Edward I., on the other hand, disliked show, and, according to his chronicler, “he went about in the plain garments of a citizen, excepting on days of festival.” When remonstrated with by a bishop on his unkingly attire, his Majesty answered: “What could I do more in royal robes, father, than in this plain gabardine?” And Catherine of Aragon apparently was much of the same opinion, for she was accustomed to say that she considered no part of her time so much wasted as that passed in dressing and adorning herself. Henry VIII. was fond of show in dress, and Queen Elizabeth’s excessive love of fashion and finery, like that of her namesake, queen of Philip II. of Spain, has long been proverbial. Indeed, it has been said that “her toilet was an altar of devotion, of which she was the idol, and all her ministers were her votaries: it was the reign of coquetry and the golden age of milliners.” The list of her Majesty’s wardrobe in 1600 shows us that she had at that time 99 robes, 126 kirtles, 269 gowns, 136 foreparts, 125 petticoats, and 27 fans, in addition to 96 cloaks, 83 save-guards, 85 doublets, and 18 lap mantles. As Elizabeth grew older she tried more and more to hide the dilapidations of nature by the resources of art; and, if we are to believe all that has been said of her, “she was the mistress of many million hearts and full a thousand dresses.” She inaugurated a reign of extravagance; and, as Mr. Thornbury has remarked, “she seems to have lost her jewels upon public occasions almost as frequently as Prince Esterhazy, who used to shake off so many pounds’ worth of diamonds every time he went to the opera. At Westminster, on one occasion, the Queen drops a golden acorn and oak leaf; on another, two gold buttons shaped like tortoises; on another, a diamond clasp given her by the Earl of Leicester, and which fastened a gown of purple cloth of silver.” Her Majesty, it is said, was never seen _en déshabille_ by the male sex but on two occasions. The first time was on “a fair May morning when Gilbert Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury’s son, walking in the tilt-yard about eight o’clock, chanced to look up, and saw her at the window in her night-cap. ‘My eye,’ said he, ‘was full towards her, and she showed to be greatly ashamed thereof, for that she was unready and in her nightstuff. So when she saw me after dinner as she went to walk, she gave me a great fillip on the forehead, and told my lord chamberlain, who was the next to see her, how I had seen her that morning, and how much she was ashamed thereof.’” Twenty years later the luckless Essex surprised her in the hands of her tire-woman, and he paid severely for his blunder.