Edward IV.}]

A long gown, in shape like a monk's habit, wide sleeves, the same
width all the way down, a loose neck--a garment indeed to put on over
the head, to slip on for comfort and warmth--was quite a marked
fashion in the streets--as marked as the little tunic.

[Illustration: {Twelve types of head-gear for men}]

If you are remembering Caxton's shop and a crowd of gentlemen, notice
one in a big fur hat, which comes over his eyes; and see also a man
who has wound a strip of cloth about his neck and over his head, then,
letting one end hang down, has clapped his round, steeple-crowned hat
over it.

You will see high collars, low collars, and absence of collar, long
gown open to the waist, long gown without opening, short-skirted
tunic, tunic without any skirt, long, short, and medium shoes, and, at
the end of the reign, one or two broad-toed shoes. Many of these men
would be carrying sticks; most of them would have their fingers
covered with rings.

Among the group of gentlemen about Edward some merchants have pressed
closer to see the King, and a girl or two has stolen into the front
row. The King, turning to make a laughing remark to one of his
courtiers, will see a roguish, pretty face behind him--the face of a
merchant's wife; he will smile at her in a meaning way.

THE WOMEN

[Illustration: {A head-dress for a woman}]

France, at this date, shows us a sartorial Savonarola, by name Thomas
Conecte, a preaching friar, who held an Anti-Hennin Crusade, which
ended in a bonfire of these steeple head-dresses. The flames of these
peculiar hats lit up the inspired devotees, and showed their heads
wrapped in plain linen wimples or some little unaffected caps. But the
ashes were hardly cold before the gray light of the next day showed
the figure of the dreaded preacher small upon the horizon, and lit
upon the sewing-maids as they sat making fresh steeples for the
adornment of their ladies' heads.

Joan of Arc is dead, and another very different apparition of
womankind looms out of the mists of history. Whilst Joan of Arc is
hymned and numbered among the happy company of saints triumphant, Jane
Shore is roared in drinking-songs and ballads of a disreputable order,
and is held up as an awful example. She has for years been represented
upon the boards of West End and Surrey-side theatres--in her prime as
the mistress of Edward IV., in her penance before the church door, and
in her poverty and starvation,