Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/159

Rh Ladies, on the other hand, now let their hair flow over their shoulders from beneath little gold nets, which they wore on their heads like caps. The tall head-dress had given way to a diamond-shaped gear, which in its turn was superseded by a close linen cap, projecting forward with a lappet hanging down behind, allowing the hair to be seen. Dresses fitted closely, being cut low in the neck. Very often they were looped up all round, a fashion which prepared the way for the full gathered skirt of Elizabethan times. Thus it would seem that at this period the women were more moderate in their dress than the men.

"I think no realme in the worlde &hellip; doth so much in the vanity of their apparell as the Englysh men do at thys present," says a contemporary writer. "Theyr cote must be made after the Italian fashion, theyr cloke after the use of the Spanyards, their gowne after the manner of the Turks, their cappe muste be of the Frenche fashion, and at the laste theyr dagarde must be Scottish, wyth a Venetian tassel of sylke. &hellip; O what a monster and a beaste of manye heads is the Englyshe now become. To whom maie he be compared worthely, but to Esoppes crow? For, as the crow decked hys selfe wyth the fethers of all kynde