oaks and mantles of homespun
material. The hood has not fallen out of use for women, and the peaked
hat surmounts it for riding or rough weather. Ladies wear wooden clogs
or sandals besides their shoes, and they have not yet taken to the
horns upon their heads; some few of them, the great dames of the
counties whose lords have been to London on King's business, or
returned from France with new ideas, have donned the elaborate
business of head-boxes and wires and great wimples.

As one of the ladies rides in the country lanes, she may pass that
Augustine convent where Dame Petronilla is spiritual Mother to so
many, and may see her in Agincourt year keeping her pig-tally with
Nicholas Swon, the swineherd. They may see some of the labourers she
hires dressed in the blood-red cloth she has given them, for the
dyeing of which she paid 7s. 8d. for 27 ells. The good dame's nuns are
very neat; they have an allowance of 6s. 8d. a year for dress.

This is in 1415. No doubt next year my lady, riding through the lanes,
will meet some sturdy beggar, who will whine for alms, pleading that
he is an old soldier lately from the field of Agincourt.

NOTE

As there is so little real change, for drawings of women's dress see
the numerous drawings in previous chapter.

HENRY THE SIXTH

Reigned thirty-nine years: 1422-1461.

Born 1421. Dethroned 1461. Died 1471. Married, 1446,
Margaret of Anjou.

THE MEN

[Illustration: {A man of the time of Henry VI.; two types of sleeve}]

What a reign! Was history ever better dressed?

I never waver between the cardboard figures of the great Elizabethan
time and this reign as a monument to lavish display, but if any time
should beat this for quaintness, colour, and variety, it is the time
of Henry VIII.

Look at the scenes and characters to be dressed: John, Duke of
Bedford, the Protector, Joan of Arc, Jack Cade, a hundred other
people; Crevant, Verneuil, Orleans, London Bridge, Ludlow, St.
Albans, and a hundred other historical backgrounds.

Yet, in spite of all this, in spite of the fact that Joan of Arc is
one of the world's personalities, it is difficult to pick our people
out of the tapestries.

Now, you may have noticed that in trying to recreate a period in your
mind certain things immediately swing into your vision: it is
difficult to think of the Conquest without the Bayeux tapestry; it is
difficult to think of the dawn of the sixteenth century without t