ence, saying that he was within his rights, and
that no judge could compel him to come before a jury.

This was held to be good and within the law, so Abraham Thornton won
his case, as the brother refused to pick up the gauntlet. The scandal
of this procedure caused the abolishment of the trial by battle, which
had remained in the country's laws from the time of Henry II. until
1819.

It was a time of foreign war and improvement in military armour and
arms. Richard I. favoured the cross-bow, and brought it into general
use in England to be used in conjunction with the old 4-foot bow and
the great bow 6 feet long with the cloth-yard arrow--a bow which could
send a shaft through a 4-inch door.

For some time this military movement, together with the influence of
the East, kept England from any advance or great change in costume;
indeed, the Orientalism reached a pitch in the age of Henry III.
which, so far as costume is concerned, may be called the Age of
Draperies.

To recall such a time in pictures, one must then see visions of
loose-tuniced men, with heavy cloaks; of men in short tunics with
sleeves tight or loose at the wrists; of hoods with capes to them, the
cape-edge sometimes cut in a round design; of soft leather boots and
shoes, the boots reaching to the calf of the leg. To see in the
streets bright Oriental colours and cloaks edged with broad bands of
pattern; to see hooded heads and bared heads on which the hair was
long; to see many long-bearded men; to see old men leaning on
tan-handled sticks; the sailor in a cap or coif tied under his chin;
the builder, stonemason, and skilled workman in the same coif; to see,
as a whole, a brilliant shifting colour scheme in which armour gleamed
and leather tunics supplied a dull, fine background. Among these one
might see, at a town, by the shore, a thief of a sailor being carried
through the streets with his head shaven, tarred and feathered.

THE WOMEN

[Illustration: {A woman of the time of Richard I.; a pouch}]

It is difficult to describe an influence in clothes.

It is difficult nowadays to say in millinery where Paris begins and
London accepts. The hint of Paris in a gown suggests taste; the whole
of Paris in a gown savours of servile imitation.

No well-dressed Englishwoman should, or does, look French, but she may
have a subtle cachet of France if she choose.

The perfection of art is to conceal the means to the end; the
perfection of dress is t