178 Dress According to Statute. 



his doing so was quite in keeping with the rest of his domestic 

 policy, which strove to give him a power and domination that 

 should be felt in every relation, no matter how trifling or how 

 personal. 1 Henry VIII., c. 14, " An Act agaynst wearing of 

 costly apparell," forbad any but the king and his family to 

 wear cloth of gold, of purple colour, or of silk of the same. 

 None less than a duke might wear any cloth of gold of tissue ; 

 none less than an earl might wear sables ; and none less than 

 a baron might wear cloth of gold or silver, or " tynsen satten," 

 or silk or cloth mixed or embroidered with gold or silver. 

 None less than a lord or knight of the garter might wear 

 woollen cloth made out of the kingdom, or wear any velvet of 

 "the colour of crymesyn or blewe;" none less than a knight 

 (excepting some of the royal servants and the judges) might 

 wear velvets and furs ; ' ' nor no person (might) use or wear 

 satten or damaske in their doblett, nor sylke or chamlett in 

 their gowens or cootes, not having for life £20 a year in lands;" 

 no one "under the degree of a gentleman" might wear 

 " foreign fur "• no servant was to be dressed in cloth that cost 

 more than twenty pence a yard. Knights only might wear 

 " guarded and pinched (pleated) shirts of linen cloth." Ser- 

 vants in husbandry were not to have cloth of which the piece 

 was more than ten pence a yard. This statute was not to 

 apply to women, ambassadors, heralds, players in interludes, 

 nor to soldiers. 



In the sixth year of Henry another and more stringent law 

 was passed, which, having been found insufficient, was repealed, 

 and re-enacted more thoroughly in the following year. The 

 preamble of this statute recites, that " Forasmuch as the grette 

 and costly array and apparel used within this realm contrary to 

 good statutes thereof made, hath been the occasion of great 

 impoverishing of divers of the king's subjects, and provoked 

 divers of them to rob and to do extortion, and other unlawful 

 deeds, to maintain thereby their costly array." In the 24 

 Henry VIII., another sumptuary law was passed, by which the 

 costume of everybody was regulated, as it was supposed, defi- 

 nitely ; and it did suffice, as far as any law could suffice, till 

 the reign of Philip and Mary, in the first year of whose reign 

 was passed "An Acte for the Eeformacon of Excesse in Appa- 

 railc," by which the restraints on dress were made less com- 

 preheusive, though imprisonment was added to fine as a means 

 of enforcing compliance with such orders as were retained. 

 There was also a clause not unworthy the sex of the sovereign 

 who assented to the law : — " Provided also that women maye 

 weare in their cappes, hattcs, gyrdells, and hoodes as they or 

 any of them might use and weare lawfully before the making 

 of this Act." An Act of Elizabeth, intended, it is imagined, to 



