1603-60 dames, and they either covered their heads and half of their faces with a close-fitting cap or coif, or wore a high-crowned hat. During this period, armour ceased to be worn, owing to the general introduction of fire-arms. Only the head, back, Military and breast were defended by plates, which were made costumes. bullet-proof; buff coats, gauntlets, and jack-boots (i.e., high boots of jacked leather), covering the rest of the person. Troops so armed were called cuirassiers, and, besides them, there were in the English cavalry, lanciers, harqubussiers or carabineers, and dragoons. This division was copied from the French, who adopted standing armies long before us. The modern firelock was invented about the year 1635; the improvement being suggested by a peculiar fire-arm called the snaphaunce, used by the Dutch marauders called snaphans, or poultry stealers. The musket rest, and the swine's feather, the precursor of the bayonet, were abandoned after this.* The pike and the musket were the favourite weapons of the London trainbands. The court and extra 8. Manners of the court and aristocracy. The court of James I. has already been described as drunken and dissolute; and its manners were altogether more rude licentious and unpolished than when Elizabeth presided over it, vagant. with so much pomp and state. Masques and emblematic pageants were the favourite amusements; but the King was also fond of hunting, and it was he who began horse-racing in England, at Newmarket. The court of Charles was much purer than that of his father; but throughout the whole period the manners of the nobility and Cavaliers were licentious and extravagant. Extravagance of dress and personal ornament; long trains of servants in rich liveries; prodigal feasting and riotous living, ruined many a nobleman, and excited the bitterest invectives of the Puritans. The household expenditure of James I. was twice as much as that of his predecessor, amounting to £100,000 annually; he figured almost daily in a new suit, and the suits which his favourites wore were covered with pearls and diamonds to the value of from £20,000 to £80,000. Ladies' dresses cost often £50 a yard. While money was thus thrown away upon apparel, it was further squandered in gambling; swearing, drinking, brawling, and intriguing were the most courtly accomplishments; and in the taverns, which were dens of filth, tobacco smoke, roaring songs, and Tavern roysters, women of rank allowed themselves to be enter- scenes. tained, and they tolerated those freedoms from their admirers Pict. Hist., III., 618-620; Comprehensive Hist., II., 630-631; Planché, 274-293. CHAP. XI. which are described with such startling and terrible vividness in our old plays. The shops of the milliners and perfumers were noted places of assignation; and one notorious haunt of this kind, Spring Garden, was at length shut up, by command of Cromwell. Fopperies. Foppery was another vice of the upper classes. Court ladies spent the half of every day in making themselves fine, in patching and painting their faces; while fashionable gentlemen endeavoured as much as possible to make themselves effeminate, and like the women in their manners and personal appearance. They dressed themselves in fluttering ribbons, and in a blaze of jewellery; they scented and perfumed themselves; they carried sweetmeats in their pockets to give to the ladies; they painted and patched their faces; and sometimes they affected the character of a hero from Germany or the Low Countries, by carrying one of their arms in a sling.* 9. The country gentlemen. While such were the habits of the courtiers, the country gentlemen still retained the manners of the Elizabethan age, which we all know and love so well as those of the "fine old English gentleman." In the old English manor An old manor- house, the family rose at day-break, and assembled for prayers, which were read by the domestic chaplain. After breakfast, the squire and his sons went off to hunt the deer, while the lady and her daughters superintended the dairy or the buttery, prescribed the day's task for the spinning-wheels, dealt out bread and meat at the gate to the poor, and concocted simples for the sick and infirm of the village. Confectionery or the making of preserves, sewing or embroidering some battle or hunting piece which had been commenced in the previous generation, probably occupied the rest of the day. At noon, the large bell rang a loud welcome to the house and neighbourhood round to come to dinner; and sack or home-brewed October was drunk freely afterwards. If the weather was unfavourable for out-door recreation, the well-thumbed books of the library were read; Fox's Acts and Monuments, Froissart's Chronicle, the Merrie Gests of Robin Hood, Hall's or Hollinshed's Chronicles, the Seven Champions of Christendom, and others which had issued very likely from the press of Caxton or Wynkyn de Worde. At Christmas. open house was kept, for the squire loved to rejoice the hearts of the poor at such a season, and to see the whole village merry in his great hall; he allowed a double quantity of malt to his small beer, and set it a running for twelve days to every one that called for it; a piece of cold beef and a mince pie *Pict. Hist., II., 628-633; also the plays of the period. 1603-60 was always upon the table for every comer, and nothing delighted the generous benefactor so much as to see his tenantry pass away an evening in playing their innocent tricks, and smutting one another, while he and his wife and children danced and made merry with all. But all this gradually passed away after James succeeded to the throne; the country gentlemen rushed to the metropolis, and remained there, in spite of royal proclamations, which ordered them to live upon their own estates; and thus all the old English rural games and customs were forgotten, while ancient manors tumbled to decay, fortunes that had accumulated for generations vanished, the hereditary estates of centuries became the property of men of yesterday, and the names of the most ancient families disappeared from the scroll of English heraldry.+ 10. The Puritans. As the excessive levity and recklessness of the Cavaliers were in part provoked by their disgust at the demureness and hypocritical sanctimoniousness, as they deemed it, of the Puritans, so the austerity and sourness of the latter were in some measure excited by the prevalence of a contrary temper among their opponents. While the Royalists paid increased devotion to their long hair and the curling of their love-locks, and dressed in gayer clothing and richer lace, the Roundheads could not find garments sufficiently sad in colour and homely in cut; they clipped their hair so close that their ears stood out in strong relief, and their naked countenances were rendered more grim and ghastly. If any of their brethren had ruddy cheeks they suspected his character; and Colonel Hutchinson was always contemned by them as a lukewarm adherent, because he dressed well and wore long hair. To separate themselves still more from the worldlings, they spoke with a slow drawling speech, and in a strong nasal twang; they affected a preference for Hebrew forms of speech to the idioms of their mother tongue; they baptized their children by the names, not of Christian saints, but of Hebrew patriarchs and warriors; and their morals and manners were those of the synagogue. Their dress, deportment, language, studies, and amusements were not unlike those of the Pharisees; it was a sin to hang garlands on a May-pole, to drink a friend's health, to fly a hawk, to hunt a stag, to play at chess, to wear love-locks, to put starch into a ruff, to play a musical instrument. When, therefore, this rigid sect obtained * Addison's essays in the Spectator on Sir Roger de Coverley. + Pict. Hist., II., 630; see the ballad of "The Old and Young Courtier," in Percy Reliques, II., 336, CHAP. XI. power, sharp laws were passed against all these things. Public amusements, from the masques at court to the wrestling and grinning matches on village greens, were abolished; May-poles were hewn down; theatres were closed, and actors whipped at the cart's tail; rope dancing, puppet shows, bear baiting, bowls, and horse racing were done away with; and Christmas, with all its immemorial usages, and Christian charities and sympathies, was ordered to be strictly observed as a fast.* To keep up social excitement, however, they substituted for the national amusements thus proscribed, incessant religious services, and sermons of enormous length, in which the preachers expatiated preachings. largely upon spiritual joys and terrors, and upon the news of the day. The eager congregation hung upon the lips of such preachers; they projected their heads, put their hands behind their ears, and stretched their necks, that they might not lose a single word; and whenever they were pleased, they expressed their delight by a loud buzzing hum. When the preacher "took pains," as it was said, he threw off his cloak, and laid about him like a thresher, and Puritan Pulpit drum ecclesiastic Was beat with a fist instead of a stick. Punning and witticisms were often perpetrated in these discourses; and if a preacher could make his audience grin by quoting a text which bore some whimsical allusion to his subject, he was highly applauded. In this manner it was that Hugh Peters, the Protector's chaplain, became so popular; he had been an actor before he became a divine, and thus was enabled to succeed as an ecclesiastical buffoon. It is not pretended, however, that all the Puritans were superstitious, crack-brained persons; given up to enthusiasm; cunning men, who assumed the garb and dialect of Scripture, in order to dupe others into a belief of their purity and sanctity. But the description here given of them refers to those hypocrisies which generally resulted from the tenets they held, the professions they made, and the manners they adopted. That the sincere Puritans, and there were very many, aimed at a real reformation, and were inspired with a heavenly purpose, cannot be denied; they desired "to see God's own law, then universally acknowledged for complete as it stood in the Holy Written Book, made good in this world"; to see God's will done on earth as it is in heaven. This was the general spirit of English Puritanism in the seventeenth century, although it was sadly disfigured by many strange excesses, and base hypocrisies. *Macaulay, I., 84-166. † Pict. Hist., II., 896. Carlyle's Cromwell, I., 62-69. 1603-60 11. City tradesmen. The advantages of trade and the useful arts had now become so plain, that they had ceased almost to be degrading, and the nobility and gentry began to intermix by marriage with the mercantile classes, and to bind their sons apprentices to the city merchants. But the courtiers and higher aristocracy still looked down upon the tradesmen, and a fashionable comedy was not thought racy enough unless some vulgar flat-cap was introduced, to be robbed of his "daughter and his ducats" by some needy and profligate adventurer. The London shops were no better than booths or cellars, without doors or windows, and instead of a signboard, the master or his apprentice paraded before the door, rehearsing a list of the articles he sold, and crying out to the passers by, "What d' ye lack, sir? What d' ye lack, madam? What d' ye please to lack?” The goods were huddled up in bales and heaps, without any display, as in a marine store or broker's shop. The hours of business on the Exchange were twelve o'clock at noon, and six in the evening; and at nine o'clock Bow bell rang the signal for servants to leave off work, and repair to supper and bed. A royal merchant, or magnifico, was styled Master; sometimes Worshipful, as a compliment; but never Gentleman or Esquire, except in ridicule. The carrying of lights in the dark streets also marked the social grades; courtiers had torches, merchants and lawyers, links, and mechanics, lanthorns. The great prize of mercantile ambition was to become lord mayor of London.* The apprentices still continued to be the great civic nuisance, being ever ready to aid an affray, riot, or other commotion; having frequent feuds with the students of the Inns of Court; and often administering further justice upon offenders who, as they considered, had not been sufficiently punished by the regular tribunals. Many of these youths, after having thus sown their wild oats, grew sober, rich, and respected; but many also retained their profligate habits, were expelled from their employments, and became bravos, ready to be hired for any desperate deed. 12. Alsatians, thieves, and highwaymen. The number of profligates, thieves, and men of no evident occupation, then living in the metropolis, was enormous. The locality where they dwelt was called Alsatia,† and, at night, the dark streets swarmed with them. Roaring boys, Privadors, Bonaventors, Portingale captains, who had cruised as pirates against the rich carracks of Portugal, the successors of the Swashbucklers of the Elizabethan age, and Pict. Hist., III, 634. + This was in Whitefriars, which still possessed the right of sanctuary. |