It was permitted to none but Members of the Council and Heads of Hundreds in Virginia to wear the coveted gold on their clothes, or to wear any silk not made by themselves. This last prohibition was intended not so much to discourage pomp and pride, as to stimulate the infant industry of silk production, which from the beginning had been a pet scheme of the colonists. They had imported silk-worms and planted mulberry trees; and as an inducement to go into the business, the Burgesses offered a premium of five thousand pounds of tobacco to any one making a hundred pounds of wound silk in any one year. His Gracious Majesty, Charles the Second, sent to his loyal subjects in Virginia, a letter, still to be seen in the college library at Williamsburg. It is written by his Majesty's private secretary and signed with the sacred "Charles R." It is addressed to Governor Berkeley, and runs: "Trusty & Wellbeloved, We Greet You Well. Wee have received w{th} much content ye dutifull respects of Our Colony in y{e} present lately made us by you & y{e} councell there, of y{e} first product of y{e} new Manufacture of Silke, which as a mark of Our Princely acceptation of yo{r} duteys & for y{r} particular encouragement, etc.--Wee have commanded to be wrought up for y{e} use of Our owne person." From this letter has sprung the legend, dear to loyalist hearts, that the robe worn by Charles at his coronation was woven of Virginia silk. So much material was needed "for y{e} use of our owne person," that the offering of silk was no doubt very welcome. The King's favorite, Buckingham, had twenty-seven suits, one of them of white uncut velvet, set all over with diamonds and worn with diamond hat-bands, cockades and ear-rings, and yoked with ropes and knots of pearls. It was an era of wild extravagance. Not satisfied with the elegance of the time of Charles First, his son's courtiers added plumes to the wide-brimmed hats, enlarged the bows on the shoes, donned great wigs, loaded their vests with embroidery, and over their coats hung short cloaks, worth a fortune. The women dressed as befitted the court of a dissolute king. Their artificial curls were trained in "heart-breakers" and "love-locks." The whiteness of their skin was enhanced by powder and set off by patches. Their shoulders rose above bodices of costly brocade hung with jewels which had sometimes ruined both buyer and wearer.