Gloves. lowed that in depriving a person of his office he should be divested of its insignia. It is stated that the Earl of Carlisle, in the reign of Edward II.. being impeached for holding communication with the Scots, was con demned to die a traitor. Walsingham in re lating the circumstances of the Earl's degradation, says "his spurs were cut off with a hatchet and his glcnrs and shoes were taken •off." The spurs were removed in this rather rude form, since to take off a man's spurs was to humble one's self and to acknowl edge him a superior or a guest,—a traitor
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difficult to ascertain; it is quite possible, however, taking the most charitable view of the matter, that since gloves were considered very appropriate gifts and in early days often costly ones, it was thought, perhaps, that le gal prohibition would relieve the judge of the embarrassment of the acceptance of a gift which might be construed or intended as a bribe. In fact so frequent was the giving of gloves indulged in that giving gift-gloves was the term applied to the common practice of presenting gloves in which money was en closed as a bribe or token of thanks for anv
GLOVE OF JAMES 1.
-was neither, therefore not even a menial would unlatch them. So significant of authority and station was the glove that in early times, and indeed until quite late, all officers, civil as well as military, wore gloves. Chambers states that in early days the 'Saxon judges were forbidden to wear gloves on the bench. This fact is to be noted in Speculum Saxon lib. iii. No reason is assigned for this prohibition. The interdiction doubt lessly referred to leather gloves, since a kind of white linen gloves in contradistinction to leather ones is also referred to, but without objection. The origin of this embargo is
attention or services rendered the giver. The prevalence of this custom appears to be a valid cause for the prohibition of judges wearing gloves on the bench. Perhaps the Portuguese proberb Nao traz lavas (he does not wear gloves), may have some bearing upon this question, since it is taken to be an expression of confidence in a person's in tegrity. The following historical incident further tends to show that glove giving and bribery were looked upon as two acts with but one intention: When Prymme was searching the assets of Archbishop Laud, during the latter's incar ceration in the Tower of London, the worthy
