"filthy goats," and moved them by his eloquence to tears of contrition. He saw and seized that softer hour. Descending from the pulpit he then and there clipped the polls of them that heard him till he must fain sheath his shears for lack of argument. This rape of the locks was followed by a royal edict against long hair. Alas! for this story. Rochester Cathedral still bears the effigies of Henry and Maud his queen; each is adorned even as Absalom, and Time, whilst it has mauled their faces in cruel fashion, has with quaint irony preserved intact those stone tresses. Two centuries pass ere the Sumptuary Laws proper begin. The 10 Edward III. c. 3 (1336) ordered that no man was to have more than two courses at dinner, nor more than two kinds of meat, with potage in each course; but on eighteen holidays in the year the lieges might stuff at will. Next Parliament common folk were forbidden to wear furs; but the 37 Edward III. was the great session for such work, made needful (it was thought) by the sudden increase of luxury from the plunder of the French wars. Some half-dozen Acts prescribed to each rank, from peers to ploughmen, its wear; nay, the very price of the stuff was fixed; whilst all wives were to garb themselves according to their husbands' means--a pious wish, repeated a century afterwards, in an Act of the Scots James II. The veils of the baser sort were not to cost more than 12d. apiece: embroidery or silk was forbidden to servants, and these were to eat of flesh or fish but once a day. Cloth merchants were to make stuff enough, and shopkeepers to have stock enough, to supply the anticipated demand. Such apparel as infringed the statute was forfeit to the king. The knight's dress will serve for sample of what was required. It was to be cloth of silver, with girdles reasonably embellished with silver, and woollen cloth of the value of six marks the piece. Under Richard II. monstrous sleeves were much affected. A monkish scribe inveighs bitterly against these "pokys, like bag-pipes." Some hung down to the knees; yea, even to the feet. Servants were as bad as their masters! When potage is brought to table, "the sleeves go into them and get the first taste." Nay, they are "devil's receptacles," since anything stolen is safely lodged therein. And so a statute of the time prohibited any man below a banneret from wearing large hanging sleeves, open or closed.