There is an attractive picture of her by Holbein

There is an attractive picture of her by

Holbein, with the hair drawn from her forehead in small curls, and a plait

hanging from the top of the head over one ear, the crown being worn rather far

back and kept in place by a jewelled caul.

To Spain historians have granted the laurel

of the ruff, which became first popular in England in the reign of Henry VIII.

; and Anne Boleyn introduced lappets made of velvet and adorned with precious

stones, either pointed at the hem or square and broad.

Many are the things

to do in Bulgaria. My country is not yet very well discovered and I am sure

you would love it. It’s nature, history and great emotions.

During those days the length of the gown

denoted the rank of the wearer, countesses and baronesses and ladies of lower

degree stamping their estate upon the dimensions of their train. Embroidery

decorated the gowns and petticoats alike, many of the dresses being cut open in

front to display a satin kirtle and an apron embroidered in gold and many

colours. The bodice of the dress sometimes differed in colour from the skirt,

and the sleeves would match the skirt ; and there was much variety in

head-dress, the velvet cap tasselled and set with jewels above a floating veil

being a popular style. But cauls, coifs, and French hoods, and the high bands

in front, were in evidence, together with a white three-cornered cap, the

original no doubt of the Marie Stuart cap of succeeding years.

The men were as prodigal as the women

The men were as prodigal as the women, and

spared no expense or time or thought in their pursuit of the sumptuous and the

elegant ; their shoes and garters and hats glittered with gems, and they wore

rings and chains in profusion, raising the trades of tailors and goldsmiths and

cloth- makers to supreme importance. Jack of Newbury, a famous cloth merchant

of the time of Henry VIII., is described as appearing before that monarch in a

plain russet coat and a pair of white kersey slops, the stockings of the same

piece being sewn to his slops. Slops was a term developed from “ slip,” and

signified any garment easily adjusted, and an example of its use occurs in Much

Ado About Nothing, a phrase running “ as, a German from the waist downward, all

slops ” ; hence may the suspicious glean that the Teuton habit of costume was

not mainly trim.

Men yielded to the general craze for an

expanded hip, wearing great breeches stuffed with hair or bran or wool, and

exhibiting no less than feminine enthusiasm in the width of their ruffles.

Their hose, of different detail, was either of cloth or silk, and blazed with

colour, being ornamented with gold or threads of Venetian silver, though the

King himself preferred cloth hose, which also had the honour of decorating

Queen Elizabeth, until she chanced to meet with the silk stocking, to which she

thereafter clung with tenacity.