y violated professional usage.

Whitelock's speech seems to have been made shortly before the bar
accepted the falling-band as an article of dress admissible in courts of
law. Towards the close of Charles's reign, such bands were very
generally worn in Westminster Hall by the gentlemen of the long robe;
and after the Restoration, a barrister would as soon have thought of
appearing at the King's Bench without his gown as without his band.
Unlike the bar-bands of the present time--which are lappets of fine
lawn, of simple make--the bands worn by Charles II.'s lawyers were
dainty and expensive articles, such as those which Peacham exclaimed
against in the preceding reign. At that date the Templar in prosperous
circumstances had his bands made entirely of point lace, or of fine lawn
edged with point lace; and as he wore them in society as well as in
court, he was constantly requiring a fresh supply of them. Few accidents
were more likely to ruffle a Templar's equanimity than a mishap to his
band occurring through his own inadvertence or carelessness on the part
of a servant. At table the pieces of delicate lace-work were exposed to
many dangers. Continually were they stained with wine or soiled with
gravy, and the young lawyer was deemed a marvel of amiability who could
see his point lace thus defiled and abstain from swearing. "I remember,"
observes Roger North, when he is showing the perfect control in which
his brother Francis kept his temper, at his table a stupid servant spilt
a glass of red wine upon his point band and clothes. "He only wiped his
face and clothes with the napkin, and 'Here,' said he, 'take this away;'
and no more."

In 'The London Spy,' Ned Ward shows that during Queen Anne's reign legal
practitioners of the lowest sort were particular to wear bands.
Describing the pettifogger, Ward says, "He always talks with as great
assurance as if he understood what he pretends to know; and always wears
a band, in which lies his gravity and wisdom." At the same period a
brisk trade was carried on in Westminster Hall by the sempstresses who
manufactured bands and cuffs, lace ruffles, and lawn kerchiefs for the
grave counsellors and young gallants of the Inns of Court. "From
thence," says the author of 'The London Spy', "we walked down by the
sempstresses, who were very nicely digitising and pleating turnsovers
and ruffles for the young students, and coaxing them with amorous looks,
obliging cant, and inviting gest