77 



Sometimes the fashion of shaping the costumes was copied from the 

 men and at other times they struck out fresh ones for themselves. 



From the beginning of the 13th century to well into the 14th the 

 heads and necks of ladies were closely covered up by muslin or lawn 

 wraps, a style worn out of compliment to their lords, who protected 

 their head and shoulders with chain mail. 



At a later period, when the knights wore on top of their helmets 

 bunches of feathers or other flowing decorations, their wives took to 

 fastening on their heads erections of gold wirework and jewels on 

 which they fastened coverchiefs in various graceful forms, thus 

 producing the horn, the butterfly or the mitre head-dresses. Examples 

 of these are often found on effigies, but Lady Beaufort, however, is 

 shown in the simplest form of head-dress, in a veil covering the hair 

 and falling behind to the shoulders and surmounted by a small 

 coronet, probably in imitation of what was usual on the effigies of 

 Royal ladies. 



She is habited in two long gowns, cut low at the neck, the under 

 one is tight-fitting and of some brilliantly coloured material with tight 

 sleeves buttoned to the elbow. The upper gown reaches also to the 

 feet, but has no sleeves, and is cut away at the sides and bordered 

 with fur or velvet. This curious open gown earned for itself in modern 

 times the name of the sideless gown and was much worn in the 15th 

 century as a means of showing off the expensive materials of the 

 different dresses. Over all she wears a long mantle of state fastened 

 in front by a silken cord, and round her neck is the S. S. collar 

 similar to the one worn by her husband. 



For the rest, it may be said that the women's costumes varied 

 in details as much as in more modern times, but that in the main, 

 the fashions ran on for half centuries or more at a time, and when 

 there was a change it was done rapidly and completely. This of 

 course holds good only of the Court fashions and for the wives of 

 important people in the counties. 



The great number of paintings of noted people that have been 

 preserved in England of the Tudor period has made us familiar with 

 the dress of the Elizabethan times. We know the ruffs of many 

 folds, the long pointed stomachers, the padded hips and the rolls at 

 the shoulders, all worn to carry out the ideas of fashion started by 

 burly King Henry VIII. On the head came to be worn at this time 

 and for years afterwards the Paris hood, introduced by Mary Queen 

 of Scots from her residence in France, and this style proved so be- 

 coming to all types of faces, that little wonder need be felt that 'it 

 became such a general favourite. 



This style of costume would have been worn by Lady Uvedale, 

 but her effigy does not appear at Wimborne, and as the other ladies 

 are so plainly dressed I have not entered so fully into the details of 

 their costumes as with the more complicated armour of the men, in 

 order to confine my remarks to the actual effigies in the Minster. 



