ansitional period of clothes, for it
contains the ragged ends of the time of Richard II. and the old
clothes of the time of Henry IV., and it contains the germs of a
definite fashion, a marked change which came out of the chrysalis
stage, and showed itself in the prosperous butterflies of the sixth
Henry's time.

We retain the houppelande, its curtailments, its exaggerations, its
high and low collar, its plain or jagged sleeves. We retain the long
hair, which 'busheth pleasauntlie,' and the short hair of the
previous reign. Also we see the new ideas for the priest-cropped hair
and the roundlet hat.

I speak of the men only.

It was as if, in the press of French affairs, man had but time to
ransack his grandfather's and his father's chests, and from thence to
pull out a garment or two at a venture. If the garment was a little
worn in the upper part of the sleeve, he had a slash made there, and
embroidered it round. If the baldrick hung with bells was worn out in
parts, he cut those pieces away and turned the baldrick into a belt.
If the skirts of the houppelande were sadly frayed at the edge, enter
Scissors again to cut them off short; perhaps the sleeves were
good--well, leave them on; perhaps the skirts were good and the
sleeves soiled--well, cut out the sleeves and pop in some of his
father's bag sleeves. Mind you, my honest gentleman had trouble
brewing: no sooner had he left the wars in Normandy and Guienne than
the siege of Harfleur loomed to his vision, and after that
Agincourt--Agincourt, where unarmoured men prevailed over mailed
knights at the odds of six to one; Agincourt, where archers beat the
great knights of France on open ground! Hear them hammer on the
French armour with their steel mallets, while the Frenchmen, weighed
down with their armour, sank knee-deep in the mud--where we lost 100
men, against the French loss of 10,000!

[Illustration: A Belt with Bells.]

See the port of Le Havre, with the English army landed there--Henry in
his full-sleeved gown, his hair cropped close and shaven round his
head from his neck to an inch above his ears, buskins on his feet, for
he wore buskins in preference to long boots or pointed shoes. The
ships in the harbour are painted in gay colours--red, blue, in
stripes, in squares; the sails are sewn with armorial bearings or some
device. Some of our gentlemen are wearing open houppelandes over their
armour; some wear the stuffed turban on their heads, with a je