King Charles II's Own Fashion: An Episode in Anglo-French Relations 1666-1670Author(s): Esmond S. de BeerReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of the Warburg Institute, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Oct., 1938), pp. 105-115Published by: The Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750084 .Accessed: 22/04/2012 05:04

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KING CHARLES II'S OWN FASHION: AN EPISODE IN ANGLO-FRENCH RELATIONS I666-1670

By Esmond S. de Beer

One of the more celebrated episodes in the history of English costume is the introduction by Charles II in 1666 of a new fashion for men; thanks to Evelyn's merit as a diarist it is now known as the 'Persian' vest. But there is uncertainty as to the nature of the fashion and as to its duration; the latest writer on the subject, Mr. F. M. Kelly, comes to the conclusion that the fashion is not identifiable.1 It is possible however to reach some more positive statement.

There are two kinds of evidence to be considered, the literary and the artistic. For seventeenth century fashions the former generally consists of casual references in imaginative works and in letters, and of entries in private accounts; in the present case the peculiar circumstances in the establishment of the fashion led to a very unusual number of notices of it. It would be difficult to identify the fashion from written accounts alone; but there are such strong links between the literary and the artistic evidence that it is possible to identify representations of it with a considerable degree of certainty.

There is no question about the establishment of the fashion; in his entry for 8 October I666 Pepys writes :

The King hath yesterday in Council declared his resolution of setting a new fashion for clothes, which he will never alter. It will be a vest, I know not well how; but it is to teach the nobility thrift, and will do good.2

A further notice as to its establishment, with a description of it, is given as an item in a letter of news which survives only in trans-

I am indebted for advice, information, and help to Mr. H. M. Hake and Mr. C. K. Adams, of the National Portrait Gallery, and to Mr. J. L. Nevinson, of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and for references to Miss C. Robbins (Mrs. S. Herber) and Miss G. Scott Thompson. Following a suggestion of Mrs. A. M. C. Carter (Miss Le Mesurier) I examined some Orphans' Inventories at the Guildhall, ranging from I666 to 1675 and referring to ready made clothing; I found nothing in them for the present article. My indebtedness to Mr. Kelly's article (see below, note I) will be apparent to everyone who reads it; he has read this article in its original form and I have to thank him for encouragement and information. I F. M. Kelly and R. Schwabe, Short

history of costume and armour . . . io66- I8oo, 1931, ii, pp. 39-40, following an article in the Connoisseur, lxxxviii, 1931, pp. 96-9. In a letter in the Burlington Magazine, lxiv, 1934, PP- 40-1, Mr. Kelly is still uncertain as to the fashion although he dates a repre- sentation of it (Lord Baltimore) approxi- mately correctly.

2 This part of the Diary was first written on 'loose papers' and was copied out a few months later : Diary, II Oct., memor- andum. There is no reason to doubt the accuracy of the present entry. Charles' announcement was probably made at a meeting of the Committee for Foreign Affairs, which met on Sundays; there is no mention of it in the Registers of the Privy Council.

105

Io6 ESMOND S. DE BEER

lation.1 An English news-letter of i i October gives a simpler version Our Nation hauing for severall yeers especially at this season too much used

themselves to ape the French in their fashions, his MatY for avoiding the like vanity in the future has been pleased to signify that he himselfe will weare a vest & not alter that mode.

A postscript adds: The King has this day put his Vest on but will not weare it till Munday, webh is

the Duke of Yorkes birthday.2

That the vest was first worn on 14 October appears from a notice in Thomas Rugge's Mercurius politicus redivivus, a journal of public events:

In this month (October) his majestie and whole Court changed the ffashion of their Cloathes: viz: a Close Coat of Cloath pinkt wth a whit taffety vnder the cutts this in length reachd to the calf of the legg and vpon that a Sercoat : cutt att the brest which hung loose and shorter then the Vest six Inches the breeches the spanish Cutt and buskins, some of Cloath and som of leather but of the same Colour as the Vest or Garment, of neuer the like fashion since William the Conquest which was in the yeare Io66 he begain his Reigne in October, the 14 day and or new standing faishion begane 14 day of October I666 :3

Anthony Wood also notices its appearance this day; his source of information was perhaps a news-letter:

14 Oct., Su, K

KING CHARLES II'S OWN FASHION 1o7

Pepys saw the duke of York try on his vest on 13 October: So I stood and saw him dress himself, and try on his vest, which is the King's new

fashion, and will be in it for good and all on Monday next, and the whole Court: it is a fashion, the King says, he will never change.

He saw the costume in wear on Monday, 15 October (he was not at court on the evening of 14 October) :

This day the King begins to put on his vest, and I did see several persons of the House of Lords and Commons too, great courtiers, who are in it; being a long cassocke close to the body, of black cloth, and pinked with white silke under it, and a coat over it, and the legs ruffled with black riband like a pigeon's leg; and upon the whole, I wish the King may keep it, for it is a very fine and handsome garment.

Pepys reports on 17 October that a modification was necessary: The Court is all full of vests, only my Lord St. Albans not pinked but plain black;

and they say the King says the pinking upon white makes them too much like magpyes, and therefore hath bespoke one of plain velvet.

On 18 October, rather late in the day, in a passage possibly rehandled at a later period, Evelyn notices the new fashion:

To Court. It being ye first time his Maty put himself solemnly into the Eastern fashion of vest, changing doublet, stiff collar, bands and cloake, into a comely vest, after ye Persian mode, with girdle or straps, and shoe strings and garters into bouckles, of which some were set with precious stones, resolving never to alter it, and to leave the French mode, which had hitherto obtain'd to our greate expense and reproch. Upon which divers courtiers and gentlemen gave his Maty gold by way of wager that he would not persist in this resolution. I had sometime before presented an invective against that unconstancy, and our so much affecting the French fashion, to his Maty, in which I tooke occasion to describe the comelinesse and usefulnesse of the Persian clothing, in ye very same manner his Maty now clad himselfe. This pamphlet I intitl'd "Tyrannus, or the Mode" and gave it to his Matr to reade. I do not impute to this discourse the change which soone happen'd, but it was an identity that I could not but take notice of.'

1 Quoted from the second edition of the Diary; the word 'straps' is a false render- ing for 'shash,' i.e. sash. Evelyn's Diary is here his own transcript from his original notes; it was made not before I675 (an entry of 3 Oct. I662 contains a notice of a picture dating from that year). In the present notice the buckled shoes are open to question; in most, if not all, of the whole- length representations of the costume the shoes are fastened with ribbons and not with buckles; it is unlikely that the latter were ever worn with it. The absence of any mention of the 'pinking' is also worth noting.

Evelyn's Tyrannus was published in I661; it contains the following passages : "I like the noble Buskin for the Legs, and

the Boucle better then the formal Rose; and had rather see a glittering stone to hasp it

there, then the long cross hilted knots now worn . . ." (pp. 26-7).

"I like the stately and easy Vest within doors, and the Cloak without" (p. 29). Evelyn may have been thinking of the vests of the Venetian senators at least as much as of those of the Persians.

When preparing his copy for a second edition Evelyn added a note "that this was published 2 years before the Vest, Cravett, Garters & boucles came to be the fashion, & therfor might haply giue occasion to the change yt ensued in those very particulars." The copy is in the Bodleian Library. The note is of uncertain date; the '2 years' must be taken as loose and wrong (Mr. Kelly argues from it that the vest in some form was introduced in I664). The cravat does not appear in the representations of the costume as worn by noblemen.

Io8 ESMOND S. DE BEER

A notice in the first edition of Chamberlayne's Angliae Notitia, published in 1669, emphasises the repudiation of the French fashion :

Since our late breach with France, the English Men (though not the Women) have quitted the French Mode, and taken a grave Wear, much according with the Oriental Nations.1 From these notices certain facts emerge. The fashion introduced by

the king differs completely-at least so far as contemporaries are concerned- from anything worn in this country at the time; it constitutes for them a revolt against French fashions; and the body covering resembles that worn by the peoples between the Baltic and the Persian Gulf. Its only definite association with the Persian fashion comes from Evelyn; Evelyn, who perhaps had not seen a Persian for the last twenty years and who owned himself an admirer of the Persians' costume. At Bologna in 1645, he writes in his Diary,

I saw a Persian walking about in a very rich vest of cloth of tissue, and severall other ornaments, according to the fashion of his country, which much pleased me.

He appears to have seen some more Persians at Venice and he would find representations of their costume in books and prints. If the word 'Persian' is to be retained as a name for the fashion it should be recognised that it is merely a matter of chance and convenience.2

Accounts of private expenditure are rare but a series of tailors' bills relating to William Russell, afterwards Lord Russell (the Whig executed in 1683), apparently runs continuously from November 1664 to July 1667 and perhaps to July I669."

Until May 1666 the names which occur for the external body garments are 'Suit and coat,' 'Coat,' 'Justacor,' 'Doublet.' On 12 October I666 there first appears a 'Suit of Vestments.' A bill for another suit of vestments, 13 December I666, includes a 'Tunic,' alternatively a coat. Evelyn, in a notice dated 30 October, writes :

Now had I on the vest and surcoat or tunic as 'twas call'd

The name is important for the identification of notices of the costume.4 A basic representation of the new fashion is given in a sketch in Lord

Sandwich's journal (P1. I9a); it is identified by a note : The habitt taken up by ye King & Court of England Nouembr. I666. weh They

Call a Vest.5

1 pp. 25-6. For a reference to later edi- tions of this work see below.

2 A casual reference to the imitation of Persian fashions in T. Brooks, London's Lamen- tations, 1670, p. 56, may allude to the present fashion; but the word may equally be used for its classical or Biblical significance. The book deals with the Fire of I666.

3 Presented by the Duke of Bedford to the Victoria and Albert Museum; now Ms. 86J2o.

* Randle Holme, in a description of the costume in The Academy of Armory and Blazon,

I688, iii, p. I8, makes the vest the outer and the tunic the inner garment; the same error occurs in an undated drawing by him of a man dressed "ano I667" : British Museum, Harleian MS. 2014, f. 64. Correct definitions occur in E. Blount, Glossographia, 3rd ed., I670 : "Tunick . . . now the upper garment to a Vest, well known (i.e. the word in this sense); . .. Vest . a long Garment made close to the body."

5 Reproduced by Mr. Kelly, Connoisseur, lxxxviii, p. 98.

19

a-Sketch in Lord Sandwich's Journal. 1666 (p. Io8) b-G. Soest, Portrait of Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore (p. Io9)

c-Feliciano, Portrait of Lord Sandwich. I668 (p. 109)

d-Detail from F. Sandfort, The Order at the Solemn Interment of George Duke of Albemarle. 1670 (p. III)

KING CHARLES II'S OWN FASHION 109

The date is probably that of Sandwich's hearing of the establishment of the fashion; he was at the time ambassador in Madrid. The sketch is clear enough to make it possible to recognise other representations of the fashion; but Sandwich presents further evidence for its appearance in a three quarter length portrait of himself, painted in Portugal early in 1668, showing him, as he himself states "in a vest (the then habit of England)" (P1. I9c).1

The most valuable representation is the full-length portrait of Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore, by Gerard Soest (P1. 19b).2 There are several three-quarter lengths : the duke of Buckingham, dated 1669, by John Michael Wright, belonging to Lord Malmesbury;3 Lord Arlington by Lely, now belonging to Mrs. Lionel Twyford;4 Sir John Nicholas, in black, by Lely, now belonging to Messrs. Spink & Son;5 Captain Samuel Sturmy, engraved portrait dated 1669, prefixed to his Mariners Magazine, 1669. In most of these representations the vest is shown as a cassock-like garment, worn buttoned up, except towards the knees; it is gathered in at the waist by the belt or sash and is very full below the waist. It appears generally to possess sleeves; in Baltimore these protrude beyond the tunic cuffs; in Sturmy the inner seams of the sleeves of both tunic and vest are slit, showing the shirt; the vest sleeves have buttons down the slits; the Sandwich sketch also shows slit sleeves, but the details are uncertain. Over the vest is worn the tunic, an open coat with half-length sleeves, the lining revealed where it turns back on either side of the front opening (in the Sandwich sketch the reveal is perhaps held in place by a ribbon). Of the breeches only the knots at the knees are visible.6

The shoes do not differ noticeably from those in use in 166o;7 they are still tied with ribbons. The two Sandwich representations, Nicholas, Sturmy, and, apparently, Baltimore, have the sword suspended from the girdle; Arlington and Buckingham from a broad shoulder-belt.8 A band is worn in every case except Sturmy's, who wears a cravat; the front portion very

1 F. R. Harris, Life of . . . Sandwich, 1912, ii, p. I4i; reproduction of the portrait facing p. 142.

2 Reproduced by Dr. Borenius, Burlington Magazine, lxiii, 1933, P. 193. Dr. Borenius argues for a date I640; Mr. Kelly and Mr. C. H. Collins Baker (ibid., lxiv, I934, pp. 42-3) show that the date must be about I670; Dr. Borenius apparently remains un- convinced. The approximate year is fixed by the figure of a child in the picture; the problem is whether it is Baltimore's son or grandson. The later date can be upset only by the production of a dated picture c. I640 in similar costume.

3 Reproduced in Connoisseur, xcix, 1937, p. 205; also in M. Leloir, Histoire du costume, vol. ix, 1934, pl. 24. He is wearing a fawn silk coat and a scarlet vest trimmed with gold lace; cf. Catalogue, Loan exhibition . . . of the reign of Charles H (Y. W. C. A.), 1932, no. 326.

4Reproduced in E. Lodge, Portraits oJ illustrious persons, I821-34, vol. iii. Lord Braybrooke recognised that it represents the costume; cf. note to Pepys, 15 Oct. I666.

5 Reproduction in Burlington Magazine, July 1937, cover, p. iii. I am indebted to Messrs. Spink & Son for showing me the original.

6 There is not much difficulty about the breeches : see Mr. Kelly, op. cit., p. 98. 7 Plates in Sir W. Lower, Relation . . . of the voyage . [of] Charles II . in Holland, I66o.

8 In 1668 there was apparently a change in the way in which the sword was worn : "Put on my new stuff-suit, with a shoulder- belt, according to the new fashion, and the bands of my vest and tunique laced with silk lace, of the colour of my suit :" Pepys, 17 May. The change in fashion applies apparently only to the belt.

IIO ESMOND S. DE BEER

large except in the case of Baltimore. Buckingham wears his star of the Order of the Garter on the vest; Sandwich in the portrait wears his on the tunic.

The relationship of vest and tunic is clearly defined by the literary evidence. Pepys had ordered a plain vest on 29 October 1666 and wore it on 4 November :

Comes my taylor's man in the morning, and brings my vest home, and coate to wear with it, and belt, and silver-hilted sword . . . after dinner to the waterside, and so, it being very cold, to White Hall, and was mighty fearfull of an ague, my vest being new and thin, and the coat cut not to meet before upon my breast.

A French description adds further details : Cet ajustement . . a quelque chose de majestueux et de galant; c'est une

double veste des 6toffes les plus riches. Celle de dessous ne va pas jusqu'au genou, et serre le corps sur l'estomac et sur les hanches, avec une ceinture garnie de boucles d'or, ou d'argent, ou de pierreries, d'oh pend l'6pee. Celle de dessus est plus ample, et descendant jusqu'" la jarretiere se replie des deux c6t6s avec un ruban, pour mieux laisser l'autre en vue.1 The new fashion was apparently no less expensive than its predecessor.

On 15 November 1666 there was a ball at court for the queen's birthday; Pepys notes :

The King in his rich vest of some rich silke and silver trimming, as the Duke of York and all the dancers were, some of cloth of silver, and others of other sorts exceeding rich.

According to another writer there were a hundred vests there that cost at least one hundred pounds; some ornamented with jewels worth more than a thousand.2

In these notices the word 'vest' may be used as a synecdoche for the whole costume; but in the portraits of Buckingham and Arlington, who are both very elaborately dressed, the vest is clearly the most highly ornamented part of the costume.

There are two representations of groups of figures belonging to 1671. The first is the Tichborne Dole, by G. van Tilborgh,3 showing figures in vest, girdle, coat, and band; vest, girdle, coat, and cravat; vest, coat, cravat, and shoulder-belt; the coat in each case turns back at the opening and the vest in each case is about the same length as the coat; a boy wears a short doublet-like garment, coat, cravat, and shoulder-belt; a little boy a vest-like long child's coat, with girdle and cravat (the little boy in the Baltimore portrait wears what looks like a vest, with the child's coat showing as a skirt

1 Quoted by G. Ascoli, La Grande-Bretagne devant l'opinion franfaise au XVIIe sizcle, I930, i, p. 341, as from S. Chappuzeau, L'Europe vivante, 1667, p. 3. The passage does not occur in the British Museum copy of the edition of I667 at p. 3, or, I think, anywhere else; it presumably comes from the second part, published in I669.

2 Hist MSS. Comm., 12th Rep., App., pt. ix, p. 55; letter from Lord Herbert, not printed

verbatim. Another notice of this ball, men- tioning the 'very Rich Vestes,' is given by Rugge, Add. MS. IoII7, f. I81 v. So Evelyn, describing a ball at court on 18 Feb- ruary 1667, mentions "the men in their richly embrodred most becoming vests."

3 Reproduced in part by Messrs. Kelly and Schwabe, Short hist., ii, p. 54; a smaller excerpt in Burlington Magazine, lxiv, p. 42.

KING CHARLES II'S OWN FASHION III

beneath it; the negro page wears what looks like a justaucorps). The second is The Order . . . at the Solemn Interment of . . . George, Duke of Albemarle, . . . 67o, by F. Sandford, apparently published about November 167 ;1 it shows a large number of men in civil costume (Pl. 19d). The coat is almost always knee-length, occasionally a little shorter, with sleeves to about the elbow and generally a horizontal pocket low down on the visible side (the left side; the right side never shows clearly). The vest is sometimes the same length as the coat, sometimes a little shorter, sometimes reaching only to mid-thigh; it is noticeably less full below the waist than in earlier representations. The breeches appear to be easy, neither tight nor full. A girdle is generally, but not invariably, worn round the vest; the sword sometimes hangs from it, but more often from a shoulder- belt. Cravats and bands with large fronts are about equally worn, the former perhaps more frequently by the lower, the latter more frequently by the higher ranks. Shoes with bows appear to be universal.2

Contemporary writers agree that the fashion ended with a fresh surrender to France. Thus Evelyn :

It was a comely and manly habit, too good to hold, it being impossible for us in good earnest to leave ye Monsieurs vanities long.3 No date is given for the king's return to the French style; the available

evidence points to its having occurred between 1670 and 1672. The passage from Chamberlayne's Angliae Notitia quoted above is repeated

without change in the second and third editions, 1669; the fourth, 1670; and in the fifth, 1671. In the sixth edition, published in 1672, after the words "the Oriental Nations" there is added "but that is now left"; and in the seventh edition, published in 1673, there is a further addition, the passage ending, "but that is now left, and the French Mode again taken up".4

George Savile, marquis of Halifax, in his Character of a Trimmer, a work written about January 1685 and published in 1688, gives an inaccurate but interesting account of the reason for the new change :

About that time (1670) a general humour in opposition to France had made us throw off their fashion and put on vests, that we might look more like a distinct people, and not be under the servility of imitation . . . France did not like this small beginning of ill-humours-or, at least, of emulation-wisely considering that it is a natural introduction first to make the world their apes, that they may be afterwards their slaves.5 It was thought that one of the instructions Madam brought along with

1 The Term Catalogues, ed. E. Arber, 1903-6, i, p. 89.

2 Figures dressed in this fashion are prob- ably to be found also in engraved views; they are rarely clear enough to be serviceable as evidence. 3 Diary, 30 Oct. I666; but evidently a later addition to Evelyn's original notes. For the rehandling of his text see above, p. 107. 4 The fifth edition is advertised in May 1671; the sixth in February I672; the seventh

in May 1673 : Term Catalogues, i, pp. 76, 99, 138; I have calculated the enumeration of the editions. Chamberlayne was probably reasonably up to date but a notice of change of fashion might easily be delayed for an edition or two.

5 Compare a story in Pepys, 22 Nov. 1666, that Louis XIV had dressed all his footmen in vests by way of ridiculing the fashion. There appears to be no trace of this story in any French writer; it is highly improbable.

1I2 ESMOND S. DE BEER

her was to laugh us out of these vests, which she performed so effectually that in a moment, like so many footmen who had quitted their master's livery, we all took it again and returned to our old service. So that the very time of doing it gave a critical advantage to France, since it looked like an evidence of our returning to their interests as well as to their fashion . .

.1 'Madame' is Charles II's sister; her visit took place in May 167o and

signalised the formation of a close alliance between France and England. The adoption of the vest had taken place four years earlier; the return to the French fashion probably did not follow so rapidly as Halifax suggests. Another anecdote, also recorded at a rather late date, testifies to the divergence between French and English fashions at this period, between the decadent doublet and the vest:

The Impertinents . . . This Play had wonderful Success, being Acted 12 Days together, when our Company were Commanded to Dover, in May 1670. The King with all his Court, meeting his sister, the Dutchess of Orleans there. This Comedy and Sir Solomon Single, pleas'd Madam the Dutchess, and the whole Court extremely. The French Court wearing then Excessive short Lac'd Coats; some Scarlet, some Blew, with Broad wast Belts; Mr. Nokes having at that time one shorter than the French Fashion, to Act Sir Arthur Addle in; the Duke of Monmouth gave Mr. Nokes his Sword and Belt from his Side, and Buckled it on himself, on purpose to Ape the French : That Mr. Nokes lookt more like a Drest up Ape, than a Sir Arthur : Which upon his first Entrance on the Stage, put the King and Court to an Excessive Laughter; at which the French look'd very Shaggrin, to see themselves Ap'd by such a Buffoon as Sir Arthur : Mr. Nokes kept the Dukes Sword to his Dying Day.2 Further evidence for the existence of the vest in May 1670 is provided

in a satire of that date by Andrew Marvell, The Kings Vowes: I will have a fine Tunick a Sash and a Vest, Tho' not rule like the Turk yet I will be so drest, And who knowes but the Mode may soon bring in the rest ?3

The evidence may be summed up thus: in October 1666 Charles II, who had hitherto followed the French fashion, adopted an original fashion of his own; at some time between 167o and 1672 he gave up this fashion and returned to the French fashion. What the evidence does not give is that between 1666 and 1672 there was a revolution in French fashion; before 1666 the doublet was in general use; by 1672 it had been replaced by the

justaucorps; while the change of 1666 was abrupt and striking, the reversion after 167o was comparatively unnoticeable.

There is no problem about the appearance of the doublet in its last few years. In its most fashionable form it had "shrunk into a skimpy

1 The Character of a Trimmer, in H. C. Foxcroft, Life and letters of . . . Halifax, 1898, ii, p. 326. Miss Foxcroft gives the date of composition; and suggests for com- parison a passage in Evelyn's Tyrannus.

A book, Englands Vanity, 1683, also refers to the short life of the fashion : pp. 124-5; it is quoted by Mr. Kelly.

2. Downes, Roscius Anglicanus, 1708, p. 29.

3 Poems and letters, ed. H. M. Margoliouth, 1927, i, p. 167; for date, p. 288. Marvell also refers to the fashion in Last Instructions to a Painter (autumn 1667), 1. 828; the country justice coming to the session of parliament beginning 25 July 1667 "vest bespeaks to be more seemly clad" : ibid., p. 161 ; date, p. 268. A casual reference occurs in Sir G. Etherege, She wou'd if she cou'd, 1668, act iii, sc. iii (first acted 6 Feb. 1667/8).

KING CHARLES II'S OWN FASHION I13

bolero,"' the shirt showing between it and the low-waisted full breeches, which were open at the knee; a less extreme form appears in the suit belonging to Sir Harry Verney now on exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum.2 The early history of the justaucorps naturally presents some difficulty. It had come into use in France as a coat for soldiers at some date before I66o; in 1662 Louis XIV granted a certain number of his entourage the right of wearing the 'justaucorps ta brevet,' which differed from the ordinary justaucorps apparently only in material, colour, and trimmings, the cut following the ordinary fashion of the time.2 The date of its introduction into England is uncertain; it is perhaps 'the loose Riding Coat, which is now the Mode' in 1662;4 it is mentioned, as a 'justacor,' in William Russell's bill for June I665.5 It appears to be shown in a portrait by S. van Hoogstraaten of an Englishman, Thomas Godfrey, dated 1663 ;6 the sitter wears an open knee-length coat over what appears to be a very attenuated doublet (the inner seams of the sleeves of both coat and doublet are slit, as in the portrait of Sturmy; the sleeves have no cuffs).

When the justaucorps emerges into general use in France it is a close- fitting nearly knee-length coat with long sleeves with wide and deep cuffs; it is worn with rather full breeches gathered at the knee; it appears to have been worn buttoned up; when it is shown partly unbuttoned there is more often than not no waist-coat showing beneath: this is certainly true of the English costume of the period immediately before 1675.7 The best evidence for the latter appears to be that supplied by some of the decorative figures in J. Ogilby's Britannia and by some of the incidental figures in D. Loggan's Oxonia illustrata; both works were published in 1675. The most usual dress consists of a knee length coat, generally buttoned to the waist, and rather full breeches gathered at the knee. Sometimes the coat is open from the breast, but without revealing the lining; it has horizontal pockets low down on either side of the front opening; beneath it appears generally the shirt, but at least once a waist-length waist-coat; the sword is hung either from a shoulder-belt or from an unseen belt beneath the coat. Cravats are more common than bands; shoes have ribbons as before.8 Specimens of this costume are preserved : the three Isham costumes in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the duke of York's wedding-suit.9

In the last the importance of the coat is shown by the embroidering of

1 Mr. Kelly, in Burlington Magazine, lxiv, p. 41.

2 For it see Mr. Nevinson in Apollo, xx, 1934, PP- 317-9.

3 R. de Rabutin, comte de Bussy, Mimoires, ed. L. Lalanne, 1857, ii, p. 133; Leloir, vol. ix, pp. I1-12. 4 Evelyn, Tyrannus, p. 25.

5 Bedford Bills, in Victoria and Albert Museum (see above, p. Io8). The material is scarlet camlet.

6 Exhibition of 17th Century Art in Europe, Burlington House, 1938, No. 203.

7 For this costume see Mr. Beard, in

Connoisseur, lxxxi, pp. 137-42; Mr. Nevin- son, ibid., xciv, 1934, PP- 316-20. I have been unable to go into its history in France and Holland.

8 See especially Ogilby, pl. 25; Loggan, the 'famuli' in the plate of academic costume; and the plates of the University buildings. I have avoided academic costume and the various sporting costumes, etc., in Ogilby. In Loggan's plate of Lincoln College the vest, girdle, etc., appear to survive in two figures.

9 They are figured in Connoisseur, xciv, p. 345; lxxxi, pp. i39, 141.

x 14 ESMOND S. DE BEER

the star of the Order of the Garter on its breast; although Sandwich's also appears on his tunic, Buckingham's had been embroidered on his vest. The costume also appears in the undated picture of Rose presenting the pine- apple to Charles II.1

How far was the fashion of 1666 original? The question cannot be finally answered until the history of French costume (and perhaps of Dutch costume also) in the critical period from 1662 to 1672 has been more fully established than has as yet been done. It appears to be certain that a 'veste' was being worn to some extent in Paris early in 1666; in Le Misanthrope, produced on 4 June of that year, Cdlimene in her letter describes Oronte as "l'homme a la veste."2 An engraving said to come from an almanach of 16653 shows a man (Louis XIV ?) to below the knee wearing a coat almost to the knees with horizontal pockets in the skirt on either side of the opening and with the lining revealed by a slight turn back at the upper part of the opening; beneath this a vest or waist-coat to mid-thigh, with horizontal pockets below the waist and gathered at the waist by a belt; a cravat; and full breeches gathered at the knee. Except for the breeches the costume is rather similar in structure to the English costume; but it lacks its 'stateliness,' its display; the emphasis is noticeably on the coat rather than on the vest. A variant appears in an etching by Romein de Hooge of the signing of the Treaty of Breda in 1667; here one man wears much the same costume, but the coat at the opening turns back on either side for its whole length to show the lining; it is held in place by a wide belt or sash.4 The natural assumption is that Charles in devising his fashion used this French fashion as a basis; by using special models for the various parts of it he entirely altered its general effect.

The claim formerly made for this fashion, that it is the beginning of the existing coat and waist-coat, is probably incorrect; in any case there was not a process of continuous evolution. It is a question partly of the influence of this fashion on French and Netherlandish costume; and partly of its influence on the justaucorps after the latter had come into general use in this country. There may have been some interplay between French and English fashions; but in this period it is in France that continuous growth

1 Reproduced in Connoisseur, xciv, p. 318. 2 Act v, sc. iv. The play was published

in I667, the printing being finished on 24 Dec. I666, new style. In the edition of I682 Oronte becomes 'l'homme au sonnet,' an alteration which makes his identification on the stage easier and which is generally used in performances. It is possible, but extre- mely unlikely, that Moliere substituted '" la veste' for some other description as an allusion to the English fashion. The passage is in prose. The frontispiece of the first edition shows Alceste and Philinte, each wearing

what looks like a loose surcoat over a pourpoint (doublet). The costume is perhaps that worn by Godfrey (above, p. II3). For the history of the play, etc., see the edition of Moliere in Les grands icrivains de la France. 3 Partial reproductions in E. Bourgeois, Le Grand Sihcle, I896, p. 45, and in Leloir, vol. ix, pl. I6, B.

4 The etching appears to be contemporary. A reproduction (with modern colouring) appears in Leloir, vol. ix, pl. I, C.

KING CHARLES II'S OWN FASHION I15 must be sought; in England a series of off-shoots from it and occasionally a complete divergence.

In general history the fashion has a certain amount of interest. It came into existence in the period of Charles II's reign when this country and France were most widely divergent in their policies; nominally we were at war with France; there was however no important engagement between the forces of the two countries. It disappears within two or three years of the Secret Treaty of Dover (22 May 1670), the formation of a close alliance between this country and France; Halifax was right, we had returned to heel.

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Issue Table of ContentsJournal of the Warburg Institute, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Oct., 1938), pp. 85-190Front MatterTranslation from the Ancients in Seventeenth-Century France [pp. 85-104]King Charles II's Own Fashion: An Episode in Anglo-French Relations 1666-1670 [pp. 105-115]The Revolution of History Painting [pp. 116-127]Stuart and Revett: Their Literary and Architectural Careers [pp. 128-146]Piranesi's "Parere su L'Architettura" [pp. 147-158]Monuments to 'Genius' in German Classicism [pp. 159-163]Hoffmannsthal's "Elektra". A Graeco-Freudian Myth [pp. 164-175]Miscellaneous NotesWieland's and Gluck's Versions of the "Alkestis" [pp. 176-177]God and Prince in Bach's Cantatas [pp. 178-182]"Borrowed Attitudes" in Reynolds and Hogarth [pp. 182-185]Shaftesbury as a Patron of Art [pp. 185-188]Domenico Guidi and French Classicism [pp. 188-190]