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Chippenham. Notes of its History. 



were left to their own peculiar hose which we call stockings, and 

 fashion of course very soon invented some becoming and appropriate 

 protection for that solid and substantial part of the human form 

 which rests upon the legs. 



But the body being divorced from the legs, fashion, as usual, soon 

 began to run wild. If the gentleman whose figure was just now 

 exhibited, was as he evidently was, or at least considered himself 

 to be, a very great exquisite, I am sure you will agree that the next 

 ((mother drawing exhibited) was a much greater one. Observe the 

 expansion of the nether man. This capacious developement was 

 stuffed with horse-hair, till it became, says an old writer, like wool- 

 sacks; and so wide was the space required for their accommodation, 

 that in the House of Parliament there was a special wooden scaffold 

 or gallery set up, with seats of extraordinary width, for the partic- 

 ular reception of such sitting members as had not been sufficiently 

 provided for by their narrow-minded, or rather narrow-bodied 

 ancestors. The fashionable garment, called by a name you may 

 have met with, " Trunk Hose," was also very costly : and it is 

 almost beyond belief to what expense gentlemen went, in their 

 dresses, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The materials were rich 

 and worked out with gold and silver thread in various minute 

 patterns : padded and laced, slashed, pinked and pointed, &c, &c: 

 and to such a ridiculous excess was all this carried, that there was 

 actually, at last, (as above mentioned) a Proclamation by the Crown 

 to restrain the exuberant enlargement of gentlemen's costume. 



Not only was the proclamation issued ; but, as I have said, the 

 very tailors all over the country were bound over, before the 

 magistrates, under a penalty to obey it ; and the document preser- 

 ved in the Borough chest which led me to enter upon all this 

 story, is a bond of that kind. It is as follows : — 



Recognizance from W m . Norwey not to make Hosen contrary to Proclamation 

 1566. • 



William Norwey Junior within the Burgh or Yill of Chippenham, Taylor, 

 is bound to the Queen Elizabeth, in the sum of £20 : in presence of Joseph 

 Pye, Bailiff of the said Borough, Henry Bull, Joseph Vyser, and Brian Bouland, 

 Burgesses there 15 March 8 Eliz. 



" The oondition of this present obligation is such, That whereas the Q,uene's 



