With the Regency came a vicious change. The Prince Regent paid incessant attention to dress--both to his own and that of others. He was proud of his figure, which, indeed, was a fine one till it was ruined by excess, and he loved to display it in closely fitting dress. Nor was he content until he got his father’s army buttoned up to the limit of endurance and disfigured by headgear of appalling dimensions. The easy open collar and Ramillies tie were replaced by an upright fence of buckram and a leather stock. It would be hardly credible, were there not abundant evidence in the correspondence of the Horse Guards to prove it, that while Wellington was absorbed in manœuvring against immensely superior forces in Spain, he had to give attention to correspondence about changes in the dress of the army, not with a view to making it more comfortable and workmanlike, but in order to gratify the caprice of the Prince Regent. No man ever gave less thought to niceties of tailoring than Lord Wellington (as he was at that time). His views are set forth in a letter to the Military Secretary who had consulted him about the uniform to be prescribed for those regiments of Light Dragoons which the Prince Regent had desired the Duke of York (recently reinstated as Commander-in-Chief) to convert into Hussars. ‘FRENEDA, _6th November, 1811_. ‘... There is no subject of which I understand so little [as military uniforms], and, abstractedly speaking, I think it indifferent how a soldier is clothed, provided it is in an uniform manner, and that he is forced to keep himself clean and smart, as a soldier ought to be. But there is one thing I deprecate, and that is any imitation of the French in any manner. It is impossible to form an idea of the inconvenience and injury which result from having anything like them, either on horseback or on foot.[5] Lutyens and his piquet were taken in June because the 3rd Hussars had the same caps as the French _Chasseurs-à-cheval_ and some of their Hussars, and I was near being taken on September 25 from the same cause. At a distance or in action colours are nothing; the profile and shape of a man’s cap, and his general appearance, are what guide us; and why should we make our people look like the French?... I only beg that we may be as different as possible from the French in everything. The narrow tops of our infantry, as opposed to their broad top caps, are a great advantage to those who are to look at long lines of posts opposed to each other.’