t not without state motives for at
least a part of her extravagance. A brilliant court attracted the upper
classes into the orbit of the Crown while it impressed the whole country
with the sovereign's power. Courtiers favored with monopolies had to
spend their earnings when the state was threatened. And might not the
Queen's vast profusion of jewelry be turned to account at a pinch?
Elizabeth could not afford to be generous when she was young. She grew
to be stingy when she was old. But she saved the state by sound finance
as well as by arms in spite of all her pomps and vanities. She had three
thousand dresses, and gorgeous ones at that, during the course of her
reign. Her bathroom was wainscoted with Venetian mirrors so that she
could see 'nine-and-ninety' reflections of her very comely person as
she dipped and splashed or dried her royal skin. She set a hot pace for
all the votaries of dress to follow. All kinds of fashions came in from
abroad with the rush of new-found wealth; and so, instead of being
sanely beautiful, they soon became insanely bizarre. 'An Englishman,'
says Harrison, 'endeavouring to write of our attire, gave over his
travail, and only drew the picture of a naked man, since he could find
no kind of garment that could please him any whiles together.

I am an English man and naked I stand here,
Musing in my mind what raiment I shall were;
For now I will were this, and now I will were that;
And now I will were I cannot tell what.

Except you see a dog in a doublet you shall not see any so disguised as
are my countrymen of England. Women also do far exceed the lightness of
our men. What shall I say of their galligascons to bear out their attire
and make it fit plum round?' But the wives of 'citizens and burgesses,'
like all _nouveaux riches_, were still more bizarre than the courtiers.
'They cannot tell when or how to make an end, being women in whom all
kind of curiosity is to be seen in far greater measure than in women of
higher calling. I might name hues devised for the nonce, ver d'oye
'twixt green and yallow, peas-porridge tawny, popinjay blue, and the
Devil-in-the-head.'

Yet all this crude absurdity, 'from the courtier to the carter,' was the
glass reflecting the constantly increasing sea-borne trade, ever pushing
farther afield under the stimulus and protection of the sea-dogs. And
the Queen took precious good care that it all paid toll to her treasury
through the customs, so th