The costume of James II.'s reign varied little from that of Charles. The hats indeed assumed various cocks, according to the fancy of some leader or party. One cock was called the Monmouth cock.
The ladies in the voluptuous reign of Charles II. abandoned the straight-laced dresses with the straight-Laced manners of their puritan predecessors. Bare bosoms and bare arms to the elbows were displayed, and the hair, confined only by a single bandeau of pearls, or adorned by a single rose, fell in graceful profusion upon their snowy necks. The rounded arm reclined on the rich satin petticoat; whilst the gown of the same rich material extended its voluminous train behind. Lely's portraits are not to be regarded as representing the strict costume of the age, but they give us its spirit—a studied negligence, an elegant déshabille. The starched ruff, the steeple-crowned hat, the rigid stomacher, and the stately farthingale were, however, long retained by less fashionable dames of the country; and when the ruff was discarded, a rich lace tippet veiled the beauties of the bosom. The women of ordinary rank also still retained much of this costume, with the hood and tippet.
Furniture, &c., of the period of Charles II., copied from authentic sources.
In their riding-habits the ladies imitated the costume of the men as nearly as they could. Evelyn says that he saw the queen in September, 1666, going to take the air "in her cavalier riding-habit, hat, and feathers, and horseman's coat." As it seems to us a very rational dress for the occasion, yet the sight did not please Mr. Pepys, for he remarks about the same time—"Walking in the galleries at Whitehall, I find the ladies of honour dressed in their riding-garbs, with coats and doublets, with deep skirts—just for all the world like men, and buttoned in their doublets up to the breast, with periwigs and with hats. So that only for a long petticoat dragging under their men's coats, nobody could take them for women in any point whatever, which was an odd sight, and a sight that did not please me."
Yet Mrs. Stuart, afterwards duchess of Richmond, did please him:—"But, above all, Mrs. Stuart, in her dress, with her hat cocked, and a rich plase, with her sweet eye, and little Roman nose, and excellent, is now the greatest beauty I ever saw, I think, in my life."
The military costume of the period remained much the same as during the civil wars and commonwealth; but vambraces were abandoned by the harquebussiers, and defensive armour was gradually falling into disuse. The helmet and corset, or cuirass, or the gorget alone, worn over a buff coat, form the total defence of steel worn by the officers at this period. "The arms, offensive and defensive," says the statute of the 13th and 14th of Charles II., "are to be as follows:—The defensive armour of the cavalry to consist of a back, breast, and pot, and the breast and pot to be pistol proof. The offensive arms a sword and case of pistols, the barrels whereof are not to be under fourteen inches in length. For the foot a musketeer is ordered to have a musket, the barrels not under three feet in length; a collar of bandeliers with a sword. Pikemen to be armed with a pike of ash, sixteen feet long, with a back, breast, head-piece, and sword."
The present familiar names of the regiments comprising the British army commerce from this reign. The Life
