Although her preceptor had described the youthful Princess Elizabeth as plain and sombre in her mode of dress, Queen Elizabeth was famous for her extravagant and showy costumes, and her great vanity regarding her appearance. So outrageous in size did her favorite ruffs become, when the fashion was adopted by her court ladies, that a royal proclamation was issued limiting them to a certain number of inches in height, Elizabeth retaining the privilege of wearing them larger and higher than any of her ladies; and bishops thundered forth their condemnations regarding the growing extravagance of dress, cautioning their hearers against “fine-fingered rufflers, with sable about their necks, corked slippers, trimmed buskins, and warm mittens. These tender Parnels” said they, “must have one gown for the day, another for the night; one long, another short; one for winter, another for summer; one furred through, another but faced; one for the work-day, another for the holy-day; one of this color, another of that; one of cloth, another of silk or damask. Change of apparel, one afore dinner, another after; one of Spanish fashion, another of Turkey; and to be brief, never content with enough, but always devising new and strange fashions. Yea, a ruffian will have more in his ruff and his hose than he should spend in a year; he who ought to go in a russet coat spends as much on apparel for himself and his wife as his father would have kept a good house with.” “The costumes of that age were magnificent. Gowns of velvet or satin, richly trimmed with silk, furs, or gold lace, costly gold chains, and caps or hoods of rich materials, adorned with feathers, decorated on all occasions of ceremony the persons not only of nobles and courtiers, but of their retainers, and even of the substantial citizens. The attire of the ladies was proportionally splendid. Hangings of cloth, of silk, and of velvet, cloth of gold, and cloth of silver, or ‘_needle-work sublime_’ adorned on days of family festivities the principal chamber of every house of respectable appearance; and on public festivals these rich draperies were suspended from the balconies, and, combined with the banners and pennons floating overhead, gave to the streets an appearance resembling a suite of long and gayly dressed _salons_.” Queen Elizabeth was very fond of display and gorgeous pageants, and her royal _progresses_ were always attended with magnificent spectacles of various kinds: sometimes a splendid water procession on the Thames; again, she rode on horseback, attended by lords and ladies attired in crimson velvet, with their horses caparisoned with the same rich material. The band of gentlemen pensioners, which was the boast and ornament of Elizabeth’s court, was composed of the flower of the English nobility, and to be admitted to serve in its ranks was regarded as a high distinction.