“The residence of mind--for our ancestor, this ‘fine fleur de Norman,’ probably had one--was not forgotten. Muffled up in a voluminous hood, like that of a Spanish _frayle_, it was further protected by the native wig--‘la perruque naturelle’--and kept warm by a bonnet, part of the _cadaû_ uniform, yclept _la barrette_. The original _biread_--a lay mitre, not then peculiar to Ireland--was a conical cap, somewhat resembling the foraging military bonnet.… “His Grace, or Holiness--we are a bad hand at title dealing--the Right Reverend Primate of Normandy, having once preached a most godlie and comfortable sermon against long bushy perriwigs, descended from his pulpit in the Cathedral of Rouen, scissors in hand, then doing merciless execution therewith on King Henry I. and all the princely and noble heads committed to his charge, exhorted them to perpetrate a crime for which that traitor deserved to lose his own.” ‘The people vary too, Just as their princes do.’ So sings Nat Wanley, who was no nightingale; but even when the eighth Harry, and the whole nation, aping him, shore their beautiful locks, in spite of many a fond wife, what luxuriant male tresses continued to flourish in the Norman Isles! Our friend of the _Star_ may remember the time when the dangling chevelure of our village beaux and ‘Soudards de Milice,’ though confined with whipcord on working days, was regularly let loose in honour of Sunday and other grand festivals. It is true that burly wife-killing Tudor did interfere. Ah, woe is me! He requireth from his Normans as well as from his Irish lieges ‘conformitie in order and apparel with them that be civill people’ (A.D. 1537). At least, the alteration took place in both places exactly at the same period; for the censorious terms of this statute were neither applicable nor applied to our ancestors. Indeed, from the size and structure of here and there a yeoman’s house, richly overlaid with the golden moss of antiquity, it would seem that the dwellings of our peasantry were very different from the mud-built[5] and chimneyless cottages of old England. (Such as Jean Lestocq’s house in la Vingtaine des Charités, Câtel--the traditional residence of an individual mentioned in a spirited ballad of the year 1371). [Illustration: Ruins of an Old Guernsey House, Les Caretiers, St. Sampson’s.] “Be this as it may, ‘Though the language of such as dwell in these Isles was French, the wearing of their haire long, and their attire was _all after the Irish guise_ till the reigne of King Henrie the VIII.’ These are the words of Ralph Holinshed, who quotes Leland.” The following description of the dress of the people of Sark in 1673, is taken from a letter in the Harleian MSS.; it is quoted in full in the “Historical Sketch of the Island of Sark,” in the _Guernsey Magazine_ for 1874:--