is edged with narrow lace. The sleeves, tight at the shoulder, widened to the elbow, where they hung deep, showing an under-sleeve of fine lawn or lace extending to the wrist, and terminated by lace ruffles. On the neck was generally worn a pearl necklace, with a jewelled cross. The skirts were full, the train long, according to rank. Seven yards of purple cloth of damask gold were allowed for a kirtle for Queen Catherine, in a wardrobe account of the eighth year of Henry's reign. The sleeves of the ladies, like those of the gentlemen, could be changed at pleasure, being separate, and attached at will. They were extremely rich; and we find in one lady's inventory three pair of purple satin sleeves, one of linen paned with gold over the arms, quilted with black silk, and wrought with flounces between the panes and at the hands; one pair of purple gold tissue damask wire, each sleeve tied with Nursery Chair of James VI. of Scotland. the hood depending on the bosom, embroidered and edged with pearls; the scarf behind hanging on the shoulders. In Catherine of Arragon, the front, embroidered and jewelled, had become shorter, touching the neck only; but the scarf behind still spread on the shoulder. In Anne Boleyn the coif had reached its extreme of elegance; the frontlet, consisting of the five-pointed frame, is still shorter, only covering the ears, and is faced with a double row of pearls. Her hair is scarcely seen, being concealed by an under-coif, which shows as a band in a slanting direction over the forehead. The back consists of a green velvet hood, with broad scarf lappets, of which one is turned up over the back of the head, and the other hangs gracefully on the right shoulder. Of the dress of the ladies of the citizen class we have a curious account in the bride of John of Winchcomb, the famous clothier, called " Jack of Newbury." "She was habited in a gown of sheep's russet, and a kirtle of fine worsted, her head attired with a billiment of gold, and her hair, as yellow as gold, hanging down behind her, which was curiously combed and plaited. She was led to church by two boys with bride laces and rosemary tied about their silken sleeves. When she in after years came out of her widow's weeds, she appeared in a fair train gown stuck full of silver pins, having a white cap on her head, with cuts of curious needlework under the same, and an apron before her as white as driven snow." With Elizabeth came in a totally new fashion, not only of women's but of men's costumes. The large trunk hose made their appearance; the long-waisted doublet, the short cloak or mantle, with its standing collar, the ruff, the hat, the band and feather, the roses in their shoes, are all of this period. To such a degree did the fashion of puffed and stuffed breeches obtain, which had begun to swell in the prior reigns, that about the thirty-third of Elizabeth, over the seats in the Parliament House, were certain holes, some two inches square, in the walls, in which were placed posts to uphold scaffolds round about the house for those to sit upon who wore great breeches stuffed with hair, like woolsacks. like the shaft of a steeple a quarter of a yard above the crown of their heads, some more, some less; others flat and broad on the crown; some with round crowns and bands of all colours; and these hats or caps were of velvet, taffeta, or sarcenet, ornamented with great bunches of feathers; and finally we hear of beaver hats, costing from twenty to forty shillings apiece, brought from beyond seas. But if such was the dress of gentlemen to please the strange taste of the maiden queen, that of this famous queen herself, as evidenced by her numerous portraits, has nothing like it in all the annals of fashion. In an early portrait of Elizabeth we have her dressed in a costume very little different to that of a man. Over her gown or doublet she wore a coat with the enormous shoulder-points standing up six inches, and with a close upright collar completely enveloping her neck, and surmounted by a ruff; her coat cut and slashed all over, and on her head a round hat, pulled down to a peak in front, and thickly jewelled. Stubbs, alluding to this particular fashion, says, "The women have doublets and jerkins as the men have, buttoned up to the breast, and made with wings, welts, and pinions on the shoulder points, as men's apparel in all respects. Yet they blush not to wear it." But it was about the middle of her reign that Elizabeth introduced that astounding style of dress in which she figures in most of her portraits, and in which the body was imprisoned in whalebone to the hips; the partlet or habit shirt, which had for some time been in use, and covered the whole bosom to the chin, was removed, and an enormous ruff, rising gradually from the front of the shoulders to nearly the height of the head behind, encircled the wearer like the enormous wings of some nondescript butterfly. In fact, there was ruff beyond ruff; first, a crimped one round the neck like a collar; and the a round one standing up from the shoulders behind the head; and, finally, the enormous circular fans tower.ng with one of her eighty sets of false hair, and hosted above that a jaunty hat, jewelled and plumed. In order to enable this monstrous expanse of ruff to support itself, it was necessary to resort to starch, and, as Stubbs tells us, also to a machinery of wires "erected for the purpose, and whipped all over with gold thread, silver, or silk." This was called a "supportasse, or underpropper." The queen sent to Holland for woma skilled in the art of starching; and one Mistress Dingham Vander Plasse came over and became famous in the mystery of tormenting pride with starch. "The devil,” says Stubbs, "hath learned them to wash and dress their ruffs, which, being dry, will then stand inflexible about their necks." As to ruffs, Stubbs, in his "Anatomie of Abuses," tells us that, sooner than go without them, men would mort-high and wide. The head of the queen is seen covered gage their lands, or risk their lives at Tyburn; and he adds, "They have now newly (1595) found out a more monstrous kind of ruff, of twelve, yea, sixteen lengths apiece, set three or four times double, thence called three steps and a half to the gallows." The French or Venetian hose, he tells us, cost often £100 a pair, probably from being cloth of gold and set with jewels. To these were added boot-hose of the finest cloth, also splendidly embroidered with birds, beasts, and antiques. The doublets, he says, grew longer and longer in the waist, stuffed and quilted with four, five, or six pounds of bombast, the exterior being of silk, satin, taffeta, gold or silver stuff, slashed, jagged, covered, pinched, and laced with all kinds of costly devices. Over these their coats and jerkins, some with collars, some without, some close to the body, some loose, called mandilions; some buttoned down the breast, some under the arm, some down the back, &c. They had cloaks also, white, red, tawny, yellow, green, violet, &c., of cloth, silk, or taffeta, and of French, Spanish, or Dutch fashion, ornamented with costly lace of gold, silver, or silk. These cloaks, he says, were as costly inside as out. Their slippers or "pantoufles"were of all colours, and yet, he says, they were difficult to keep on, and went flap-flap up and down in the dirt, casting the mire up to their knees. Their hats, he says, were sharp at the crown, peaking up From the bosom, now partly left bare, descended an interminable stomacher, and then the farthingale spread out its enormous breadth like the modern crinoline. In nothing did Elizabeth so much betray the absence of a fine and healthy taste as in her dress; a modern historian justly observing that in her full attire she resembled, with all her ruffs, her lace, her jewels, her embroidery, her rings, and bedizenments, more an Indian idol tha an English queen. Stockings of worsted, yara, and i had now become common; and Mistress Montague pr sented Her Majesty, in the third year of her reign, with a TO 1603.] COINS AND COINAGE. 609 pair of silk stockings, knit in this country; thereupon and Richard III., coining 450 pennies from the pound of she would never wear any else. A fashion of both ladies silver, or thirty-seven nominal shillings and sixpences. and gentlemen of this time was to wear small looking- He introduced shillings as actual money, being before only glasses hanging at their sides or inserted in the fan of nominal, and used in accounts. These shillings, struck ostrich feathers. COINS AND COINAGE. in 1504-called at first large groats, and then testons, from the French "teste," or "tête," a head-bore the profile of the king instead of the full face; a thing unknown since The history of the coinage from Henry VII. to the the reign of Stephen, but ever after followed, except by The gold coins of Henry VIII. were sovereigns, half-pennies, into which it had been coined ever since the reign sovereigns, or rials, half and quarter rials, angels, angelets of Edward IV., he made it yield 540 pennies, or 45s., in or half-angels, and quarter-angels, George nobles-so 1527, and in 1543 he extended it to 48s., or 576 pennies. He thus, instead of 450 pennies out of a pound containing eleven ounces two penny weights of silver, coined 576 Group of Weapons, &c., preserved in the Tower. ▲, inside view of a circular shield, in which is inserted a pistol or short gun; B, breach of pistol; c, fire-match for the purpose of igniting the gunpowder at the touch-hole; D, small grate for the purpose of enabling the bearer to take aim at his opponent; E, barrel; F, spiked mace, called Henry VIII.'s walking-stick: in the head of the mace are four barrels which could be charged with powder, &c.; a, catchbob for taking thieves: the upper part acts with a spring which, after admitting the neck of a culprit, holds it tightly in the circular part; H, cresset carried by the marching watch during the reign of Henry VIII.; 1, ancient musket, on a principle similar to the revolvers in use at the present day. called from bearing on the reverse St. George and the dragon-crowns, and half-crowns. His silver coins were shillings, groats, half-groats, and pennies. Amongst these appeared groats and half-groats coined by Wolsey at York, in accordance with a privilege exercised by the Church long before. In his impeachment it was made a capital charge that he had placed the cardinal's hat on the groats under the king's arms. The groats also bore on each side the arms his initials, "T. W.," and the half-groats "W. A."-Wolsey Archiepiscopus. We have already stated the scandalous manner in which Henry adulterated the coin, and not only so, but depreciated the value of the silver coins, by coining a much larger number of pennies out of a pound of the base alloy. Before his time the mixed mint pound had consisted of eleven ounces two pennyweights of silver, and eighteen pennyweights of alloy; but Henry, in 1543, altered it to ten ounces of silver and two ounces of alloy. Two years later he added as much alloy as there was silver; and not content with that, in 1546, or one year after, he left only four ounces of silver in the pound, or eight ounces of alloy to the four ounces of silver! But this even did not satisfy him: he next proceeded to coin his base metal into a larger amount than the good metal had ever produced before. Instead of 37s. 6d., or 450 Artillery of the Tudor period. pennies out of only four ounces of silver! Such were the lawless robberies which "Bluff Harry" committed on his subjects. Any one of the smallest debasement 5 Group of Arms of the Tudor period. 1, halberd of the reign of Henry VII.; 2, halberd of the reign of Henry VIII.; 3, a pike; 4, partisan of the time of Henry VIII; 5 and sword and dagger of James IV. of Scotland; 7, pole-axe of the time of Queen Elizabeth. by a subject would have sent him to the gallows. He certainly was one of the most wholesale issuers of bad money that ever lived. TO 1603.] COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES. The counsellors of his son Edward-a most rapacious set of adventurers-however, even out-Harryed Harry; for though Edward restored at first the value of the mint mixture in some degree, in 1551 the amount of silver in a pound of that alloy was only three ounces, or an ounce less than the worst coin of his father. And still worse, instead of 488., the largest number coined by his father out of a pound, he coined 72s., or instead of 450 pennies out of four ounces of silver, 864 pennies were coined out of three The ruin, the confusion of prices, and the public outcry, however, consequent upon this violent public fraud, at length compelled Government to restore the amount of silver in the pound to nearly what it was at the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII., and the number of shillings was reduced from seventy-two to sixty. The gold, which was equally abased, was also restored to the ounces. same extent. Queen Mary, whilst she issued a proclamation at the 611 In Scotland the alloy of the silver at the mint was not so great as in England during this period; but the number of shillings coined out of one pound of silver was astonishingly increased. This kind of depreciation had been going on for two centuries before this period; but from 1475, when only 144 shillings were coined out of the pound of silver, the number was rapidly augmented every few years, till in 1601 no less than 720 shillings were coined out of it, or, in other words, the original value of one pound was made to pass for thirty-six pounds. SHIPS, COMMERCE, COLONIES, AND MANUFACTURES. In tracing the historical events of these reigns, we have had occasion to show the increasing strength of the Royal navy of England. Both in the reigns of Henry VIII. and of Elizabeth the sea fights were of a character and attended by results which marked out England as a maritime power growing ever more formidable. In the fourth year of his reign Henry drove the French fleet Dandies of the time of Henry VII. commencement of her reign, denouncing the dishonest proceedings of her predecessors, again increased the alloy in a pound of mint silver to an ounce instead of nineteen pennyweights; and she added two pennyweights more of alloy to the ounce of gold. The coins issued by Philip and Mary bear both their profiles. Elizabeth honourably restored the coinage to its ancient value. She fixed the alloy in a pound of silver at only eighteen pennyweights; but she coined sixty-two shillings out of the pound instead of sixty, at which it remained till 1816, when it became sixty-six, as it still remains. The standard mixture of Elizabeth has continued the same to our own day. She called in and melted down the base money of her father and brother to the nominal value of £638,000, but of real value only £244,000. The gold coins of Elizabeth are rials, angels, half-angels, and quarter-angels, crowns and half-crowns, nobles and double nobles. Some of her coins were the first which had milled edges, both of gold and silver. Besides shillings, sixpences, groats, and pence, Elizabeth coined a crown, for the use of the East India Company, called portcullis crowns, in imitation of the Spanish dollar. These were valued at four shillings and sixpence, and are now rare. Dress of the Commonalty in the time of Edward VI. from the Channel with forty-two ships, Royal and others. He chastised the Scotch, who, under James V., had become daring at sea; and on various occasions during his reign he showed his superiority to the French and Spaniards. But it was the victory of the Armada under Elizabeth, and the exploits of Drake, Essex, Raleigh. and others in the Spanish ports, and of Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher in the Spanish settlements of America, that raised the fame of the British fleet to a pitch which it had never reached before. Yet, after all, the amount of Henry's fleet never was large. We are told, indeed, that at first he had only one ship of war, the Great Harry, till he took the Lion, a large Scottish ship, with its commander, the celebrated Andrew Barton; but probably this is meant of such size as to merit the name of man-of-war. Parsimonious as was Henry VII., and careful to avoid any collisions with foreign powers, we cannot suppose he left the kingdom totally destitute of a navy. But Henry VIII. was not contented with owning merely a mediocre fleet; he had an ambition of building large vessels; and in 1512 he built one of 1,000 tons, called the Regent. This was blown up in a battle with the French fleet off Brest, and instead of it he built another called Grâce de Dieu. The |