#14 - The Restoration (of England's Monarchy)

Charles II

In 1660 Charles II was declaired the rightful inheritor of the English crown and reinstated as King like the past 11 years of king-free government (and wars) had never happened.   Over the next 40 years England had two different kings, (Charles II, James II) a little revolution over whether or not England was going to be tolerant of multiple religions (they wern't), and then the dynamic duo of William and Mary.   William and Mary had no kids so Mary's sister Ann then became queen.

Meanwhile, in France, Louis XIV was king for 72 years and 110 days, dying of gangrene and outliving ALL of his family exept for a five year old grandson who became King Louis XV.





Here's a song about Charles II of the Restoration:

As you might imagine, when Charles hit town he kicked off some fashion changes.   In particular, fashion got flashier and more decadent.   Basically the cavalier style got even more voluminous and for men, the slops they were wearing became something known as petticoat breeches.  (The trousers in the video are NOT period. The wigs totally are.)  Here is an engraving of Charles II and his wife:

Technically, he is wearing pants.  Really REALLY big pants. Pants that are so full that  Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary: "And among other things, met with Mr. Townsend, who told of his mistake the other day to put both his legs through one of his Knees of his breeches, and so went all day." (April 1661)

This pleases me a lot because it's silly.  Here are some more petticoat breeches:

 The whole push was away from militarisim of the past (so no more thigh-high soldier boots) and forward to a more peaceful decadent lifestyle (where folks get to wear shoes and celebrate things like Oak Apple Day.)   So, what does the gentleman in ENORMOUS trousers wear in accompaniment?

He would wear a justacorps, a cravat (possibly in the Steinkirk style), a waistcoat, and a wig.  ALL of that was brought to England and into popularity by Charles II.  He had been in France and brought over all the fashion trends.   Before Charles II, men wore doublets.  By 1680, they wore justacorps.

So, what is a justacorps (or a juste-au-corps)?   Let's see:

"This red justacorps totally hides my enormous trousers!"

That, my friends, is a justacorps, that long full red coat.  Just-au-corps means "only for corps" which means "soldiers only."  So, that's interesting because it totally became the decadent fashion of everyone AND soldiers.  Our fellow here also has a wig on and a cravat tied into a cute little bow like a cat.  He also has red heels on his shoes which was what all the cool kids at court were wearing.   He may or may not have a waistcoat on under that thing but who cares because it's totally covered in gold embroidery!

These guys, however,

are totally wearing justacorps AND waistcoats like all well-dressed men should. (However, I feel like I need to mention that a man who wants to carry a fur muff around on his belt probably shouldn't pick his nose cause it's awfully hard to clean boogers off fur.) Charles II totally started the three piece suit trend in men's fashion which is still going strong today.  Party animal he might have been but not many people have singlehandedly started a fashion trend which lasted 353 years.

Anyway, the look progressed over time

with breeches become smaller and smaller and more fitted.  By the 1700s, this is what guys wore

which might look a bit like this

extremely popular style in 1776

but really should remind you of this:

Pirates!!!

Yup, that's right, the Restoration period is officially the beginning of pirate fashion.  I know you are excited.  Here's a picture of Blackbeard the pirate

Boring, huh?  Well, here's a considerably more exciting representation:

Look at those pants!  Huge!

Anyway, that's menswear.  Oh, and wigs were THE thing to wear but I still haven't even started on women's wear so go ahead and click the hyperlink on wigs and read up on it.  It's neat.  (Also, cravats are cool and the beginning of neckties so read that too.)

Women were wearing mostly the same thing for a couple of decades, (those decades being 1640 - 1680)  the only difference is that the corseting got tighter and the waistlines went down into that weird Queen Elizabeth point again. However, the shoulders didn't get pointy.  Instead the shoulder was usually exposed, with necklines being really wide.

If you will notice the lady in pink here, you can see that her dress is sewn in such a way as to expose her super fancy petticoat underneath it.  This to-show-or-not-to-show-my-petticoat thing will happen on and off now until the 1920's so it's good to watch for.

Of course, not everyone wore this style of dress.  In the colonies, for example, things went on pretty much as normal.

This fine lady of Boston who is loosely holding her rigid child is obviously very wealthy as she has an enormous amount of (handmade) lace on her collar, black and red ribbons on her sleeves, an exposed red petticoat with some lovely embroidery, and a pearl necklace.   To wear a pearl necklace was THE thing for a woman and the style contines to be fashionable for years and years.

Still is, actually...

Meanwhile in Spain, they did whatever they wanted.

And this is what they wanted

No one would wear panniers like this for 100 years, and they only started wearing them then because Spain sent some over to France to display.  To be 100 YEARS ahead of fashion is quite an accomplishment and a demonstration of utter distain for every other country there is.

So, that's all kind of a normal evolution but things changed in the 1680s when France invented the mantua or the manteau.  It was different than the gowns women had been wearing because for a long time everyone wore a skirt and a boned bodice.   The mantua was basically a long dress which opened in the front.  The front was pinned together over a stomacher and then the skirts of the mantua were pinned back to expose the petticoat.

This was considered easier than the old style of gown.

Though it's hard to see how...  I guess it was a lot less naked so probably that was a good thing since it's still pretty cold.

The other popular trend by the 1680s was the fontange.   Here is Queen Mary with one:

It's that wad of hair and lace over her forehead

The story is that when a mistress of Louis XIV (remember he's totally still alive) lost her hat while out riding, she tied up her hair with a bunch of ribbon (which everyone had in bundles all over their clothing.) It pleased the king and so it became her style. Then all the women in France thought it racy and sexy and exciting and adopted it, and it eventually came to England where EVERYONE (maids, ladies, the Queen) wore a pile of stuff on their foreheads. (Though the look was banned in the courts of France.  Probably because Louis thought it apropriate only for his courtesans.)

So, during fifty years of dramatic social and political change in England and absolutely no change at all in France, women's fashion went from horizontal and blousy (meaning "to blouse" i.e. "to hang or cause to hang loosely or fully") to vertical and rigid with fluff on the top of the head.  Weird, huh?

Anyway, here's your test:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1VYygpu1f76qX-nx_f1ooZJUZXi38bynSoPmkrpkqmKY/viewform

#13 - War and America

This is called "Charles from three angles" by Van Dyke.  I think
it's pretty much the equavalent of those Sears portraits done on
a black background.

In 1625 James I died and his son Charles I became king of England and Scotland.  Charles fought with Parliment and fought not one but two civil wars against his own government until they executed him for treason against his own country in 1649.   Before they hung him   -- He declared that he had desired the liberty and freedom of the people as much as any, "but I must tell you that their liberty and freedom consists in having government.... It is not their having a share in the government; that is nothing appertaining unto them. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things."^[156]







Now watch this video:

The best time to outsource stuff, I think, is when the material is WAY better than anything I could have generated.  

Anyway, in that video you probably learned a lot of things but one of the things I hoped you learned was that the English colonies in North America were established by corporations.   Boston was settled by such a group of businessmen known as the Massachusetts Bay Company and was extremely sucessful because the guys who wanted to move to Boston bought out the guys who didn't.  This led to the Cambridge Agreement which was one of the first documents in North America which was all about making your own decisions.

The Cambridge Agreement was signed in 1629, which was the same year Charles I decided to get rid of Parliment and ruled (fought with everyone in) England for 11 years.   So, the freedom to trade and control taxes is a VERY BIG DEAL for these folks and will continue to be so.   (See Boston Tea Party)

So, there were a lot of wars for the next while.  A LOT of wars.  Religious wars were being fought between Catholics and Protestants all over Europe.   Cavaliers and Roundheads in England did all sorts of unpleasant things to each other.   One of my favorite (Victorian era) paintings about the Puritains fighting the Royals is this one:

This is called "When Did You Last See Your Father?" by William Fredrick Yeames.  A pack of puritain protestant roundheads have invaded the home of a royalist and is questioning the little son.   It's very romantic because a Victorian looking at this will know that the child has been taught not to lie but if he knows anything about where his dad is, it will probably mean the death of his father.

If you look at this painting, you can see the difference in style between the two groups.  Satin for the royalists, and pointy buckle hats for the puritains.   I'm certain that the style difference doesn't surprise you as we have discussed it before.  But, this does lead me to the thing I also want to talk about --

Witches!!

See that pointy hat?  The hat that witches are supposed to wear forever and ever?  Did you ever think about where that came from?   Well, I have and here is the answer:

Puritans!

Yup, that's right.  These hats were very popular for men and women.  And, if you think about it, they are very practical.  With a nice wide brim to keep the sun/rain off of your face and tall pointy top to intimidate others with they are pretty great for wearing when settling a new colony.   The very tops of the hats aren't super pointy but that's because the point has been pushed down into the hat to make it have that square shape.  You can see this better on the hats in the Yeames painting.  So, a good hat is squarish, but a beat-up hat is pointy.

Which leads me to the Salem Witch Trials.   You already know that burning witches was sort of a hobby in Europe.   And, it was one which the very theocratic society in the colonies was perfectly set up for.  Particullarly when a bunch of teenaged girls decide to accuse people of causing all sorts of demonic stuff and get to watch as grown-ups run around panicking and torturing and killing people.

I mean, who WOULDN'T believe these girls when
they said an invisible force was sticking them with pins?

Anyway, when people drew pictures of witches from then on, they gave witches old-school beat-up looking hats.  Which are the hats you are totally familiar with:

Indeed...

Okay.  That's all for now.  No test this week.  We will start looking at the fashion shifts that came with the reign of Charles II next week.

#12 Cavaliers! (1630-ish..)

"I wear puffy slops and I cannot lie
you other brothers can't deny
with my ermine cape and my pear-like shape
and the bows on my knees -
I'm fun!"

When Queen Elizabeth died, the Jacobian era began with the reign of James I.  (Jacobus is Latin for James so the time period is called Jacobian rather than Jamesian or Jamish or whatever.)  James I liked to study the Greek classics, write books (my favorite is A Counterblaste to Tobacco where he yells about how awful tobacco is), go hunting with his homies, avoid war with Spain, torture witches, fight with Parliment, authorize the establishment of Jamestown in Virginia, reduce the national deficit, commision the official King James version of the Bible (which we use today), avoid being blown up by Guy Fawks on 11/5/1605 (which was the beginning of the most firework-y holiday in England), become a raging alcoholic, and support playwrights (Shakespeare) and a whole pile of guys who are now known as the Cavalier Poets. (My favorite is this guy because I sometimes have the sense of humor of a twelve-year-old boy.)

   Oh, and he had seven kids (three of whom survived) with his wife Anne of Denmark who was a big supporter of "natural philosophy", which means she dug science and gave money to guys like Francis Bacon and William Gilbert.

So, really, that's not a bad list at all.  He, unfortunately, tended to run the government by appointing his unqualified good-'ol-boy buddies to do all the work for him while he hung out in the woods.   This caused problems and scandals since the qualities that make dudes awesome to hang out with don't necessarily translate into good governmental practice.  But, when James died, everyone was sad because he kept taxes low and he did everything he could to keep England and Scotland out of wars with other countries.  The best posthumous quote is "As he lived in peace, so did he die in peace..."

Henry IV

Meanwhile, in France, Henry IV was a king who had the revolutionary idea of not fighting wars with folks in his own country.  Instead he would say "Yes, we could throw our armies at each other, where I would doubtless kick your behind, but instead, how about I give you some of the cash I would spend on this war and you can take it home and roll around in it like Scrooge Mc Duck?  Yes? No? Maybe?  Sleep on it..."

Pictured: Henry IV's domestic policy

Henry also said something which has turned into a famous political catchphrase.

Si Dieu me prête vie, je ferai qu’il n’y aura point de laboureur en mon royaume qui n’ait les moyens d’avoir le dimanche une poule dans son pot!

Get it?   Oh.  Here's the translation:

If God keeps me, I will make sure that no peasant in my realm will lack the the means to have a chicken in the pot on Sunday!

So if you ever hear someone say "A chicken for every pot!" they are (probably unknowingly) quoting Henry IV.

Well, what does this have to do with fashion?  Everything as it happens.  After the major social upheaval of the previous generation (Science! America!  Protestants!  War!), these two guys followed a strict policy of "Everybody just calm the heck down."   Clothing, as a result went from high-strung abstract tight-laced big-shouldered panic to droop-shouldered high-waisted draped puffy relaxed decadence.  Here, I will show you.

"My dog loves me"

"I got a new hat!"

"Mr Painter man, please make my clothes flutter like there's a breeze but don't
mess up my hair, okay?"

"Hi.  I own a lot of pearls."

"Um, Mr Painter... I think that the chest of my portrait is... anatomically incorrect..."

"What?"

Peter Paul Rubens and Isabella Brant in the Honeysuckle Bower

Incidenally, artists started getting seriously better.  The above painting is a self-portrait by Peter Paul Rubens.  My older sister had it in some art history books when I was a kid.  I remember spending hours looking at this painting.   I'm pretty sure I was just obsessed with his socks.  Incidentally, Rubens was Flemish and the Dutch (and other assorted Scandinavians) held on to the ruff style for a long time after everyone else had gotten rid of it.  

Anyway, life was not bad. 

 

So there we are.   I really like the Cavalier period but no one else seems to.   At the Rennaisance Faire here in Vegas there's a pack of guys who walk around in wonderfully well-done Dutch Cavalier style clothing and everyone acts like they aren't there.   Everyone instead wants to look at guys like this

Which kind of makese sense because that mustache is epic

instead of a pack of fat dudes.

This is literally the only picture I could find of these guys.

"Seriously?"

Yeah, I know, it makes no sense to me either.   But, it's perfectly normal for me to prefer the Cavalier period because of when I came of age.   You see, this pattern of Panic/Calm has happened before.  Here are some examples.

Before the French Revolution

After the French Revolution

American Civil War

After the American Civil War

1980's

1990's

See?  Okay, more on the Puritans and Boston and the English civil war next week.  For now, your test:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1PvB97pMyRxZ2bOsGj3JaZ-oI71V-lK6fLBIsnaZ3p60/viewform