White and red were the colours worn by Richard II. as his livery, and during his reign they were favourites with his courtiers and the citizens of London, a large company of whom, headed by the mayor, all wearing these, the king's colours, met him and the queen on Blackheath, and conducted them in state to the Palace of Westminster. At the coronation of Henry IV. we find the English peers wearing a long scarlet tunic, called a _houppelande_, with a cape above it; the knights and esquires present wore the same kind of tunic, but without the cape. In 1432, when Henry IV. returned from France, he was met at Eltham by the Lord Mayor of London, who was arrayed in crimson velvet with a baldrick of gold, attended by three henchmen dressed in suits of red spangled with silver, and by the aldermen wearing gowns of scarlet with purple hoods. Then in 1535 we find Henry VIII. donning a crimson velvet jerkin with purple satin sleeves, and among the items of his voluminous wardrobe are enumerated, "a cloke of skarlette with a brodegarde of right crymson velvette; a dublette of carnacion coloured sattin embrowdered with damaske gold; a jacquette of the same," and several other "dubieties" and "clokes" of similar sanguinary hues; and during his reign we find the first decided approach to the uniform of the future British Army. "Henry VIII. passed to Bulloigne with an army divided into three battalions," says a curious work, printed at London in 1630.* "In the vantguard were 12,000 footmen and 500 light-horsemen, cloathed in blew jackets, with red guards. The middleward (where the King was), consisted of 20,000 footmen, clothed with red jackets and yellow guards. In the rereward was the Duke of Norfolk, and with him an army like in number and apparell to the first, saving that therein served 1000 Irishmen, _all naked_, save their mantles and their thicke-gathered skirts." This indicates a costume like that of the Highlanders. * "Relations of the most famovs kingdoms, throwout the world." On this occasion, in 1544, Henry was attended by his Body-Guard of Pensioners, each of whom "was accompanied by three mounted men-at-arms, dressed in suits of _red and yellow damask_, the plumes of themselves and steeds being of a like colour." ("Account of the Gentlemen-at-arms.") In battle they wore complete armour, their horses being "barded from counter to tail," _i.e._, with a spiked frontlet for the head, criniere to guard the mane, a poitrinal or breast-plate, and a croupiere or buttock-piece. Contemporaneously we find his nephew, James V. of Scotland, having a body-guard established in 1532, consisting of 300 men of Edinburgh, clad in scarlet doublets faced with blue, with blue bonnets, gilt partizans and daggers.