And of Henry himself, the great Tudor, greater, more farseeing than
the eighth Henry, a man who so dominates the age, and fills it with
his spirit, that no mental picture is complete without him. His fine,
humorous face, the quizzical eye, the firm mouth, showing his
character. The great lover of art, of English art, soon to be
pulverized by pseudo-classic influences; the man who pulled down the
chapel at the west end of Westminster Abbey with the house by
it--Chaucer's house--to make way for that superb triumph of ornate
building, his chapel, beside which the mathematical squares and angles
of classic buildings show as would boxes of bricks by a gorgeous
flower.
The stories against him are, in reality, stories for him, invented by
those whom he kept to their work, and whom he despoiled of their
ill-gotten gains. He borrowed, but he paid back in full; he came into
a disordered, distressed kingdom, ruled it by fear--as had to be done
in those days--and left it a kingdom ready for the fruits of his
ordered works--to the fleshy beast who so nearly ruined the country.
What remained, indeed, was the result of his father's genius.
THE WOMEN
Take up a pack of cards and look at the queen. You may see the
extraordinary head-gear as worn by ladies at the end of the fifteenth
century and in the first years of the sixteenth, worn in a modified
form all through the next reign, after which that description of
head-dress vanished for ever, its place to be taken by caps, hats, and
bonnets.
The richest of these head-dresses were made of a black silk or some
such black material, the top stiffened to the shape of a sloping
house-roof, the edges falling by the face on either side--made stiff,
so as to stand parallel--these were sewn with gold and pearls on
colour or white. The end of the hood hung over the shoulders and down
the back; this was surmounted by a stole of stiffened material, also
richly sewn with jewels, and the whole pinned on to a close-fitting
cap of a different colour, the edge of which showed above the
forehead.
[Illustration: {Seven head-dresses for women; side and front view
of a shoe}]
The more moderate head-dress was of black again, but in shape nearly
square, and slit at the sides to enable it to hang more easily over
the shoulders. It was placed over a coif, often of white linen or of
black material, was turned over from the forehead, folded, and pinned
back; often it was edged with gold.
On either side of the hood were hanging ornamental metal-tipped tags
to tie back the hood from the shoulders, and this became, in
time--that is, at the end of the reign--the ordinary manner of wearing
them, till they were finally made up so.
The ordinary head-dress was of white linen, crimped or embroidered in
white, made in a piece to hang over the shoulders and down the back,
folded back and stiffened in front to that peculiar triangular shape
in fashion; this was worn by the older women over a white hood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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