Thomas Edgar

I can find no biographical information about Thomas, but his portrait (by an unknown artist) hangs in the collection of the Colchester and Ipswich Museums Service. He’s an oddly modern looking cove staring out at us with his raffish moustache and short hair, but his clothes are straight out of the late 1630s, early 1640s. His doublet is nicely figured black velvet and he has the kind of decorative point decorations around his waistband that were a remnant of the old fashioned method of tying your breeches to your doublet with ribbon points. I wouldn’t mind betting that underneath his tailor has sewn the more modern hooks and eyes. The sleeve seam is open to show off his shirt linen and the other visible linen, falling band and cuffs is superb.

 

The lace on his band is exquisite and the tassels of his band-strings are just magnificent in the detail. Also not the fineness of the linen of his cuffs and the tiny darts that shape them to his sleeve.

This detail is lovely too, the crispness of the linen is obvious and the work on the darts around his neck show this was made by an expert seamstress. You can also see where the artist has tried to show the gathers of the lace around the right angle of the band on his right hand side so it lays nice and flat.

 

 

Sir Edward Dering

Sir Edward’s portrait was painted by Dobson, probably in 1642. He had raised a royalist cavalry regiment at the start of the war but by all accounts, soldiering wasn’t really his thing. He was in ill health before hostilities began and wasn’t too enamoured of the thought of life on campaign. He subsequently resigned his commission in 1643 and died in June 1644. You can see from his world weary look that he wasn’t not too keen when he sat for Dobson. He wrote a book, Discourse of Proper Sacrifice in 1640 that was published shortly before he died. He had long been keen on the King’s church reforms and the thrust of the text was his hope for peace and the return of the King to Parliament. He wrote “In the meantime, I dare wish that he would make less value of such men both lay and clergy who, by running on the Canterbury pace, have made our breaches so wide and take less delight in the specious way of cathedral devotions”

Sir Edward stares into the distance with a well furrowed brow and his plain linen band and understated strings suggest he’s in his campaign clothes. It’s also been creased somehow since it was last washed and (presumably) pressed The pale taffeta scarf is edged with a small amount of lace too. The plain linen cuffs on his shirt look like they are stained from action and a black or dark brown doublet will also hide the dirt. The turn-back cuffs on the doublet show a red lining. Even the sword belt is a plain serviceable one. This picture hangs in the Regimental Museum of the Royal Welsh in Brecon

The Military Discipline Plate 5

From The Military Discipline wherein is Martially Showne the Order for Drilling the Musket and Pike, published by Thomas Jenner, London 1642. This is plate five of the drill book published just before the wars broke out. I’ve no reason to suspect this is anything other than portraits of the trained bandes of London at their postures. These guys are dressed in high status clothes, braided breeches and slashed sleeves. Not the kind of clobber you would wear to take the the field.

The style of the plates is very similar to a drill book published in Europe in 1607 with engravings by Jacques de Gheyn. In fact there are a number of european and english drill books starting from de Gheyn, using exactly the same poses but every time updating the clothes.

More rear views here, number 13 is wearing a montero cap and interestingly number 16’s coat has no back seam, and is slit to the waist, something that would only really work with a well fulled broadcloth that wouldn’t fray easily along the edge. 15’s coat in contrast looks like it is hemmed.

This is number five in the series. I took the photos from the original book.

The Military Discipline Plate 4

From The Military Discipline wherein is Martially Showne the Order for Drilling the Musket and Pike, published by Thomas Jenner, London 1642. This is plate four of the drill book published just before the wars broke out. I’ve no reason to suspect this is anything other than portraits of the trained bandes of London at their postures. These guys are dressed in high status clothes, braided breeches and slashed sleeves. Not the kind of clobber you would wear to take the the field. We are still crunching through musket drill, broken down into all the separate moves that would most probably be thrown away on the battlefield. All back views this time. Notice from the legend that numbers 11 and 12 are using a ‘charge’ to introduce powder down their barrels. Victorian wisdom always suggested these bandolier containers were called apostles.  This is number four in the series. I took the photos from the original book.

 

The Military Discipline Plate 3

From The Military Discipline wherein is Martially Showne the Order for Drilling the Musket and Pike, published by Thomas Jenner, London 1642. This is plate three of the drill book published just before the wars broke out. I’ve no reason to suspect this is anything other than portraits of the trained bandes of London at their postures. These guys are dressed in high status clothes, braided breeches and slashed sleeves. Not the kind of clobber you would wear to take the the field. Some fancy garters on display here too. This is number three in the series. I took the photos from the original book.

The Military Discipline Plate 2

From The Military Discipline wherein is Martially Showne the Order for Drilling the Musket and Pike, published by Thomas Jenner, London 1642. This is plate two from the back of a drill book published just before the wars broke out. I’ve no reason to suspect this is anything other than portraits of the trained bandes of London at their postures. These guys are dressed in high status clothes, braided breeches and slashed sleeves. Check out the fancy hose on the musketeer in picture 8. Not the kind of clobber you would wear to take the the field. This is second in the series. I took the photos from the original book.

The Military Discipline Plate 1

From The Military Discipline wherein is Martially Showne the Order for Drilling the Musket and Pike, published by Thomas Jenner, London 1642. This is plate one of a drill book published just before the wars broke out. I’ve no reason to suspect this is anything other than portraits of the trained bandes of London at their postures. These guys are dressed in high status clothes, braided breeches and slashed sleeves. Not the kind of clobber you would wear to take the the field. This is first in a series. I took the photos from the book.

The Humerous Tricks and Conceits

of Prince Roberts malignant she-monkey, discovered to the world before her marriage. Also the manner of her marriage to a cavaleer and how within three dayes space, she called him cuckold to his face, London 1643

One of those anti-royalist pamphlets referring to Prince Rupert’s selection of pets. His poodle Boye was also the subject of some derision but here is his monkey, presumably about the blow smoke cheekily in the face of her cuckolded husband.

She is wearing a hood tied beneath her chin, a short petticoat effort hiding her simian modesty (this is not standard 1640s fashion as far as I can tell) and a shoulder belt for her sword. The cavalier is wearing a long buttoned coat with turn back sleeves over a short doublet and tapered breeches. His linen band is smart with a modest lace edge and his riding boots (spot the spurs) are folded in the common style to show off his boot hose.

 

Dorothy Bonham

And an unknown boy, painted by an unknown artist around 1638-41. Dorothy, or more correctly Dame Dorothy may or may not have been Lady in Waiting to Elizabeth I in her youth and was also rumoured to have played a part in foiling the Gunpowder Plot, though later investigation revealed that her part was choosing the story as the subject of a tapestry that she made after the event! Dorothy died in 1641 apparently from being pricked by an infected needle (though this may have been fabricated too to attract visitors to the Hall) shortly after this portrait was completed. A popular story has her body walled up and her ghost walking the corridors of Ightham Mote. Sadly also not true, the grand Dame was safely interred in the local churchyard, but why let the facts get in the way of a cracking story?

Anyway, this picture caught my eye because Dorothy is not dressed in the latest fashion unlike the rather sad little boy in pink stood next to her. She is wearing a black petticoat and bodice over which she seems to have a red partlet or (perhaps a sleeveless waistcoat) covering her body and a large starched ruff around her neck. She’s keeping her head warm with a black hood and possibly a lace coif underneath. The boy is in a fashionable pink suit; matching doublet (slashed sleeves to show his shirt), breeches (trimmed with ribbon) and short cloak with a laced linen falling band and cuffs with matching ribbons on his shoes and pink hose.

Dorothy was some looker, forty years earlier. Both paintings are at Ightham Mote House  in Kent.

M

Richard Pierce

The royalist mayor of Devizes who kept the Swan in the town was painted by an unnamed artist in 1643 He’s wearing a tall crowned felt hat and what looks like (from the cuffs) a brown coat over a black doublet. On top of the whole layered ensemble is a paler brown cloak and a neat linen falling band. The portrait is in the Wiltshire Museum collection