Richard Lovelace

The poet and soldier for the Crown, painted by John de Critz in college robes. Lovelace was educated at Oxford where he was granted the degree of Master of Arts. Despite being described in wikipedia as having fought for the King, it turns out that his military career was all on the continent and he was not involved in the Civil War at all. His most celebrated verses are  from his poem entitled “To Althea, From Prison”:

“Stone walls do not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage;

Minds innocent and quiet take

That for an hermitage”

 

Richard is wearing his masters gown over what looks to be a doublet and waistcoat beneath, as there are definitely two layers, both heavily buttoned. On his head he wears a scholar’s square cap and a plain linen band around his neck.

 

 

 

The tassels on his band strings appear to be made of tiny knots, rather like an example in Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion 4.

 

 

In this detail you can see the intricate work on the buttons and also the embroidery on his glove cuffs.

 

Edmund Matthews

Senior tutor at Sidney Sussex College Cambridge, painted by an unknown artist in 1653. Matthews is wearing standard academic clothing, black cap, a gown with hanging sleeves over a doublet with linen cuffs and falling band. The work on his doubled cuffs and the intricate band strings are particularly fine. The doublet buttons are enormous!

 

A catalogue of the several sects and opinions in England (Part 2)

Continuing the pictures from the broadsheet from 1646/7, Here are three more.

 

The Arminian. Arminiansim was founded in the Low Countries and was based on the belief that every man had the free will to achieve his own salvation, and that it wasn’t predestined which way you would go after death as a lot of Independants believed. This chap is clothed in a gown over his clerical cassock (note the waist tie) with a wide brimmed hat and a ruff.

 

 

 

Would any comfortlesse both live and die?
Let him learne free wills great uncertaintie:
Salvation that doth unmov’d remaine,
Arminian Logick would most maintaine,
And faith that’s founded on a firme decree,
Is plac’t by them to cause uncertaintie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Arian. Arianism was an ancient belief that had been recently resurrected and concerned the relationship between God the Father and Jesus. A tricky one to explain, but indicative of the confusion of the times that some people were going back to the early days of Christianity for their beliefs. This chap is wearing a smart, short (or jump) coat over his doublet, a narrow brimmed hat and falling band.

 

What they dare to deny, Christians know,
Christ God and Man, from whom their comforts flow,
‘Tis sad, that Christians dive by speculation,
Whereby they loose more sweeter contemplation:
Where Christian practice acts the life of grace,
There’s sweet content to run in such a race.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Adamite. As the name would suggest, these people wanted to go right back to the Garden of Eden, and professed to have regained the innocence of Adam by taking their clothes off. It was another throwback to the early days of Christianity and predated the 1960s by a considerable margin. Sadly there are no costume details here. This chap is wearing nothing but a smile.

 

Hath Adams sin procur’d his naked shame,
With leaves at first that thought to hide his staine?
Then let not Adamites in secret dare
Aparent sinfull acts to spread; but feare,
Since Adams sin hath so defil’d poore dust,
Cast from this Paradise by wicked lust.

Popular Errours

Or the errours of the people in physick, first written in Latine by the learned physitian James Primrose Doctor in Physick. The Latin version was published in 1638, but the English translation came out in 1651 and featured this image. It was a defence of the arts of the learned physician against quack and untrained doctors written in an entertaining style, presumably so that he could reach the largest audience possible.

The picture shows a poor fellow in his sick bed, being ministered to by a doctor, but also a well meaning goodwife who is trying to help but is being restrained by an angel of mercy. She is wearing a petticoat, waistcoat, long apron, ruff collar and a wide brimmed hat over a linen coif. The doctor in a gown, cap and ruff and the ill fellow in his shirt and night cap.

Here is a closer image of the woman. I’m still not completely sure what she is wearing on her upper half. Perhaps her apron reaches to her chin and she has tucked it under her stiffened bodies? There is a lovely poem on the facing page which represents the busy body trying to take over:

Loe here a woman comes in charitie
To see the sicke, and brings her remedie.
You’ve got some grievous cold, alas! (quoth she)
It lies sore in your bones, no part is free.
His pulse is weake, his vrine’s colour’d high,
His nose is sharpe, his nostrills wide, he’le die.
They talke of Rubarb, Sene, and Agaricke,
Of Cassia, Tamarinds, and many a tricke,
Tush, give the Doctors leave to talk, I’ve brought
A pepper posset, nothing can be bought
Like this i’th ‘Pothecaries shoppe; alone
It cures the Fever, Strangury, and Stone;
If not there’s danger, yet before all faile,
Ile have a Cawdle for you, or Mace-ale:
And Ile prepare my Antimoniall Cuppe
To cure your Maladie, one little suppe
Will doe more good, and is of more desert
Then all Hippocrates, or Galens Art.
But loe an Angell gently puts her backe,
Lest such erroneous course the sicke doe wracke,
Leads the Physitian, and guides his hand,
Approves his Art, and what he doth must stand.
Tis Art that God allowes, by him ’tis blest
To cure diseases, leave then all the rest. 

The True Effigies of Hezekiah Holland

Minister of the Gospell at Sutton Valance in Kent. This is the frontispiece from his tome entitled An exposition, or, A short, but full, plaine, and perfect epitome of the most choice commentaries upon the Revelation of Saint John, published in 1650. Amongst other bombshells, the book revealed that the end of the world was 216 years away. A comforting result for Hezekiah, but not so much for us. The Reverend Holland was originally from Ireland and an independent cleric who had been appointed a living by Parliament when the previous incumbent Robert Smith was ousted for his Royalist leanings.

The engraving shows a few quirky details, not least the overlarge hand emerging from the folds of his gown holding a book and the odd way his plain falling band corners cross over. Perhaps this is a bit more true to life than the perfect versions we usually see. It gives the minister a bit more character I think. He is also wearing a plain black day cap and a short tabbed doublet of the kind that had been generally worn, but had not been the height of fashion, since the 1630s at least. The tassels on his band strings are nice too.

The manner and form of the Arch-bishops Tryal in the House of Peers

An engraving appended to the end of A breviate of the life, of VVilliam Laud Arch-Bishop of Canterbury: extracted (for the most part) verbatim, out of his owne diary, and other writings, under his owne hand. / Collected and published at the speciall instance of sundry honourable persons, as a necessary prologue to the history of his tryall, for which the criminal part of his life, is specially reserved by William Prynne of Lincolnes Inne, Esquier, published in 1644. The engraving is by Wenceslaus Hollar.

As ever though, the best part of these crowd engravings is the little details that come out when you zoom in.

 

 

At the back of the hall, in the foreground an splendid selection of coats and cloaks, showing the reverse side that you don’t often get in portraits. One or two caps being worn too and a dog seems to have sneaked in on the left hand side.

 

 

An annotated group here. A marks the Archbishop in his gown and a black day cap. Unusual not to see him in his bishop’s robes, the rocket with white sleeves would have stood out had he been wearing it. B is black rod, C the Lieutenant of the Tower, D the council for Laud and E the clark who reads the evidence, looking very pleased with himself in a short cloak and laced band. F is a table.

 

 

 

A small group of women here against the tapestried wall on the right hand side. G is the area reserved for members of the Commons, H is Henry Burton who had had his ears removed for criticising Laud in a pamphlet. Henry looks like he might be wearing a ruff. I marks various witnesses, one of whom was  Susannah Bastwick, smartly attired in linen kerchief and a coif. Susannah was the wife of John Bastwick who had also lost his ears in the pillory.

 

 

 

Mercurius Democritus

Communicating many strange wonders, out of the world in the moon, the Antipodes, Maggy-land, Tenebris, Fary-land, Green-land, and other adjacent countries; published for the rightunderstanding of all the mad-merry-people of Great-Bedlam. One of those “believe it or not” publications, still popular today that was published periodically in the 1650s. This edition is from February 1654 and the picture shows a ghost that was seen in Smithfield by the local butchers, dressed in the clothes of a Lawyer called Mallet: pulling the meat off the Butchers Tainters; many have adventured to strike at him with Cleavers and Chopping-Knives, but cannot feel anything but Ayre,

Here is the ghost in a  short tabbed doublet and breeches, falling band and an odd kind of bonnet, over which garb he is wearing a lawyer’s gown. He also has high heeled shoes over which have been stuffed what look like ram’s horns, possibly to mark him out as a ghost. Usually ghosts are depicted in their winding sheets.

Family Portrait

This picture came up for sale at Christies in London in 2011, and is described as “Family portrait, small three-quarter-length, in black, red and white dress”. It has scant provenance, and in fact is inscribed on the frame with a story of how it turned up: ‘This oil painting washed ashore at Rottingdean with other wreckage from the Australian ship “Simla”,: Run down by the ship City of Lucknow, Feb 25th 1884’. It’s a lovely picture of a typical family from the seventeenth century and has the look of those Dutch master paintings of ordinary folk that hardly ever turn up in portraits by English artists

The people in the picture are dressed in clothes that place the time of the picture in the 1640s or thereabouts, and seem to be as described, a family group. They mostly look at us from the picture, though the three figures on the right look across the picture at the eldest member of the family.  He is presumably the grandfather of the family and is dressed in a gown and ruff collar with a lace edged day cap. The husband and wife (I imagine) are in their best blacks. The wife with a neat plain layered kerchief and a black hood over hers (perhaps this refers to a lost child), whilst the man of the house is in a plain black doublet and a neat falling band. If you look closely though, he has left the lower buttons unfastened so you can see his shirt. The three children are all dressed in petticoats and aprons and there is no way to tell if they are boys or girls from what they are wearing. The seventh figure  is partly hidden by an open door and seems to be wearing a red waistcoat over petticoat skirts and an apron and kerchief.

The Foure Complexions: Phlegmatic

And the last print from William Marshall in 1637. I like this picture, there is more humour in it. Phlegmatic shows a rather vain lady staring out at us from the edge of a river in which a rather odd fish with a human face is watching her. The verse reads:

“In Beauty have I share of Rose and Lilly, But I lack Breeding and my wit is Silly”

She is wearing a tightly laced boned bodice with slashed balloon sleeves, a petticoat and a still lace edged collar. On top of the ensemble she has a gown with open sleeves that fasten around her elbows and reaches down to cover her petticoat skirts. © The Trustees of the British Museum

I also like the vacant look on her face and the flowers she has in her hair.

Mystagogus Poeticus

or, The muses interpreter, explaining the historical mysteries, and mystical histories of the ancient Greek and Latin poets. Here Apollo’s temple is again opened, the muses treasures the sixth time discovered, and the gardens of Parnassus disclosed more fully; whence many flowers of useful, delightful, and rare observations, never touched by any other mythologist, are collected. A classical work by the scholar and Church of England Clergyman Alexander Ross published in 1647. Ross was something of a colourful figure.   As his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of Biography says “virtually all of his prolific output was underpinned by a violent and often vituperative indignation directed at other authors”. He is also credited with the first English translation of the Qur’an.

This is the front page showing Alexander in his gown over a pair of breeches, showing a nicely turned leg with a smart shoe and stocking. In the background a group of classically dressed musicians provide and accompaniment.

 

 

Close up of Alexander’s leg showing the detail of his shoe.