men like upright apes
Was comelier wear, our wiser fathers thought
Than the cast fashions from all Europe brought"
--"New England's Crisis," BENJAMIN TOMPSON, 1675.
"I am neither Niggard nor Cynic to the due Bravery of the true Gentry."
--"The simple Cobbler of Agawam," J. WARD, 1713.
"Never was it happier in England than when an Englishman was known abroad by his own cloth; and contented himself at home with his fine russet carsey hosen, and a warm slop; his coat, gown, and cloak of brown, blue or putre, with some pretty furnishings of velvet or fur, and a doublet of sad-tawnie or black velvet or comely silk, without such cuts and gawrish colours as are worn in these dayes by those who think themselves the gayest men when they have most diversities of jagges and changes of colours."
--"Chronicles," HOLINSHED, 1578.
t is difficult to discover the reasons, to trace the influences
which have resulted in the production in the modern mind of that composite
figure which serves to the everyday reader, the heedless observer, as the
counterfeit presentment of the New England colonist,--the Boston Puritan or
Plymouth Pilgrim. We have a very respectable notion, a fairly true picture,
of Dutch patroon, Pennsylvania Quaker, and Virginia planter; but we see a
very unreal New Englishman. This "gray old Gospeller, sour as
midwinter," appears with goodwife or dame in the hastily drawn
illustrations of our daily press; we find him outlined with greater care
but equal inaccuracy in our choicer periodical literature; we have him
depicted by artists in our handsome books and on the walls of our art
museums; he is cut in stone and cast in bronze for our halls and parks; he
is dressed by actors for a part in some historical play; he is furbished up
with conglomerate and makeshift garments by enthusiastic and confident
young folk in tableau and fancy-dress party; he is richly and amply attired
by portly, self-satisfied members of our patriotic-hereditary societies; we
constantly see these figures garbed in semblance in some details, yet never
in verisimilitude as a whole figure.
We are wont to think of our Puritan forbears, indeed we are determined to think of them, garbed in sombre sad-colored garments, in a life devoid of color, warmth, or fragrance. But sad color was not dismal and dull save in name; it was brown in tone, and brown is warm, and being a primitive color is, like many primitive things, cheerful. Old England was garbed in hearty honest russet, even in the days of our colonization. Read the list of the garments of any master of the manor, of the honest English yeoman, of our own sturdy English emigrants from manor and farm in Suffolk and Essex. What did they wear across seas? What did they wear in the New World? What they wore in England, namely: Doublets of leathers, all brown in tint; breeches of various tanned skins and hides; untanned leather shoes; jerkins of "filomot" or "phillymort" (feuille morte), dead-leaf color; buff-coats of fine buff leather; tawny camlet cloaks and jackets of "du Boys" (which was wood color); russet hose; horseman's coats of tan-colored linsey-woolsey or homespun ginger-lyne or brown perpetuana; fawn-colored mandillions and deer-colored cassocks--all brown; and sometimes a hat of natural beaver. Here is a "falding" doublet of "treen color"--and what is treen but wooden and wood color is brown again.
It was a fitting dress for their conditions of life. The colonists lived close to nature--they touched the beginnings of things; and we are close to nature when all dress in russet. The homely "butternuts" of the Kentucky mountains express this; so too does khaki, a good, simple native dye and stuff; so eagerly welcomed, so closely cherished, as all good and primitive things should be.
So when I think of my sturdy Puritan forbears in the summer planting of Salem and of Boston, I see them in "honest russet kersey"; gay too with the bright stamell-red of their waistcoats and the grain-red linings of mandillions; scarlet-capped are they, and enlivened with many a great scarlet-hooded cloak. I see them in this attire on shipboard, where they were greeted off Salem with "a smell from the shore like the smell of a garden"; I see them landing in happy June amid "sweet wild strawberries and fair single roses." I see them walking along the little lanes and half-streets in which for many years bayberry and sweet-fern lingered in dusty fragrant clumps by the roadside.
"Scented with Caedar and Sweet Fern
From Heats reflection dry,"
wrote of that welcoming shore one colonist who came on the first ship, and noted in rhyme what he found and saw and felt and smelt. And I see the forefathers standing under the hot little cedar trees of the Massachusetts coast, not sober in sad color, but cheery in russet and scarlet; and sweetbrier and strawberries, bayberry and cedar, smell sweetly and glow genially in that summer sunlight which shines down on us through all these two centuries.
We have ample sources from which to learn precisely what was worn by these first colonists--men and women--gentle and simple. We have minute "Lists of Apparell" furnished by the Colonization Companies to the male colonists; we have also ample lists of apparel supplied to individual emigrants of varied degree; we have inventories in detail of the personal estates of all those who died in the colonies even in the earliest years--inventories wherein even a half-worn pair of gloves is gravely set down, appraised in value, sworn to, and entered in the town records; we have wills giving equal minuteness; we have even the articles of dress themselves preserved from moth and rust and mildew; we have private letters asking that supplies of clothing be sent across seas--clothing substantial and clothing fashionable; we have ships' bills of lading showing that these orders were carried out; we have curiously minute private letters giving quaint descriptions and hints of new and modish wearing apparel; we have sumptuary laws telling what articles of clothing must not be worn by those of mean estate; we have court records showing trials under these laws; we have ministers' sermons denouncing excessive details of fashion, enumerating and almost describing the offences; and we have also a goodly number of portraits of men and a few of women. I give in this chapter excellent portraits of the first governors, Endicott, Winthrop, Bradstreet, Winslow; and others could be added. Having all these, do we need fashion-plates or magazines of the modes? We have also for the early years great instruction through comparison and inference in knowing the English fashions of those dates as revealed through inventories, compotuses, accounts, diaries, letters, portraits, prints, carvings, and effigies; and American fashions varied little from English ones.
It is impossible to disassociate the history of costume from the general history of the country where such dress is worn. Nor could any one write upon dress with discrimination and balance unless he knew thoroughly the dress of all countries and likewise the history of all countries. Of the special country, he must know more than general history, for the relations of small things to great things are too close. Influences apparently remote prove vital. At no time was history told in dress, and at no period was dress influenced by historical events more than during the seventeenth century and in the dress of English-speaking folk. The writer on dress should know the temperament and character of the dress wearer; this was of special bearing in the seventeenth century. It would be thought by any one ignorant of the character of the first Puritan settlers, and indifferent to or ignorant of historical facts, that in a new world with all the hardships, restraints, lacks, and inconveniences, no one, even the vainest woman, would think much upon dress, save that it should be warm, comfortable, ample, and durable. But, in truth, such was not the case. Even in the first years the settlers paid close attention to their attire, to its richness, its elegance, its modishness, and watched narrowly also the attire of their neighbors, not only from a distinct liking for dress, but from a careful regard of social distinctions and from a regard for the proprieties and relations of life. Dress was a badge of rank, of social standing and dignity; and class distinctions were just as zealously guarded in America, the land of liberty, as in England. The Puritan church preached simplicity of dress; but the church attendants never followed that preaching. All believed, too, that dress had a moral effect, as it certainly does; that to dress orderly and well and convenable to the existing fashions helped to preserve the morals of the individual and general welfare of the community. Eagerly did the settlers seek every year, every season, by every incoming ship, by every traveller, to learn the changes of fashions in Europe. The first native-born poet, Benjamin Tompson, is quoted in the heading of this chapter in a wail over thus following new fashions, a wail for the "good old times," as has been the cry of "old fogy" poets and philosophers since the days of the ancient classics.
We have ample proof of the love of dignity, of form, of state, which dominated even in the first struggling days; we can see the governor of Virginia when he landed, turning out his entire force in most formal attire and with full company of forty halberdiers in scarlet cloaks to attend in imposing procession the church services in the poor little church edifice--this when the settlement at Jamestown was scarce more than an encampment.
We can read the words of Winthrop, the governor of Massachusetts, in which he recounts his mortification at the undignified condition of affairs when the governor of the French province, the courtly La Tour, landed unexpectedly in Boston and caught the governor picnicking peacefully with his family on an island in the harbor, with no attendants, no soldiers, no dignitaries. Nor was there any force in the fort, and therefore no salute could be given to the distinguished visitors; and still more mortifying was the sole announcement of this important arrival through the hurried sail across the bay, and the running to the governor of a badly scared woman neighbor. We see Winthrop trying to recover his dignity in La Tour's eyes (and in his own) by bourgeoning throughout the remainder of the French governor's stay with an imposing guard of soldiers in formal attendance at every step he took abroad; ordering them to wear, I am sure, their very fullest stuffed doublets and shiniest armor, while he displayed his best black velvet suit of garments. Fortunately for New England's appearance, Winthrop was a man of such aristocratic bearing and feature that no dress or lack of dress could lower his dignity.
Our forbears did not change their dress by emigrating; they may have worn heavier clothing in New England, more furs, stronger shoes, but I cannot find that they adopted simpler or less costly clothing; any change that may have been made through Puritan belief and teaching had been made in England. All the colonists
" ... studied after nyce array,
And made greet cost in clothing."
Many persons preferred to keep their property in the form of what they quaintly called "duds." The fashion did not wear out more apparel than the man; for clothing, no matter what its cut, was worn as long as it lasted, doing service frequently through three generations. For instance, we find Mrs. Epes, of Ipswich, Massachusetts, when she was over fifty years old, receiving this bequest by will: "If she desire to have the suit of damask which was the Lady Cheynies her grandmother, let her have it upon appraisement." I have traced a certain flowered satin gown and "manto" in four wills; a dame to her daughter; she to her sister; then to the child of the last-named who was a granddaughter of the first owner. And it was a proud possession to the last. The fashions and shapes then did not change yearly. The Boston gentlewoman of 1660 would not have been ill dressed or out of the mode in the dress worn by her grandmother when she landed in 1625.
Petty details were altered in woman's dress--though but slightly; the change of a cap, a band, a scarf, a ruffle, meant much to the wearer, though it seems unimportant to us to-day. Men's dress, we know from portraits, was unaltered for a time save in neckwear and hair-dressing, both being of such importance in costume that they must be written upon at length.
Let us fix in our minds the limit of reign of each ruler during the early years of colonization, and the dates of settlement of each colony. When Elizabeth died in 1603, the Brownist Puritans or Separatists were well established in Holland; they had been there twenty years. They were dissatisfied with their Dutch home, however, and had had internal quarrels--one, of petty cause, namely, a "topish Hatt," a "Schowish Hood," a "garish spitz-fashioned Stomacher," the vain garments of one woman; but the strife over these "abhominations" lasted eleven years.
James I was king when the Pilgrims came to America in 1620; but Charles I was on the throne in 1630 when John Winthrop arrived with his band of friends and followers and settled in Salem and Boston.
The settlement of Portsmouth and Dover in New Hampshire was in 1623, and in Maine the same year. The settlements of the Dutch in New Netherland were in 1614; while Virginia, named for Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen, and discovered in her day, was settled first of all at Jamestown in 1607. The Plymouth colony was poor. It came poor from Holland, and grew poorer through various misfortunes and set-backs--one being the condition of the land near Plymouth. The Massachusetts Bay Company was different. It came with properties estimated to be worth a million dollars, and it had prospered wonderfully after an opening year of want and distress. The relative social condition and means of the settlers of Jamestown, of Plymouth, of Boston, were carefully investigated from English sources by a thoughtful and fair authority, the historian Green. He says of the Boston settlers in his Short History of the English People:--
"Those Massachusetts settlers were not like the earlier colonists of the South; broken men, adventurers, bankrupts, criminals; or simply poor men and artisans like the Pilgrim Fathers of the Mayflower. They were in great part men of the professional and middle classes, some of them men of large landed estate, some zealous clergymen, some shrewd London lawyers or young scholars from Oxford. The bulk were God-fearing farmers from Lincolnshire and the Eastern counties."
A full comprehension of these differences in the colonies will make us understand certain conditions, certain surprises, as to dress; for instance, why so little of the extreme Puritan is found in the dress of the first Boston colonists.
There lived in England, near the close of Elizabeth's reign, a Puritan named Philip Stubbes, to whom we are infinitely indebted for our knowledge of English dress of his times. It was also the dress of the colonists; for details of attire, especially of men's wear, had not changed to any extent since the years in which and of which Philip Stubbes wrote.
He published in 1586 a book called An Anatomie of Abuses, in which he described in full the excesses of England in his day. He wrote with spirited, vivid pen, and in plain speech, leaving nothing unspoken lest it offend, and he used strong, racy English words and sentences. In his later editions he even took pains to change certain "strange, inkhorn terms" or complicate words of his first writing into simpler ones. Thus he changed preter time to former ages; auditory to hearers; prostrated to humbled; consummate to ended; and of course this was to the book's advantage. Unusual words still linger, however, but we must believe they are not intentionally "outlandish" as was the term of the day for such words.
The attitude of Stubbes toward dress and dress wearers is of great interest, for he was certainly one of the most severe, most determined, most conscientious of Puritans; yet his hatred of "corruptions desiring reformation" did not lead him to a hatred of dress in itself. He is careful to state in detail in the body of his book and in his preface that his attack is not upon the dress of people of wealth and station; that he approves of rich dress for the rich. His hatred is for the pretentious dress of the many men of low birth or of mean estate who lavish their all in dress ill suited to their station; and also his reproof is for swindling in dress materials and dress-making; against false weights and measures, adulterations and profits; in short, against abuses, not uses.
His words run thus explicitly:--
"Whereas I have spoken of the excesse in apparell, and of the Abuse of the same as wel in Men as in Women, generally I would not be so understood as though my speaches extended to any either noble honorable or worshipful; for I am farre from once thinking that any kind of sumptuous or gorgeous Attire is not to be worn of them; as I suppose them rather Ornaments in them than otherwise. And therefore when I speak of excesse of Apparel my meaning is of the inferiour sorte only who for the most parte do farre surpasse either noble honorable or worshipful, ruffling in Silks Velvets, Satens, Damaske, Taffeties, Gold Silver and what not; these bee the Abuses I speak of, these bee the Evills that I lament, and these bee the Persons my wordes doe concern."
There was ample room for reformation from Stubbes's point of view.
"There is such a confuse mingle mangle of apparell and such preponderous excess thereof, as every one is permitted to flaunt it out in what apparell he has himself or can get by anie kind of means. So that it is verie hard to know who is noble, who is worshipful, who is a gentleman, who is not; for you shall have those who are neither of the nobilytie, gentilitie, nor yeomanrie goe daylie in silks velvets satens damasks taffeties notwithstanding they be base by byrth, meane by estate and servyle by calling. This a great confusion, a general disorder. God bee mercyfull unto us."
This regard of dress was, I take it, the regard of the Puritan reformer in general; it was only excess in dress that was hated. This was certainly the estimate of the best of the Puritans, and it was certainly the belief of the New England Puritan. It would be thought, and was thought by some men, that in the New World liberty of religious belief and liberty of dress would be given to all. Not at all!--the Puritan magistrates at once set to work to show, by means of sumptuary laws, rules of town settlement, and laws as to Sunday observance and religious services, that nothing of the kind was expected or intended, or would be permitted willingly. No religious sects and denominations were welcome save the Puritans and allied forms--Brownists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists. For a time none other were permitted to hold services; no one could wear rich dress save gentlefolk, and folk of wealth or some distinction--as Stubbes said, "by being in some sort of office"
We shall find in the early pages of this book frequent references to Stubbes's descriptions of articles of dress, but his own life has some bearing on his utterances; so let me bear testimony as to his character and to the absolute truth of his descriptions. He was held up in his own day to contempt by that miserable Thomas Nashe who plagiarized his title and helped his own dull book into popularity by calling it The Anatomie of Absurdities; and who further ran on against him in a still duller book, An Almand for a Parrat. He called Stubbes "A MarPrelate Zealot and Hypocrite" and Stubbes has been held up by others as a morose man having no family ties and no social instincts. He was in reality the tenderest of husbands to a modest, gentle, pious girl whom he married when she was but fourteen, and with whom he lived in ideal happiness until her death in child-birth when eighteen years old. He bore testimony to his happiness and her goodness in a loving but sad and trying book "intituled" A Christiall Glasse for Christian Women. It is a record of a life which was indeed pure as crystal; a life so retiring, so quiet, so composed, so unvarying, a life so remote from any gentlewoman's life to day that it seems of another ether, another planet, as well as of another century. But it is useful for us to know it, notwithstanding its background of gloomy religionism and its air of unreality; for it helps us to understand the character of Puritan women and of Philip Stubbes. This fair young wife died in an ecstasy, her voice triumphant, her face radiant with visions of another and a glorious life. And yet she was not wholly happy in death; for she had a Puritan conscience, and she thought she must have offended God in some way. She had to search far indeed for the offence; and this was it--it would be absurd if it were not so true and so deep in its sentiment of regret. She and her husband had set their hearts too much in affection upon a little dog that they had loved well, and she found now that "it was a vanitye"; and she repented of it, and bade them bear the dog from her bedside. Knowing Stubbes's love for this little dog (and knowing it must have been a spaniel, for they were then being well known and beloved and were called "Spaniel-gentles or comforters"--a wonderfully appropriate name), I do not much mind the fierce words with which he stigmatizes the vanity and extravagance of women. I have a strong belief too that if we knew the dress of his child-wife, we would find that he liked her bravely even richly attired, and that he acquired his wonderful mastery of every term and detail of women's dress, every term of description, through a very uxorious regard of his wife's apparel.
Of the absolute truth of every word in Stubbes's accounts we have ample corroborative proof. He wrote in real earnest, in true zeal, for the reform of the foolery and extravagance he saw around him, not against imaginary evils. There is ample proof in the writings of his contemporaries--in Shakespere's comparisons, in Harrison's sensible Description of England, in Tom Coryat's Crudities--and oddities--of the existence of this foolishness and extravagance. There is likewise ample proof in the sumptuary laws of Elizabeth's day.
It would have been the last thing the solemn Stubbes could have liked or have imagined, that he should have afforded important help to future writers upon costume, yet such is the case. For he described the dress of English men and women with as much precision as a modern reporter of the modes. No casual survey of dress could have furnished to him the detail of his description. It required much examination and inquiry, especially as to the minutiae of women's dress. Therefore when I read his bitter pages (if I can forget the little pet spaniel) I have always a comic picture in my mind of a sour, morose, shocked old Puritan, "a meer, bitter, narrow-sould Puritan" clad in cloak and doublet, with great horn spectacles on nose, and ample note-book, penner, and ink-horn in hand, agonizingly though eagerly surveying the figure of one of his fashion-clad women neighbors, walking around her slowly, asking as he walked the name of this jupe, the price of that pinner, the stuff of this sleeve, the cut of this cap, groaning as he wrote it all down, yet never turning to squire or knight till every detail of her extravagance and "greet cost" is recorded. In spite of all his moralizing his quill pen had too sharp a point, his scowling forehead and fierce eyes too keen a power of vision ever to render to us a dull page; even the author of Wimples and Crisping Pins might envy his powers of perception and description.
The bravery of the Jacobean gallant did not differ in the main from his dress under Elizabeth; but in details he found some extravagances. The love-locks became more prominent, and shoe-roses and garters both grew in size. Pomanders were carried by men and women, and "casting-bottles." Gloves and pockets were perfumed. As musk was the favorite scent this perfume-wearing is not over-alluring. As a preventive of the plague all perfumes were valued.
Since a hatred and revolt against this excess was one of the conditions which positively led to the formation of the Puritan political party if not of the Separatist religious faith, and as a consequence to the settlement of the English colonies in America, let us recount the conditions of dress in England when America was settled. Let us regard first the dress of a courtier whose name is connected closely and warmly in history and romance with the colonization of America; a man who was hated by the Pilgrim and Puritan fathers but whose dress in some degree and likeness, though modified and simplified, must have been worn by the first emigrants to Virginia across seas--let us look at the portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh. He was a hero and a scholar, but he was also a courtier; and of a court, too, where every court-attendant had to bethink himself much and ever of dress, for dress occupied vastly the thought and almost wholly the public conversation of his queen and her successor.
To understand Raleigh's dress, you must know the man and his life; to comprehend its absurdities and forgive its follies and see whence it originated, you must know Elizabeth and her dress; you must see her with "oblong face, eyes small, yet black; her nose a little hooked, her lips narrow, her teeth black; false hair and that red,"--these are the striking and plain words of the German ambassador to her court. You must look at this queen with her colorless meagre person lost in a dress monstrous in size, yet hung, even in its enormous expanse of many square yards, with crowded ornaments, tags, jewels, laces, embroideries, gimp, feathers, knobs, knots, and aglets, with these bedizened rankly, embellished richly. You must see her talking in public of buskins and gowns, love-locks and virginals, anything but matters of seriousness or of state; you must note her at a formal ceremonial tickling handsome Dudley in the neck; watch her dancing, "most high and disposedly" when in great age; you must see her giving Essex a hearty boxing of the ear; hear her swearing at her ministers. You must remember, too, her parents, her heritage. From King Henry VIII came her love of popularity, her great activity, her extraordinary self-confidence, her indomitable will, her outbursts of anger, her cruelty, just as came her harsh, mannish voice. From her mother, Anne Boleyn, came her sensuous love of pleasure, of dress, of flattery, of gayety and laughter. Her nature came from her mother, her temper from her father. The familiarity with Robert Dudley was but a piece with her boisterous romps in her girlhood, and her flap in the face of young Talbot when he saw her "unready in my night-stuff." But she had more in her than came from Henry and Anne; she had her own individuality, which made her as hard as steel, made her resolute, made her live frugally and work hard, and, above all, made her know her limitations. The woman, be she queen or the plainest mortal, who can estimate accurately her own limitations, who is proof against enthusiasm, proof against ambition, and, at a climax, proof against flattery, who knows what she can not do, in that very thing finds success. Elizabeth was and ever will be a wonderful character-study; I never weary of reading or thinking of her.
The settlement of Massachusetts was under James I; but costume varied little, save that it became more cumbersome. This may be attributed directly to the cowardice of the king, who wore quilted and padded--dagger-proof--clothing; and thus gave to his courtiers an example of stuffing and padding which exceeded even that of the men of Elizabeth's day. "A great, round, abominable breech," did the satirists call it. Stays had to be worn beneath the long-waisted, peascod-bellied, stuffed doublet to keep it in shape; thus a man's attire had scarcely a single natural outline.
We have this description of Raleigh, courtier and "servant" of Elizabeth and victim of James, given by a contemporary, Aubrey:--
"He looked like a Knave with his gogling eyes. He could transform himself into any shape. He was a tall, handsome, bold man; but his naeve was that he was damnably proud. A good piece of him is in a white satin doublet all embroidered with rich pearls, and a mighty told me that the true pearls were nigh as big as the painted ones. He had a most remarkable aspect, an exceeding high forehead, long faced, and sour eie-lidded, a kind of pigge-eie."
We leave the choice of belief between one sentence of this personal description, that he was handsome, and the later plain-spoken details to the judgment of the reader. Certainly both statements cannot be true. As I look at his portrait, the "good piece of him" here, I wholly disbelieve the former.
His laced-in, stiffened waist, his absurd breeches, his ruffs and sashes and knots, his great shoe-roses, his jewelled hatband, make this a fantastic picture, one of little dignity, though of vast cost. The jewels on his shoes were said to have cost thirty thousand pounds; and the perfect pearls in his ear, as seen in another portrait, must have been an inch and a half long. He had doublets entirely covered with a pattern of jewels. In another portrait (here) his little son, poor child, stands by his side in similar stiff attire. The famous portrait of Sir Philip Sidney and his brother is equally comic in its absurdity of costume for young lads.
Read these words descriptive of another courtier, of the reign of James; his favorite, the Duke of Buckingham:--
"With great buttons of diamonds, and with diamond hat bands, cockades and ear-rings, yoked with great and manifold knots of pearls. At his going over to Paris in 1625 he had twenty-seven suits of clothes made the richest that embroidery, gems, lace, silk, velvet, gold and stones could contribute; one of which was a white uncut velvet set all over suit and cloak with diamonds valued at £14,000 besides a great feather stuck all over with diamonds, as were also his sword, girdle, hat-band and spurs."
These were all courtiers, but we should in general think of an English merchant as dressed richly but plainly; yet here is the dress of Marmaduke Rawdon, a merchant of that day:--
"The apparell he rid in, with his chaine of gold and hat band was vallued in a thousand Spanish ducats; being two hundred and seventy and five pounds sterling. His hatband was of esmeralds set in gold; his suite was of a fine cloth trim'd with a small silke and gold fringe; the buttons of his suite fine gold--goldsmith's work; his rapier and dagger richly hatcht with gold."
The white velvet dress of Buckingham showed one of the extreme fashions of the day, the wearing of pure white. Horace Walpole had a full-length painting of Lord Falkland all in white save his black gloves. Another of Sir Godfrey Hart, 1600, is all in white save scarlet heels to the shoes. These scarlet heels were worn long in every court. Who will ever forget their clatter in the pages of Saint Simon, as they ran in frantic haste through hall and corridor--in terror, in cupidity, in satisfaction, in zeal to curry favor, in desire to herald the news, in hope to obtain office, in every mean and detestable spirit--ran from the bedside of the dying king? We can still hear, after two centuries, the noisy, heartless tapping of those hurrying red heels.
Look at the portrait of another courtier, Sir Robert Dudley, who died in 1639; not the Robert Dudley who was tickled in the neck by Queen Elizabeth while he was being dubbed earl; not the Dudley who murdered Amy Robsart, but his disowned son by a noble lady whom he secretly married and dishonored. This son was a brave sailor and a learned man. He wrote the Arcana del Mare, and he was a sportsman; "the first of all that taught a dog to sit in order to catch partridges." His portrait shows clumsy armor and showy rings, a great jewel and a vast tie of gauze ribbon on one arm; on the other a cord with many aglets; he wears marvellously embroidered, slashed, and bombasted breeches, tight hose, a heavily jewelled, broad belt; and a richly fringed scarf over one shoulder, and ridiculous garters at his calf. It is so absurd, so vain a dress one cannot wonder that sensible gentlemen turned away in disgust to so-called Puritan plainness, even if it went to the extreme of Puritan ugliness.
But in truth the eccentrics and extremes of Puritan dress were adopted by zealots; the best of that dress only was worn by the best men of the party. All Puritans were not like Philip Stubbes, the moralist; nor did all Royalists dress like Buckingham, the courtier.
I have spoken of the influence of the word "sad-color." I believe that our notion of the gloom of Puritan dress, of the dress certainly of the New England colonist, comes to us through it, for the term was certainly much used. A Puritan lover in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1645, wrote to his lass that he had chosen for her a sad-colored gown. Winthrop wrote, "Bring the coarsest woolen cloth, so it be not flocks, and of sad colours and some red;" and he ordered a "grave gown" for his wife, "not black, but sad-colour." But while sad-colored meant a quiet tint, it did not mean either a dull stone color or a dingy grayish brown--nor even a dark brown. We read distinctly in an English list of dyes of the year 1638 of these tints in these words, "Sadd-colours the following; liver colour, De Boys, tawney, russet, purple, French green, ginger-lyne, deere colour, orange colour." Of these nine tints, five, namely, "De Boys," tawny, russet, ginger-lyne, and deer color, were all browns. Other colors in this list of dyes were called "light colours" and "graine colours." Light colors were named plainly as those which are now termed by shopmen "evening shades"; that is, pale blue, pink, lemon, sulphur, lavender, pale green, ecru, and cream color. Grain colors were shades of scarlet, and were worn as much as russet. When dress in sad colors ranged from purple and French green through the various tints of brown to orange, it was certainly not a dull-colored dress.
Let us see precisely what were the colors of the apparel of the first colonists. Let us read the details of russet and scarlet. We find them in The Record of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, one of the incontrovertible sources which are a delight to every true historian. These records are in the handwriting of the first secretary, Washburn, and contain lists of the articles sent on the ships Talbot, George, Lion's Whelp, Four Sisters, and Mayflower for the use of the plantation at Naumkeag (Salem) and later at Boston. They give the amount of iron, coal, and bricks sent as ballast; the red lead, sail-cloth, and copper; and in 1629, at some month and day previous to 16th of March, give the order for the "Apparell for 100 men." We learn that each colonist had this attire:--
"4 Pair Shoes.
2 Pair Irish Stockings about 13d. a pair.
1 Pair knit Stockings about 2s. 4d. a pair.
1 Pair Norwich Garters about 5s. a dozen.
4 Shirts.
2 Suits of Doublet and Hose; of leather lined with oiled skin leather, the hose and doublet with hooks and eyes.
1 Suit of Northern Dussens or Hampshire Kerseys lined, the hose with skins, the doublet with linen of Guildford or Gedleyman serges, 2s. 10d. a yard, 4-1/2 to 5 yards a suit.
4 Bands.
2 Plain falling bands.
1 Standing band.
1 Waistcoat of green cotton bound about with red tape.
1 Leather Girdle.
2 Monmouth Cap, about 2s. apiece.
1 Black Hat lined at the brim with leather.
5 Red knit caps milled; about 5d. apiece.
2 Dozen Hooks and eyes and small hooks and eyes for mandillions.
1 Pair Calfs Leather gloves (and some odd pairs of knit and sheeps leather gloves).
A number of Ells Sheer Linen for Handkerchiefs."
On March 16th was added to this list a mandillion lined with cotton at 12d. a yard. Also breeches and waistcoats; a leather suit of doublet and breeches of oiled leather; a pair of breeches of leather, "the drawers to serve to wear with both their other suits." There was also full, yes, generous for the day, provision of rugs, bedticks, bolsters, mats, blankets, and sheets for the berths, and table linen. There were fifty beds; evidently two men occupied each bed. Folk, even of wealth and refinement, were not at all sensitive as to their mode of sleeping or their bedfellows. The pages of Pepys's Diary give ample examples of this carelessness.
Arms and armor were also furnished, as will be explained in a later chapter.
A private letter written by an engineer, one Master Graves, the following year (1630), giving a list of "such needful things as every planter ought to provide," affords a more curt and much less expensive list, though this has three full suits, two being of wool stuffs:--
"1 Monmouth Cap.
3 Falling Bands.
3 Shirts.
1 Waistcoat.
1 Suit Canvass.
1 Suit Frieze.
1 Suit of Cloth.
3 Pair of Stockings.
4 Pair of Shoes.
Armour complete.
Sword & Belt."
The underclothing in this outfit seems very scanty.
I am sure that to some of the emigrants on these ships either outfit afforded an ampler wardrobe than they had known theretofore in England, though English folk of that day were well dressed. With a little consideration we can see that the Massachusetts Bay apparel was adequate for all occasions, but it was far different from a man's dress to-day. The colonist "hadn't a coat to his back"; nor had he a pair of trousers. Some had not even a pair of breeches. It was a time when great changes in dress were taking place. The ancient gown had just been abandoned for doublet and long hose, which were still in high esteem, especially among "the elder sort," with garters or points for the knees. These doublets were both of leather and wool. And there were also doublets to be worn by younger men with breeches and stockings.
When doublet and hose were worn, the latter were, of course, the long, Florentine hose, somewhat like our modern tights.
The jerkin of other lists varied little from the doublet; both were often sleeveless, and the cassock in turn was different only in being longer; buff-coat and horseman's coat were slightly changed. The evolution of doublet, jerkin, and cassock into a man's coat is a long enough story for a special chapter, and one which took place just while America was being settled. Let me explain here that, while the general arrangement of this book is naturally chronological, we halt upon our progress at times, to review a certain aspect of dress, as, for instance, the riding-dress of women, or the dress of the Quakers, or to review the description of certain details of dress in a consecutive account. We thus run on ahead of our story sometimes; and other times, topics have to be resumed and reviewed near the close of the book.
The breeches worn by the early planters were fulled at the waist and knee, after the Dutch fashion, somewhat like our modern knickerbockers or the English bag-breeches.
The four pairs of shoes furnished to the colonists were the best. In another entry the specifications of their make are given thus:--
"Welt Neats Leather shoes crossed on the out-side with a seam. To be substantial good over-leather of the best, and two soles; the under sole of Neats-leather, the outer sole of tallowed backs."
They were to be of ample size, some thirteen inches long; each reference to them insisted upon good quality.
There is plentiful head-gear named in these inventories,--six caps and a hat for each man, at a time when Englishmen thought much and deeply upon what they wore to cover their heads, and at a time when hats were very costly. I give due honor to those hats in an entire chapter, as I do to the ruffs and bands supplied in such adequate and dignified numbers. There was an unusually liberal supply of shirts, and there were drawers which are believed to have been draw-strings for the breeches.
In New England's First Fruits we read instructions to bring over "good Irish stockings, which if they are good are much more serviceable than knit ones." There appears to have been much variety in shape as well as in material. John Usher, writing in 1675 to England, says, "your sherrups stockings and your turn down stocking are not salable here." Nevertheless, stirrup stockings and socks were advertised in the Boston News Letter as late as January 30, 1731. Stirrup-hose are described in 1658 as being very wide at the top--two yards wide--and edged with points or eyelet holes by which they were made fast to the girdle or bag-breeches. Sometimes they were allowed to bag down over the garter. They are said to have been worn on horseback to protect the other garments.
Stockings at that time were made of cotton and woollen cloth more than they were knitted. Calico stockings are found in inventories, and often stockings as well as hose with calico linings. In the clothing of William Wright of Plymouth, at his death in 1633, were
"2 Pair Old Knit Stockins.
2 Pair Old Yrish Stockins.
2 Pair Cloth Stockins.
2 Pair Wadmoll Stockins.
4 Pair Linnen Stockins,"
which would indicate that Goodman Wright had stockings for all weathers, or, as said a list of that day, "of all denominations." He had also two pair of boot-hose and two pair of boot-briches; evidently he was a seafaring man. I must note that he had more ample underclothing than many "plain citizens," having cotton drawers and linen drawers and dimity waistcoats.
That petty details of propriety and dignity of dress were not forgotten; that the articles serving to such dignity were furnished to the colonists, and the use of these articles was expected of them, is shown by the supply of such additions to dress as Norwich garters. Garters had been a decorative and elegant ornament to dress, as may be seen by glancing at the portraits of Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Robert Orchard, and the English Antick, in this book. And they might well have been decried as offensive luxuries unmeet for any Puritan and unnecessary for any colonist; yet here they are. The settlers in one of the closely following ships had points for the knee as well as garters.
From all this cheerful and ample dress, this might well be a Cavalier emigration; in truth, the apparel supplied as an outfit to the Virginia planters (who are generally supposed to be far more given over to rich dress) is not as full nor as costly as this apparel of Massachusetts Bay. In this as in every comparison I make, I find little to indicate any difference between Puritan and Cavalier in quantity of garments, in quality, or cost--or, indeed, in form. The differences in England were much exaggerated in print; in America they often existed wholly in men's notions of what a Puritan must be.
At first the English Puritan reformers made marked alterations in dress; and there were also distinct changes in the soldiers of Cromwell's army, but in neither case did rigid reforms prove permanent, nor were they ever as great or as sweeping as the changes which came to the Cavalier dress. Many of the extremes preached in Elizabeth's day had disappeared before New England was settled; they had been abandoned as unwise or unnecessary; others had been adopted by Cavaliers, so that equalized all differences. I find it difficult to pick out with accuracy Puritan or Cavalier in any picture of a large gathering. Let us glance at the Puritan Roundhead, at Cromwell himself. His picture is given here, cut from a famous print of his day, which represents Cromwell dissolving the Long Parliament. He and his three friends, all Puritan leaders, are dressed in clothes as distinctly Cavalier as the attire of the king himself. The graceful hats with sweeping ostrich feathers are precisely like the Cavalier hats still preserved in England; like one in the South Kensington Museum. Cromwell's wide boots and his short cape all have a Cavalier aspect.
While Cromwell was steadily working for power, the fashion of plain attire was being more talked about than at any other time; so he appeared in studiously simple dress--the plainest apparel, indeed, of any man prominent in affairs in English history. This is a description of his appearance at a time before his name was in all Englishmen's mouths. It was written by Sir Philip Warwick:--
"The first time I ever took notice of him (Cromwell) was in the beginning of Parliament, November, 1640. I came into the house one morning, well-clad, and perceived a gentleman speaking whom I knew not, very ordinary apparelled, for it was a plain cloth suit which seemed to have been made by an ill country tailor. His linen was plain and not very clean, and I remember a speck or two of blood upon his band which was not much larger than his collar; his hat was without a hat-band; his stature was of good size; his sword stuck close to his side."
Lowell has written of what he terms verbal magic; the power of certain words and sentences, apparently simple, and without any recognizable quality, which will, nevertheless, fix themselves in our memory, or will picture a scene to us which we can never forget. This description of Cromwell has this magic. There is no apparent reason why these plain, commonplace words should fix in my mind this simple, rough-hewn form; yet I never can think of Cromwell otherwise than in this attire, and whatever portrait I see of him, I instinctively look for the spot of blood on his band. I know of his rich dress after he was in power; of that splendid purple velvet suit in which he lay majestic in death; but they never seem to me to be Cromwell--he wears forever an ill-cut, clumsy cloth suit, a close sword, and rumpled linen.
The noble portraits of Cromwell by the miniaturist, Samuel Cooper, especially the one which is at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, are held to be the truest likenesses. They show a narrow band, but the hair curls softly on the shoulders. The wonderful portrait of the Puritan General Ireton, in the National Portrait Gallery, has beautiful, long hair, and a velvet suit much slashed, and with many loops and buttons at the slashes. He wears mustache and imperial. We expect we may find that friend of Puritanism, Lucius Carey, Lord Falkland, in rich dress; and we find him in the richest of dress; namely, a doublet made, as to its body and large full sleeves, wholly of bands an inch or two wide of embroidery and gold lace, opening like long slashes from throat to waist, and from arm-scye to wrist over fine white lawn, and with extra slashes at various spots, with the full white lawn of his "habit-shirt" pulled out in pretty puffs. His hair is long and curling. General Waller of Cromwell's army, here shown, is the very figure of a Cavalier, as handsome a face, with as flowing hair and careful mustache, as the Duke of Buckingham, or Mr. Endymion Porter,--that courtier of courtiers,--gentleman of the bed-chamber to Charles I. Cornet Joyce, the sturdy personal custodian of the king in captivity, came the closest to being a Roundhead; but even his hair covers his ear and hangs over his collar--it would be deemed over-long to-day.
Here is Lord Fairfax in plain buff coat slightly laced and slashed with white satin. Fanshawe dressed--so his wife tells us--in "phillamot brocade with 9 Laces every one as broad as my hand, a little gold and silver lace between and both of curious workmanship." And his suit was gay with scarlet knots of ribbon; and his legs were cased in white silk hose over scarlet ones; and he wore black shoes with scarlet shoe strings and scarlet roses and garters; and his gloves were trimmed with scarlet ribbon--a fine "gaybeseen"--to use Chaucer's words.
Surprising to all must be the portrait of that Puritan figurehead, the Earl of Leicester; for he wears an affected double-peaked beard, a great ruff, feathered hat, richly jewelled hatband and collar, and an ear-ring. Shown here is the dress he wore when masquerading in Holland as general during the Netherland insurrection against Philip II.
It is strange to find even writers of intelligence calling Winthrop and Endicott Roundheads. A recent magazine article calls Myles Standish a Roundhead captain. That term was not invented till a score of years after Myles Standish landed at Plymouth. A political song printed in 1641 is entitled The Character of a Roundhead. It begins:--
"What creature's this with his short hairs
His little band and huge long ears
That this new faith hath founded?
"The Puritans were never such,
The saints themselves had ne'er as much.
Oh, such a knave's a Roundhead."
Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson was the wife of a Puritan gentleman, who was colonel in Cromwell's army, and one of the regicide judges. She wrote a history of her husband's life, which is one of the most valuable sources of information of the period wherein he lived, the day when Cromwell and Hampden acted, when Laud and Strafford suffered. In this history she tells explicitly of the early use of the word Roundhead:--
"The name of Roundhead coming so opportunely, I shall make a little digression to show how it came up: When Puritanism grew a faction, the Zealots distinguished themselves by several affectations of habit, looks and words, which had it been a real forsaking of vanity would have been most commendable. Among other affected habits, few of the Puritans, what degree soever they were, wore their hair long enough to cover their ears; and the ministers and many others cut it close around their heads with so many little peaks--as was something ridiculous to behold. From this custom that name of Roundhead became the scornful term given to the whole Parliament Party, whose army indeed marched out as if they had only been sent out till their hair was grown. Two or three years later any stranger that had seen them would have inquired the meaning of that name."
It is a pleasure to point out Colonel Hutchinson as a Puritan, though there was little in his dress to indicate the significance of such a name for him, and certainly he was not a Roundhead, with his light brown hair "softer than the finest silk and curling in great loose rings at the ends--a very fine, thick-set head of hair." He loved dancing, fencing, shooting, and hawking; he was a charming musician; he had judgment in painting, sculpture, architecture, and the "liberal arts." He delighted in books and in gardening and in all rarities; in fact, he seemed to care for everything that was "lovely and of good report." "He was wonderfully neat, cleanly and genteel in his habit, and had a very good fancy in it, but he left off very early the wearing of anything very costly, yet in his plainest habit appeared very much a gentleman." Such dress was the best of Puritan dress; just as he was the best type of a Puritan. He was cheerful, witty, happy, eager, earnest, vivacious--a bit quick in temper, but kind, generous, and good. He was, in truth, what is best of all,--a noble, consistent, Christian gentleman.
Those who have not acquired from accurate modern portrayal and representation their whole notion of the dress of the early colonists have, I find, a figure in their mind's eye something like that of Matthew Hopkins the witch-finder. Hogarth's illustrations of Hudibras give similar Puritans. Others have figures, dull and plainly dressed, from the pictures in some book of saints and martyrs of the Puritan church, such as were found in many an old New England home. My Puritan is reproduced here. I have found in later years that this Alderman Abel of my old print was quite a character in English history; having been given with Cousin Kilvert the monopoly of the sale of wines at retail, one of those vastly lucrative privileges which brought forth the bitterest denunciations from Sir John Eliot, who regarded them as an infamous imposition upon the English people. The site of Abel's house had once belonged to Cardinal Wolsey; and it was popularly believed that Abel found and used treasure of the cardinal which had been hidden in his cellar. He was called the "Main Projector and Patentee for the Raising of Wines." Unfortunately for my theory that Abel was a typical Puritan, he was under the protection of King Charles I; and Cromwell's Parliament put an end to his monopoly in 1641, and his dress was simply that of any dull, uninteresting, commonplace, and common Englishman of his day.
Another New England man who is constantly called a Roundhead is Cotton Mather; with equal inconsequence and inaccuracy he is often referred to, and often stigmatized, as "the typical Puritan colonist," a narrow, bigoted Gospeller. I have open before me an editorial from a reputable newspaper which speaks of Cotton Mather dressed in dingy, skimped, sad-colored garments "shivering in the icy air of Plymouth as he uncovered his close-clipped Round-head when he landed on the Rock from the Mayflower." He was in fact born in America; he was not a Plymouth man, and did not die till more than a century after the landing of the Mayflower, and, of course, he was not a Roundhead. Another drawing of Cotton Mather, in a respectable magazine, depicts him with clipped hair, emaciated, clad in clumsy garments, mean and haggard in countenance, raising a bundle of rods over a cowering Indian child. Now, Cotton Mather was distinctly handsome, as may be seen from his picture here, which displays plainly the full, sensual features of the Cotton family, shown in John Cotton's portrait. And the Roundhead is in an elegant, richly curled periwig, such as was fashionable a hundred years after the Mayflower. And though he had the tormenting Puritan conscience he was not wholly a Puritan, for the world, the flesh, and the devil were strong in him. He was much more gentle and tender than men of that day were in general; especially with all children, white and Indian, and was most conscientious in his relations both to Indians and negroes. And in those days of universal whippings by English and American schoolmasters and parents, he spoke in no uncertain voice his horror and disapproval of the rod for children, and never countenanced or permitted any whippings.
There was certainly great diversity in dress among those who called themselves Puritans. Some amusing stories are told of that strange, restless, brilliant creature, the major-general of Cromwell's army,--Harrison. When the first-accredited ambassador sent by any great nation to the new republic came to London, there was naturally some stir as to the wisdom of certain details of demeanor and dress. It was a ticklish time. The new Commonwealth must command due honor, and the day before the audience a group of Parliament gentlemen, among them Colonel Hutchinson and one who was afterwards the Earl of Warwick, were seated together when Harrison came in and spoke of the coming audience, and admonished them all--and Hutchinson in particular, "who was in a habit pretty rich but grave and none other than he usually wore"--that, now nations sent to them, they must "shine in wisdom and piety, not in gold and silver and worldly bravery which did not become saints." And he asked them not to appear before the ambassador in "gorgeous habits." So the colonel--though he was not "convinced of any misbecoming bravery in a suit of sad-coloured cloth trimmed with gold and with silver points and buttons"--still conformed to his comrade's opinion, and appeared as did all the other gentlemen in solemn, handsome black. When who should come in, "all in red and gold-a,"--in scarlet coat and cloak laden with gold and silver, "the coat so covered with clinquant one could scarcely discern the ground," and in this gorgeous and glittering habit seat himself alone just under the speaker's chair and receive the specially low respects and salutes of all in the ambassador's train,--who should thus blazon and brazon and bourgeon forth but Harrison! I presume, though Hutchinson was a Puritan and a saint, he was a bit chagrined at his black suit of garments, and a bit angered at being thus decoyed; and it touched Madam Hutchinson deeply.
But Hutchinson had his turn to wear gay clothes. A great funeral was to be given to Ireton, who was his distant kinsman; yet Cromwell, from jealousy, sent no bidding or mourning suit to him. A general invitation and notice was given to the whole assembly, and on the hour of the funeral, within the great, gloomy state-chamber, hung in funereal black, and filled with men in trappings of woe, covered with great black cloaks with long, weeping hatbands drooping to the ground, in strode Hutchinson; this time he was in scarlet and cliquante, "such as he usually wore,"--so wrote his wife,--astonishing the eyes of all, especially the diplomats and ambassadors who were present, who probably deemed him of so great station as to be exempt from wearing black. The master of ceremonies timidly regretted to him, in hesitating words, that no mourning had been sent--it had been in some way overlooked; the General could not, thus unsuitably dressed, follow the coffin in the funeral procession--it would not look well; the master of ceremonies would be rebuked--all which proved he did not know Hutchinson, for follow he could, and would, and did, in this rich dress. And he walked through the streets and stood in the Abbey, with his scarlet cloak flaunting and fluttering like a gay tropical bird in the midst of a slowly flying, sagging flock of depressed black crows,--you have seen their dragging, heavy flight,--and was looked upon with admiration and love by the people as a splendid and soldierly figure.
We must not forget that the years which saw the settlement of Salem and Boston were not under the riot of dress countenanced by James. Charles I was then on the throne; and the rich and beautiful dress worn by that king had already taken shape.
There has been an endeavor made to attribute this dress to the stimulus, to the influence, of Puritan feeling. Possibly some of the reaction against the absurdities of Elizabeth and James may have helped in the establishment of this costume; but I think the excellent taste of Charles and especially of his queen, Henrietta Maria, who succeeded in making women's dress wholly beautiful, may be thanked largely for it. And we may be grateful to the painter Van Dyck; for he had not only great taste as to dress, and genius in presenting his taste to the public, but he had a singular appreciation of the pictorial quality of dress and a power of making dress appropriate to the wearer. And he fully understood its value in indicating character.
Since Van Dyck formed and painted these fine and elegant modes, they are known by his name,--it is the Van Dyck costume. We have ample exposition of it, for his portraits are many. It is told that he painted forty portraits of the king and thirty of the queen, and many of the royal children. There are nine portraits by his hand of the Earl of Strafford, the king's friend. He painted the Earl of Arundel seven times. Venetia, Lady Digby, had four portraits in one year. He painted all persons of fashion, many of distinction and dignity, and some with no special reason for consideration or portrayal.
The Van Dyck dress is a gallant dress, one fitted for a court, not for everyday life, nor for a strenuous life, though men of such aims wore it. The absurdity of Elizabeth's day is lacking; the richness remains. It is a dress distinctly expressive of dignity. The doublet is of some rich, silken stuff, usually satin or velvet. The sleeves are loose and graceful; at one time they were slashed liberally to show the fine, full, linen shirt-sleeve. Here are a number of slashed sleeves, from portraits of the day, painted by Van Dyck. The cuffs of the doublet are often turned back deeply to show embroidered shirt cuffs or lace ruffles, or even linen undersleeves. The collar of the doublet was wholly covered with a band or collar of rich lace and lawn, or all lace; this usually with the pointed edges now termed Vandykes. Band strings of ribbon or "snake-bone" were worn. These often had jewelled tassels. Rich tassels of pearl were the favorite. A short cloak was thrown gracefully on one shoulder or hung at the back. Knee-breeches edged with points or fringes or ribbons met the tops of wide, high boots of Spanish leather, which often also turned over with ruffles of leather or lace. Within-doors silken hose and shoes with rich shoe-roses of lace or ribbon were worn. A great hat, broad-leafed, often of Flemish beaver, had a splendid feather and jewelled hatband. A rich sword-belt and gauntleted and fringed gloves were added. A peaked beard with small upturned mustache formed a triangle, with the mouth in the centre, as in the portrait of General Waller. The hair curled loosely in the neck, and was rarely, I think, powdered.
Other great painters besides Van Dyck were fortunately in England at the time this dress was worn, and the king was a patron and appreciator of art. Hence they were encouraged in their work; and every form and detail of this beautiful costume is fully depicted for us.
"Nowe my deare hearte let me parlye a little with thee about trifles, for when I am present with thee, my speeche is preiudiced by thy presence which drawes my mind from itselfe; I suppose now, upon thy unkles cominge there wilbe advisinge & counsellinge of all hands; and amongst many I know there wilbe some, that wilbe provokinge thee, in these indifferent things, as matter of apparell, fashions and other circumstances; I hould it a rule of Christian wisdome in all things to follow the soberest examples; I confesse that there be some ornaments which for Virgins and Knights Daughters &c may be comly and tollerrable which yet in soe great a change as thine is, may well admitt a change allso; I will medle with noe particulars neither doe I thinke it shall be needfull; thine own wisdome and godliness shall teach thee sufficiently what to doe in such things. I knowe thou wilt not grieve me for trifles. Let me intreate thee (my sweet Love) to take all in good part."
--JOHN WINTHROP TO MARGARET TYNDALE, 1616.
have expressed a doubt that the dress of Cavalier and
Puritan varied as much as has been popularly believed; I feel sure that the
dress of Puritan women did not differ from the attire of women of quiet
life who remained in the Church of England; nor did it vary materially
either in form or quality from the attire of the sensible followers of
court life. It simply did not extend to the extreme of the mode in gay
color, extravagance, or grotesqueness. In the first severity of revolt over
the dissoluteness of English life which had shown so plainly in the
extravagance and absurdity of English court dress, many persons of deep
thought (especially men), both of the Church of England and of the Puritan
faith, expressed their feeling by a change in their dress. Doubtless also
in some the extremity of feeling extended to fanaticism. It is always thus
in reforms; the slow start becomes suddenly a violent rush which needs to
be retarded and moderated, and it always is moderated. I have referred to
one exhibition of bigotry in regard to dress which is found in the annals
of Puritanism; it is detailed in the censure and attempt at restraint of
the dress of Madam Johnson, the wife of the Rev. Francis Johnson, the
pastor of the exiles to Holland.
There is a tradition that Parson Johnson was one of the Marprelate brotherhood, who certainly deserved the imprisonment they received, were it only for their ill-spelling and ill-use of their native tongue. The Marprelate pamphlet before me as I write had an author who could not even spell the titles of the prelates it assailed; but called them "parsones, fyckers and currats," the latter two names being intended for vicars and curates. The story of Madam Johnson's revolt, and her triumph, is preserved to us in such real and earnest language, and was such a vital thing to the actors in the little play, that it seems almost irreverent to regard it as a farce, yet none to-day could read of it without a sense of absurdity, and we may as well laugh frankly and freely at the episode.
When the protagonist of this Puritan comedy entered the stage, she was a widow--Tomison or Thomasine Boyes, a "warm" widow, as the saying of the day ran, that is, warm with a comfortable legacy of ready money. She was a young widow, and she was handsome. At any rate, it was brought up against her when events came to a climax; it was testified in the church examination or trial that "men called her a bouncing girl," as if she could help that! Husband Boyes had been a haberdasher, and I fancy she got both her finery and her love of finery in his shop. And it was told with all the petty terms of scandal-mongering that might be heard in a small shop in a small English town to-day; it was told very gravely that the "clarkes in the shop" compared her for her pride in apparel to the wife of the Bishop of London, and it was affirmed that she stood "gazing, braving, and vaunting in shop doores."
Now this special complaint against the Widow Boyes, that she stood braving and vaunting in shop doors, was not a far-fetched attack brought as a novelty of tantalizing annoyance; it touches in her what was one of the light carriages of the day, which were so detestable to sober and thoughtful folk, an odious custom specified by Stubbes in his Anatomy of Abuses. He writes thus of London women, the wives of merchants:--
"Othersome spend the greater part of the daie in sittyng at the doore, to shewe their braveries, to make knowen their beauties, to behold the passers by; to view the coast, to see fashions, and to acquaint themselves of the bravest fellows--for, if not for these causes, I know no other causes why they should sitt at their doores--as many doe from Morning till Noon, from Noon till Night."
Other writers give other reasons for this "vaunting." We learn that "merchants' wives had seats built a purpose" to sit in, in order to lure customers. Marston in The Dutch Courtesan says:--
"His wife's a proper woman--that she is! She has been as proper a woman as any in the Chepe. She paints now, and yet she keeps her husband's old customers to him still. In troth, a fine-fac'd wife in a wainscot-carved seat, is a worthy ornament to any tradesman's shop. And an attractive one I'le warrant."
This handsome, buxom, bouncing widow fell in love with Pastor Johnson, and he with her, while he was "a prisoner in the Clink," he having been thrown therein by the Archbishop of Canterbury for his persistent preaching of Puritanism. Many of his friends "thought this not a good match" for him at any time; and all deemed it ill advised for a man in prison to pledge himself in matrimony to any one. And soon zealous and meddlesome Brother George Johnson took a hand in advice and counsel, with as high a hand as if Francis had been a child instead of a man of thirty-two, and a man of experience as well, and likewise older than George.
George at first opened warily, saying in his letters that "he was very loth to contrary his brother;" still Brother Francis must be sensible that this widow was noted for her pride and vanity, her light and garish dress, and that it would give great offence to all Puritans if he married her, and "it (the vanity and extravagance, etc.) should not be refrained." There was then some apparent concession and yielding on the widow's part, for George for a time "sett down satysfyed"; when suddenly, to his "great grief" and discomfiture, he found that his brother had been "inveigled and overcarried," and the sly twain had been married secretly in prison.
It must be remembered that this was in the last years of Elizabeth's reign, in 1596, when the laws were rigid in attempts at limitation of dress, as I shall note later in this chapter. But there were certain privileges of large estate, even if the owner were of mean birth; and Madam Johnson certainly had money enough to warrant her costly apparel, and in ready cash also, from Husband Boyes. But in the first good temper and general good will of the honeymoon she "obeyed"; she promised to dress as became her husband's condition, which would naturally mean much simpler attire. He was soon in very bad case for having married without permission of the archbishop, and was still more closely confined within-walls; but even while he lingered in prison, Brother George saw with anguish that the bride's short obedience had ended. She appeared in "more garish and proud apparell" than he had ever before seen upon the widow,--naturally enough for a bride,--even the bride of a bridegroom in prison; but he "dealt with her that she would refrain"--poor, simple man! She dallied on, tantalizing him and daring him, and she was very "bold in inviting proof," but never quitting her bridal finery for one moment; so George read to her with emphasis, as a final and unconquerable weapon, that favorite wail of all men who would check or reprove an extravagant woman, namely, Isaiah iii, 16 et seq., the chapter called by Mercy Warren
"... An antiquated pageI wonder how many Puritan parsons have preached fatuously upon those verses! how many defiant women have had them read to them--and how many meek ones! I knew a deacon's wife in Worcester, some years ago, who asked for a new pair of India-rubber overshoes, and in pious response her frugal partner slapped open the great Bible at this favorite third chapter of the lamenting and threatening prophet, and roared out to his poor little wife, sitting meekly before him in calico gown and checked apron, the lesson of the haughty daughters of Zion walking with stretched-forth necks and tinkling feet; of their chains and bracelets and mufflers; their bonnets and rings and rich jewels; their mantles and wimples and crisping-pins; their fair hoods and veils--oh, how she must have longed for an Oriental husband!
Petulant with his new sister-in-law's successful evasions of his readings, his letters, and his advice, his instructions, his pleadings, his commands, and "full of sauce and zeal" like Elnathan, George Johnson, in emulation of the prophet Isaiah, made a list of the offences of this London "daughter of Zion," wrote them out, and presented them to the congregation. She wore "3, 4, or even 5 gold rings at one time" Then likewise "her Busks and ye Whalebones at her Brest were soe manifest that many of ye Saints were greeved thereby." She was asked to "pull off her Excessive Deal of Lace." And she was fairly implored to "exchange ye Schowish Hatt for a sober Taffety or Felt." She was ordered severely "to discontinue Whalebones," and to "quit ye great starcht Ruffs, ye Muske, and ye Rings." And not to wear her bodice tied to her petticoat "as men do their doublets to their hose contrary to I Thessalonians, V, 22." And a certain stomacher or neckerchief he plainly called "abominable and loathsome." A "schowish Velvet Hood," such as only "the richest, finest and proudest sort should use," was likewise beyond endurance, almost beyond forgiveness, and other "gawrish gear gave him grave greevance."
But here the young husband interfered, as it was high time he should; and he called his brother "fantasticall, fond, ignorant, anabaptisticall and such like," though what the poor Anabaptists had to do with such dress quarrels I know not. George's cautious reference in his letter to the third verse of the third chapter of Jeremiah made the parson call it "the Abhominablest Letter ever was written." George, a bit frightened, answered pacificatorily that he noted of late that "the excessive lace upon the sleeve of her dress had a Cover drawn upon it;" that the stomacher was not "so gawrish, so low, and so spitz-fashioned as it was wont to be"; nor was her hat "so topishly set,"--and he expressed pious gladness at the happy change, "hoping more would follow,"--and for a time all did seem subdued. But soon another meddlesome young man became "greeved" (did ever any one hear of such a set of silly, grieving fellows?); and seeing "how heavily the young gentleman took it," stupid George must interfere again, to be met this time very boldly by the bouncing girl herself, who, he writes sadly, answered him in a tone "very peert and coppet." "Coppet" is a delightful old word which all our dictionaries have missed; it signifies impudent, saucy, or, to be precise, "sassy," which we all know has a shade more of meaning. "Peert and coppet" is a delightful characterization. George refused to give the sad young complainer's name, who must have been well ashamed of himself by this time, and was then reproached with being a "forestaller," a "picker," and a "quarrelous meddler"--and with truth.
During the action of this farce, all had gone from London into exile in Holland. Then came the sudden trip to Newfoundland and the disastrous and speedy return to Holland again. And through the misfortunes and the exiles, the company drew more closely together, and gentle words prevailed; George was "sorie if he had overcarried himself"; Madam "was sure if it were to do now, she would not so wear it." Still, she did not offer her martinet of a brother-in-law a room to lodge in in her house, though she had many rooms unused, and he needed shelter, whereat he whimpered much; and soon he was charging her again "with Muske as a sin" (musk was at that time in the very height of fashion in France) and cavilling at her unbearable "topish hat." Then came long argument and sparring for months over "topishness," which seems to have been deemed a most offensive term. They told its nature and being; they brought in Greek derivatives, and the pastor produced a syllogism upon the word. And they declared that the hat in itself was not topish, but only became so when she wore it, she being the wife of a preacher; and they disputed over velvet and vanity; they bickered over topishness and lightness; they wrangled about lawn coives and busks in a way that was sad to read. The pastor argued soundly, logically, that both coives and busks might be lawfully used; whereat one of his flock, Christopher Dickens, rose up promptly in dire fright and dread of future extravagance among the women-saints in the line of topish hats and coives and busks, and he "begged them not to speak so, and so loud, lest it should bring many inconveniences among their wives." Finally the topish head-gear was demanded in court, which the parson declared was "offensive"; and so they bickered on till a most unseemly hour, till ten o'clock at night, as "was proved by the watchman and rattleman coming about." Naturally they wished to go to bed at an early hour, for religious services began at nine; one of the complaints against the topish bride was that she was a "slug-a-bed," flippantly refused to rise and have her house ordered and ready for the nine o'clock public service. The meetings were then held in the parson's house, and held every day; which may have been one reason why the settlement grew poorer. It matters little what was said, or how it ended, since it did not disrupt and disband the Holland Pilgrims. For eleven years this stupid wrangling lasted; and it seemed imminent that the settlement would finish with a separation, and a return of many to England. Slight events have great power--this topish hat of a vain and pretty, a peert and coppet young Puritan bride came near to hindering and changing the colonization of America.
I have related this episode at some length because its recounting makes us enter into the spirit of the first Separatist settlers. It shows us too that dress conquered zeal; it could not be "forborne" by entreaty, by reproof, by discipline, by threats, by example. An influence, or perhaps I should term it an echo, of this long quarrel is seen plainly by the thoughtful mind in the sumptuary laws of the New World. Some of the articles of dress so dreaded, so discussed in Holland, still threatened the peace of Puritanical husbands in New England; they still dreaded many inconveniences. In 1634, the general court of Massachusetts issued this edict:--
"That no person, man or woman, shall hereafter make or buy any Apparell, either Woolen, or Silk, or Linen, with any Lace on it, Silver, Gold, or Thread, under the penalty of forfeiture of said clothes. Also that no person either man or woman, shall make or buy any Slashed Clothes, other than one Slash in each Sleeve and another in the Back. Also all Cut-works, embroideries, or Needlework Caps, Bands or Rails, are forbidden hereafter to be made and worn under the aforesaid Penalty; also all gold or silver Girdles Hat bands, Belts, Ruffs, Beaver hats are prohibited to be bought and worn hereafter."
Fines were stated, also the amount of estate which released the dress-wearer from restriction. Liberty was given to all to wear out the apparel which they had on hand except "immoderate great sleeves, slashed apparell, immoderate great rails, and long wings"--these being beyond endurance.
In 1639 "immoderate great breeches, knots of riban, broad shoulder bands and rayles, silk roses, double ruffles and capes" were forbidden to folk of low estate. Soon the court expressed its "utter detestation and dislike," that men and women of "mean condition, education and calling" should take upon themselves "the garb of gentlemen" by wearing gold and silver lace, buttons and points at the knee, or "walk in great boots," or women of the same low rank to wear silk or tiffany hoods or scarfs. There were likewise orders that no short sleeves should be worn "whereby the nakedness of the arms may be discovered"; women's sleeves were not to be more than half an ell wide; long hair and immodest laying out of the hair and wearing borders of hair were abhorrent. Poor folk must not appear with "naked breasts and arms; or as it were pinioned with superstitious ribbons on hair and apparell." Tailors who made garments for servants or children, richer than the garments of the parents or masters of these juniors, were to be fined. Similar laws were passed in Connecticut and Virginia. I know of no one being "psented" under these laws in Virginia, but in Connecticut and Massachusetts both men and women were fined. In 1676, in Northampton, thirty-six young women at one time were brought up for overdress chiefly in hoods; and an amusing entry in the court record is that one of them, Hannah Lyman, appeared in the very hood for which she was fined; and was thereupon censured for "wearing silk in a fflonting manner, in an offensive way, not only before but when she stood Psented. Not only in Ordinary but Extraordinary times." These girls were all fined; but six years later, when a stern magistrate attempted a similar persecution, the indictments were quashed.
It is not unusual to find the careless observer or the superficial reader--and writer--commenting upon the sumptuary laws of the New World as if they were extraordinary and peculiar. There appeared in a recent American magazine a long rehearsal of the unheard-of presumption of Puritan magistrates in their prohibition of certain articles of dress. This writer was evidently wholly ignorant of the existence of similar laws in England, and even of like laws in Virginia, but railed against Winthrop and Endicott as monsters of Puritanical arrogance and impudence.
In truth, however, such laws had existed not only in France and England, but since the days of the old Locrian legislation, when it was ordered that no woman should go attended with more than one maid in the street "unless she were drunk." Ancient Rome and Sparta were surrounded by dress restrictions which were broken just as were similar ones in more modern times. The Roman could wear a robe but of a single color; he could wear in embroideries not more than half an ounce of gold; and, with what seems churlishness he was forbidden to ride in a carriage. At that time, just as in later days, dress was made to emphasize class distinction, and the clergy joined with the magistrates in denouncing extravagant dress in both men and women. The chronicles of the monks are ever chiding men for their peaked shoes, deep sleeves and curled locks like women, and Savonarola outdid them all in severity. The English kings and queens, jealous of the rich dress of their opulent subjects, multiplied restrictions, and some very curious anecdotes exist of the calm assumption by both Elizabeth and Mary to their own wardrobe of the rich finery of some lady at the court who displayed some new and too becoming fancy.
Adam Smith declared it "an act of highest impertinence and presumption for kings and rulers to pretend to watch over the earnings and expenditure of private persons," nevertheless this public interference lingered long, especially under monarchies.
These sumptuary laws of New England followed in spirit and letter similar laws in England. Winthrop had seen the many apprentices who ran through London streets, dressed under laws as full of details of dress as is a modern journal of the modes. For instance, the apprentice's head-covering must be a small, flat, round cap, called often a bonnet--a hat like a pie-dish. The facing of the hat could not exceed three inches in breadth in the head; nor could the hat with band and facing cost over five shillings. His band or collar could have no lace edge; it must be of linen not over five shillings an ell in price; and could have no other work or ornament save "a plain hem and one stitch"--which was a hemstitch. If he wore a ruff, it must not be over three inches wide before it was gathered and set into the "stock." The collar of his doublet could have neither "point, well-bone or plait," but must be made "close and comely." The stuff of his doublet and breeches could not cost over two shillings and sixpence a yard. It could be either cloth, kersey, fustian, sackcloth, canvas, or "English stuff"; or leather could be used. The breeches were generally of the shape known as "round slops." His stockings could be knit or of cloth; but his shoes could have no polonia heels. His hair was to be cut close, with no "tuft or lock."
Queen Elizabeth stood no nonsense in these things; finding that London 'prentices had adopted a certain white stitching for their collars, she put a stop to this mild finery by ordering the first transgressor to be whipped publicly in the hall of his company. These same laws, tinkered and altered to suit occasions, appear for many years in English records, for years after New England's sumptuary laws were silenced.
Notwithstanding Hannah Lyman and the thirty-six vain Northampton girls, we do not on the whole hear great complaint of extravagance in dress or deportment. At any rate none were called bouncing girls. The portraits of men or women certainly show no restraint as to richness in dress. Their sumptuary laws were of less use to their day than to ours, for they do reveal to us what articles of dress our forbears wore.
While the Massachusetts magistrates were fussing a little over woman's dress, the parsons, as a whole, were remarkably silent. Of course two or three of them could not refrain from announcing a text from Isaiah iii, 16 et seq., and enlarging upon the well-worn wimples and nose jewels, and bells on their feet, which were as much out of fashion in Massachusetts then as now. It is such a well-rounded, ringing, colorful arraignment of woman's follies you couldn't expect a parson to give it up. Every evil predicted of the prophet was laid at the door of these demure Puritan dames,--fire and war, and caterpillars, and even baldness, which last was really unjust. Solomon Stoddard preached on the "Intolerable Pride in the Plantations in Clothes and Hair," that h