Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/421

] highness was in a plain but rich suit, black velvet, with cloak of the same; about his hat a broad band of gold."

The ladies' dresses of Charles's time rapidly changed from the stiff ruft's and farthingales to a more natural and With Mrs. Turner, the introducer, went out in James's time the yellow starch ruff's and bands, for she appeared, when hanged for her concern in Sir Thomas Overbury's murder, in her own yellow ornaments at the gallows. But all ruffs grew obselete in Charles's reign, and a lady of that day would scarcely be distinguished from a lady of this. The hair was dressed much as in modern manner, the dress fell naturally without hoops, and the broad collar fell gracefully on the shoulders. The citizens' and puritans' wives, as well as country women, wore the broad high-crowned hat, and country women appeared still in plaited ruff, and a muffler over the mouth in cold weather, tied up to the back of the head. A lady had generally her feather fan in her hand, as the modern one has her parasol.

An Officer in a Suit of Armour, date 1611.

ARMS AND ARMOUR.

Armour was fast disappearing; it was of little use against cannon and matchlocks. James thought armour a very good invention, for it hindered a much as much from hurting his enemy as it defended himself. But in his time little but a cuirass for the body and a helmet or helmet was used. To the rest for the heavy matchlock in this reign was affixed a long rapier blade, called a "swine's feather," or "bristle," and used as the soldier now uses the bayonet. In the civil war most of the officers wore only a cuirass over a buff coat; and though some of the infantry were almost fully sheathed in armour, it was soon found to be too cumbersome for rapid movements, and with the exception of the cuirassiers, who were clad in armour except the legs, were seldom defended by more than a back and breastplate, and a head-piece. The cuirassiers, corrupted to kurasers, were the soldiers whose name has so puzzled Carlyle. During the parliament war the cavalry was divided into cuirassiers, lancers, harquebussiers, carbineers, and dragoons, according to the different weapon or armour which they carried, the cuirass, the lance, the musket, the heavy harquebuss, the carbine, or the dragon, a sort of blunderbuss. At this period the firelock was introduced by the poultry-stealers of Holland, and called after them the snaphahn, or hen-stealer. The superiority of the flint-lock over the match or cumbrous wheel-lock was soon seen and adopted.

An Armourer's Shop.

CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE.

The moral condition of the people, as we have just seen, was at this period deplorable. The neglect of education left the great bulk of the working class ignorant and depraved, and the long peace which the reigns of Elizabeth and James maintained had so greatly augmented the wealth and prosperity of the nation, that the insolence of illiterate abundance added to the public exhibition of rudeness and riot. In one respect, however, the whole people had become greatly enlightened—they had learned very extensively their political rights. The rise and opulence of the merchants and middle classes, through commerce, and through the destruction of church lands, had impressed them with a feeling of their importance, and led them no longer to bow and cringe before the nobles, but to claim their proper authority as the third, and, indeed, the greatest estate. From the time when Henry VIII. set a-going discussions regarding religious liberty, and permitted the Bible to appear in good plain English, the light which sprang up on the subject of human rights was wonderful, and could never be withdrawn or extinguished. The mistake, as regarded royal prerogative, was soon seen, and an endeavour was made to restrict the reading of the Bible to the noble and the classical only, but it was in vain. Those who had the Scriptures soon spread abroad their knowledge; of their great principles, and as the Stuart government was daily found to be weaker, the sense of popular right was growing stronger and more universal. So soon as the parliament began to resist the encroachments of the crown, and even to do it with arms in their hands, it became necessary to convince the people at large that their rights were at stake, and to explain what these rights were. Such knowledge as this could never be taken back again, and accordingly from this period the principle that all power proceeds from the people and exists for the people, became the great fixed sentiment of the nation, which, spite of temporary checks and appearances, has gone on strengthening and confirming itself, and diffusing itself to this hour, and must go on till it has entirely moulded government by the great and eternal principles of justice and individual right to its perfect form—a free government worthy of free men. Accordingly, we have seen that the army, that body of the people which rushed forward at the call of parliament to defend with their lives the public liberties, at once advanced into the most sweeping tenets of democracy, and demanded their adoption before the community was ripe for them.