Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Pages in good condition. Some marking due to age but pages are bright. Ex library. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> When your posterity shall see our pictures they shall think wee were foolishly proud of apparel.’1 This comment in 1605 applied especially to the reign of James I at least as regards the Court circle but presently the purer taste of Charles I encouraged greater refinement; braid and lace replaced the crude decorations of slashing and paning and the display of jewellery became less ornate. At the same time the decline of Spain saw French modes dominating Europe though each country modified them to suit its own national inclinations. The Puritan costume before the Restoration was by no means as fantastic as later satirists often depicted. ‘When puritanism grew into a faction the zealots distinguished themselves both men and women by several affectations of habit’ but those who eventually arrived at prosperity then forsook their peculiar modes. Thus the Parliamentarian Colonel Hutchinson wore his hair long over his shoulders and in the House of Commons in 1650 appeared in ‘a habit which was pretty rich but grave’ of dark cloth trimmed with gold and silver points and buttons while the Puritan General Harrison on that occasion wore ‘a scarlet coat and cloak both laden with gold and silver lace and the coat so covered with cliquant (metal foil) that one scarcely could discern the ground’.” In fact plainness and severity in dress was less a distinction of religion than of social class. ‘The leaders and their wives were as well dressed on the one side as on the other’ and we see portraits of eminent Parliamentarians in velvet and lace collars and cuffs. During the first half of the century a gentleman’s suit consisted (LL)