About the time above specified, the Court of Spain was remarkable for its gravity of dress. The king and grandees wore simple mantles of Colchester baize; and in winter, the mantles of the señoras were of no more costly material than white flannel. Thereupon English and Dutch handicraftsmen repaired to Madrid, in order to establish a manufactory of these articles. The men engaged were sober, religious men; and they had with them Psalters and Testaments, and they were given to be glad in spiritual songs, and to solace their weariness with a refreshing draught from the Gospels. Thereupon the Inquisition fell upon them, destroyed their houses, and imprisoned the workmen. Had these been Atheists, the “Holy Office” would not have molested them in their manufactory of baizes and flannels; but as they dared to worship God in sincerity of heart and independence of mind, the Cahills and Wisemans of the pure and enlightened Peninsula ruined them in bodily estate, and sent their souls to Gehenna. Louis XIV. was quite as arbitrary and absurd on a matter of fashion. Charles II. of England was the inventor of the “vest dress.” It consisted of a long cassock which fitted close to the body, of black cloth, “pinked” with white silk under it, and a coat over all; the legs were ruffled with black ribbon, like a pigeon’s leg; and the white silk piercing the black made the wearers look, as Charles himself confessed, very much like magpies. But all the world put it on, because it had been fashioned by a monarch; and gay men thought it exquisite, and grave men pronounced it “comely and manly.” Charles declared he would never alter it, while his courtiers “gave him gold by way of wagers, that he would not persist in his resolution.” Louis XIV. showed his contempt for the new mode and the maker of it, by ordering all his footmen to be put into vests. This caused great indignation in England, but it had a marked effect in another way: for Charles and our aristocracy, not caring to look like French footmen, soon abandoned the new costume.