“Why do you not wear richer apparel?” once asked a familiar friend of Edward I. “Because,” said the sensible king, “I cannot be more estimable in fine than I am in simple clothing.” If the monarch had only shown as much sense in other matters, he would have been a more profitable king to the state, however little beneficial he may have been to tailors. It was, of course, the fashion now to be rather simply dressed; but there were occasional departures from the rule: such as when the young Prince Edward was invested as a knight, on which occasion the Temple Gardens were crowded with the young nobility, his “companions,” who assembled there to receive a magnificent distribution of purple robes, fine linen garments, and mantles woven with gold. The two latter were furnished by the merchant-tailors; and these, no doubt, blessed the donor as heartily as the trade would now do, were her Majesty to assemble the heirs and younger sons of Peers, have them measured in public, and dressed at her expense for the benefit of trade. There are many younger sons who would be as rejoiced thereat as the tailors themselves. Old Kit Marlowe, and doubtless from good authority, has graphically described not only Edward the Second, but that fine gentleman, his favourite Gaveston. Of the latter he says:— “I have not seen a dapper Jack so brisk; He wears a short Italian hooded cloak Larded with pearl, and in his Tuscan cap A jewel of more value than the crown.” And of Edward, Mortimer is made to say:— “When wert thou in the field with banner spread? But once; and then thy soldiers march’d like players, With garish robes, not armour; and thyself, Bedaub’d with gold, rode laughing at the rest, Nodding and shaking of thy spangled crest, Where women’s favours hung like labels down.” If the Norman Kings up to the period of Edward I. had encouraged a costly extravagance of dress, there was another Norman habit which had spread among the people generally, and quite as much to their cost,—the wretched habit of swearing. To that people might well be applied the assertion, that they were covered with curses as with a garment. The Saxons were astounded at the variety and intensity of these oaths. They had not been accustomed to such profanity; but as the conquerors, and particularly the kings, swore whenever they spoke, why to use oaths was to put on the air of a conqueror and gentleman, and so a species of Norman pride kept oaths in vigour among the _élite_ of society until a very recent period; but, as Mr. Robert Acres remarks, “the best terms will grow obsolete, and Damns have had their day.” How we progressed through execratory terms until this consummation was arrived at, is very tersely told in an old epigram of Sir John Harrington’s:—