The following appears at the end of the notes to Henry IV Part 1 in Johnson's and Steevens' 2nd edition (1778) of the works of Shakespeare. It is also included in its entirety in the Rev. Edward Hinchliffes' "Barthomley: in letters from a former rector to his eldest son" (1856). It is reproduced here by permission of The British Library, which asserts its ownership of the copyright in it.
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MR. TOLLET’S OPINION CONCERNING THE MORRIS DANCERS UPON HIS WINDOW.
The celebration of May-day, which is represented upon my window of painted glass, is a very ancient custom that has been observed by noble and royal personages, as well as by the vulgar. It is mentioned in Chaucer’s Court of Love that, early on May-day, “furth goth al the court, both most and lest, to fetch the flouris fresh, and braunch, and blome.”
Historians record that, in the beginning of his reign, Henry the Eighth, with his courtiers, “rose on May-day, very early, to fetch May or green boughs; and they went with their bows and arrows shooting to the wood.”
Stowe’s Survey of London informs us, that “every parish there, or two or three parishes joining together, had their Mayings; and did fetch in May-poles, with divers warlike shews, with good archers, Morrice dancers, and other devices, for pastime all the day long.”
Shakspere says, “it was impossible to make the people sleep on May morning, and that they rose early to observe the rite of May.”
[Footnote: Henry VIII, act v, scene 3; and Midsummer Night’s Dream, act iv, scene 1.]
The court of King James the first, and the populace, long preserved the observance of the day, as Spelman’s Glossary remarks under the word ‘Maiuma’.
Better judges may decide that the institution of this festivity originated from the Roman Floralia, or from the Celtic la Beltine, while I conceive it derived to us from our Gothic ancestors. Olaus Magnus de Gentibus Septentrionalibus, lib. xv, c. 8, says that “after their long winter, from the beginning of October to the end of April, the northern nations have a custom to welcome the returning splendour of the sun with dancing, and mutually to feast each other, rejoicing that a better season for fishing and hunting was approached.”
In honour of May-day, the Goths and southern Swedes, had a mock battle between summer and winter, which ceremony is retained in the Isle of Man; where the Danes and Norwegians had been for a long time masters.
It appears from Holinshed’s Chronicle, vol. iii, p 314, or in the year 1306, that, before that time, in country towns the young folks chose a summer king and queen for sport to dance about May-poles. There can be no doubt but their Majesties had proper attendants, or such as would best divert the spectators; and we may presume, that some of the characters varied, as fashions and customs altered.
About half a century afterwards, a great addition seems to have been made to the diversion, by the introduction of the Morris, or Moorish dance into it, which, as Mr. Peck, in his Memoirs of Milton, with great probability, conjectures, was first brought into England in the time of Edw. III, when John of Gaunt returned from Spain, where he had been to assist Peter, king of Castile, against Henry, the Bastard. “This dance,” says Mr. Peck, “was usually performed abroad by an equal number of young men, who danced in their shirts, with ribbands, and little bells about their legs. But here, in England, they have always an odd person besides, being a boy, dressed in a girl’s habit, whom they call Maid Marian, an old favourite character in the sport.”
[Footnote: It is evident, from several authors, that Maid Marian’s part was frequently performed by a young woman, and often by one, as I think, of unsullied reputation. Our Marian’s deportment is decent and graceful.]
“Thus,” as he observes in the words of Shakspeare, “they made more matter for a May-morning : having, as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a Morris for May-day.”
[Footnote: Twelfth Night, act iii, scene 4. All’s Well that Ends Well, act ii, scene 2.]
We are authorised by the poets, Ben Jonson and Drayton, to call some of the representations on my window, Morris Dancers, though I am uncertain whether it exhibits one Moorish personage, as none of them have black or tawny faces, nor do they brandish swords, or staves in their hands, nor are they, in their shirts, adorned with ribbons.
[Footnote: In the Morisco the dancers held swords in their hands with the points upward, says Dr. Johnson’s note in Antony and Cleopatra, act. iii, scene 9. The Goths did the same in their military dance, says Olaus Magnus, lib. xv, c. 23. Haydocke’s translation of Lomazzo on Painting, 1598, book ii, p 54, says “there are other actions of dancing used, as of those who are represented, with weapons in their hands, going round in a ring, capering skilfully, shaking their weapons after the manner of the Morris, with divers actions of meeting," &c. "Others having Morris bells upon their ankles.”]
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We find in Olaus Magnus, that the northern nations danced with brass bells about their knees, and such we have upon several of these figures, who may, perhaps, be the original English performers in a May-game before the introduction of the real Morris dance. However this may be, the window exhibits a favourite diversion of our ancestors in all its principal parts. I shall endeavour to explain some of the characters, and in compliment to the lady, I will begin the description with the front rank, in which she is stationed. I am fortunate enough to have Mr. Steevens think with me, that figure 1 may be designed for the Bavian fool, or the fool with the slabbering bib, as Bavon, in Cotgraves’ French Dictionary, means a bib for a slabbering child; and this figure has such a bib, and a childish simplicity in his countenance. Mr. Steevens refers to a passage in Beaumont and Fletcher’s play of The two Noble Kinsmen, by which it appears that the Bavian in the Morris dance was a tumbler, and mimicked the barking of a dog. I apprehend that several of the Morris dancers on my window tumbled occasionally, and exerted the chief feat of their activity, when they were aside the May-pole; and, I apprehend, that jigs, horn-pipes, and the hay were their chief dances. It will certainly be tedious to describe the colours of the dresses, but the task is attempted upon an intimation, that it might not be altogether unacceptable. The Bavian’s cap is red faced with yellow, his bib yellow, his doublet blue, his hose red, and his shoes black. |
Figure 2 is the celebrated Maid Marian, who, as Queen of May, has a golden crown on her head, and in her left hand a flower, as the emblem of summer. The flower seems designed for a red pink, but the pointals are omitted by the engraver, who copied from a drawing with the like mistake. Olaus Magnus mentions the artificial raising of flowers for the celebration of May-day; and the supposition of the like practice here, will account for the Queen of May having in her hand any particular flower before the season of its natural production in this climate.
[Footnote: Markham’s translation of Heresbatch’s Husbandry, 1631, observes that “gilliflowers, set in pots and carried into vaults or cellars, have flowered all the winter long, through the warmness of the place.”]
Her vesture was once fashionable in the highest degree. It was anciently the custom for maiden ladies to wear their hair dishevelled at their coronations, their nuptials, and, perhaps, on all splendid solemnities.
[Footnote: Leland’s Collectanea, 1770, vol. iv, pp. 219, 293, vol. v, p 332, and Holinshed, vol. iii, pp. 801, 931; and see Capilli, in Spelman’s Glossary.]
Margaret, the eldest daughter of Henry VII, was married to James, king of Scotland, with the crown upon her head: her hair hanging down. Betwixt the crown and the hair was a very rich coif, hanging down behind, the whole length of the body. This single example sufficiently explains the dress of Marian’s head. Her coif is purple, her surcoat blue, her cuffs white, the skirts of her robe yellow, the sleeves of a carnation. colour, and her stomacher red with yellow lace in cross bars. In Shakspeare’s play of Henry VIII, Anne Bullen, at her coronation, is in her hair, or, as Holinshed says, “her hair hanged down”, but on her head she had a coif, with a circlet about it full of rich stones.
Figure 3 is a friar in the full clerical tonsure, with the chaplet of white and red beads in his right hand; and, expressive of his professed humility, his eyes are cast upon the ground. His corded girdle, and his russet habit, denote him to be of the Franciscan order, or one of the grey friars, as they were commonly called from the colour of their apparel, which was a russet, or a brown russet, as Holinshed, 1586, vol. iii, p 789, observes.
The mixture of colours in his habit may be resembled to a grey cloud, faintly tinged with red by the beams of the rising sun, and streaked with black. And such, perhaps, was Shakspeare’s aurora, or “the morn in russet mantle clad.” Hamlet, act i, scene 1.
The friar’s stockings are red, his girdle is ornamented with a golden twist, and with a golden tassel.
[Footnote: Splendid girdles appear to have been a great article of monastic finery. Wykeham, in his Visitatio Notabilis, prohibits the Canons of Selborne, any longer wearing silken girdles ornamented with gold or silver.]
At his girdle hangs a wallet for the reception of provision, the only revenue of the mendicant orders of religious, who were named ‘Walleteers’, or ‘Budget-bearers’. It was customary, in former times, for the priest and people, in procession, to go to some adjoining wood on May-day morning, and return in a sort of triumph with a May-pole, boughs, flowers, garlands, and such-like tokens of the spring; and as the grey friars were held in very great esteem, perhaps, on this occasion, their attendance was frequently requested.
[Footnote: See Maii Inductio, in Cowel’s Law Dictionary. When the parish priests were inhibited by the Diocesan to assist in the May-games, the Franciscans might give attendance, as being exempted from episcopal jurisdiction.]
Most of Shakspeare’s friars are Franciscans. Mr. Steevens ingeniously suggests, that, as Marian was the name of Robin Hood’s beloved mistress, and she was the Queen of May, the Morris friar was designed for Friar Tuck, chaplain to Robin Hood, king of May, as Robin Hood is styled in Sir David Dalrymple’s extracts from the book of the Universal Kirk, in the year 1576.
Figure 4 has been taken to be Marian’s Gentleman-usher. Mr. Steevens considers him as Marian’s paramour, who, in delicacy, appears uncovered before her; and, as it was a custom for betrothed persons to wear some mark for a token of their mutual engagement, he thinks that the cross-shaped flower on the head of this figure, and the flower in Marian’s hand, denote their espousals, or contract. Spenser’s Shepherd’s Calendar, April, specifies the flowers worn of paramours to be the pink, the purple columbine, gilliflowers, carnations, and sops in wine. I suppose the flower in Marian’s hand to be a pink, and this to be a stock-gilliflower; or, the Hesperis, dame’s violet, or queen’s gilliflower; but, perhaps, it may be designed for an ornamental ribbon. An eminent botanist apprehends the flower upon the man’s head to be an epimedium.
Many particulars of this figure resemble Absolon, the parish clerk in Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale, such as his curled and golden hair, his kirtle of watchet, his red hose, and Paul’s windows corvin on his shoes, that is, his shoes pinked and cut into holes like the windows of St. Paul’s ancient church. My window plainly exhibits upon his right thigh a yellow scrip or pouch, in which he might, as treasurer to the company, put the collected pence, which he might receive, though the cordelier must, by the rules of his order, carry no money about him.
If this figure should not be allowed to be a parish clerk, I incline to call him Hocus Pocus, or some juggler-attendant upon the master of the hobby-horse, as ‘faire des tours de (jouer de la) gibecière’, in Boyer’s French Dictionary, signifies to play tricks by virtue of Hocus Pocus. His red stomacher has a yellow lace, and his shoes are yellow. Ben Jonson mentions ‘Hokos Pokos in a juggler’s jerkin,’ which Skinner derives from kirtlekin; that is, a short kirtle; and such seems to be the coat of this figure.
Figure 5 is the famous hobby-horse, who was often forgotten, or disused in the Morris dance, even after Maid Marian, the friar, and the fool were continued in it, as is intimated by Ben Jonson’s masque of the Metamorphosed Gipsies; and in his Entertainment of the Queen and Prince at Althorpe
[Footnote:
Vol. vi, p 93, of Whalley’s edition, 1756 :
Clo. They should be Morris dancers by their gingle, but they have no napkins.
Coc. No, nor a hobby-horse.
Clo. Oh, he’s ‘often’ forgotten, that’s no rule; but there is no Maid Marian, nor friar amongst them, which is the surer mark.
Vol. v, p 211:
But see, the hobby-horse is forgot.
Fool, it must be your lot,
To supply his want with faces,
And some other buffoon graces."]
Our hobby is a spirited horse of pasteboard, on which the master dances, and displays tricks of legerdemain; such as the threading of the needle, the mimicking of the whigh-hie, and the daggers in the nose, &c., as Ben Jonson, edition 1756, vol. i, p 171, acquaints us, and thereby explains the swords in the man’s cheeks.
[Footnote: Dr. Plott’s History of Staffordshire, p 434, mentions a dance by a hobby-horse and six others.]
What is stuck in the horse’s mouth I apprehend to be a ladle, ornamented with a ribbon. Its use was to receive the spectators’ pecuniary donations.
The crimson foot-cloth, fretted with gold, the golden bit, the purple bridle with a golden tassel, and studded with gold; the man’s purple mantle with a golden border, which is latticed with purple, his golden crown, purple cap with a red feather, and with a golden knop, induce me to think him to be the king of May, though he now appears as a juggler and a buffoon. We are to recollect the simplicity of ancient times, which knew not polite literature, and delighted in jesters, tumblers, jugglers, and pantomimes. The emperor Lewis the Debonair not only sent for such actors upon great festivals, but, out of complaisance to the people, was obliged to assist at their plays, though he was averse to publick shews. Queen Elizabeth was entertained at Kenilworth with Italian tumblers, Morris dancers, &c.
The colour of the hobby-horse is a reddish white, like the beautiful blossom of the peach-tree. The man’s coat or doublet is the only one upon the window that has buttons upon it, and the right side of it is yellow, and the left red. Such a parti-coloured jacket, and hose in the like manner, were occasionally fashionable from Chaucer’s days to Ben Jonson’s, who, in Epigram 73, speaks of ‘a partie-per-pale picture, one-half drawn in solemn Cyprus, the other in Cobweb-Lawn.’
[Footnote: Holinshed, 1586, vol. iii, pp. 326, 805, 812, 844, 963. Whalley’s edition of Ben Jonson, vol. vi, p 248. Stowe’s Survey of London, 1720, book v, pp. 164,166. Urry’s Chaucer, p 198.]
Figure 6 seems to be a clown, peasant, or yeoman, by his brown visage, notted hair, and robust limbs.
[Footnote: So, in Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’, the yeoman is thus described:
"A nott hede had he, with a brown visage."
Again, in the ‘Widow’s Tears,’ by Chapman, 1612:
"Your not-headed country gentleman."]
In Beaumont and Fletcher’s play of ‘The Two Noble Kinsmen, a clown is placed next to the Bavian fool in the Morris dance; and this figure is next to him on the file or in the downward line. His bonnet is red, faced with yellow, his jacket red, his sleeves yellow, striped across or rayed with red, the upper part of his hose is like the sleeves, and the lower part is a coarse deep purple, his shoes red.
Figure 7, by the superior neatness of his dress, may be a franklin or a gentleman of fortune. His hair is curled, his bonnet purple, his doublet red with gathered sleeves, and his yellow-stomacher is laced with red. His hose red, striped across or rayed with a whitish brown, and spotted brown. His codpiece is yellow, and so are his shoes.
Figure 8, the May-pole, is painted yellow and black in spiral lines. Spelman’s ‘Glossary’ mentions the custom of erecting a tall May-pole, painted with various colours. Shakspeare, in the play of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, act iii, scene 2, speaks of a painted May-pole. Upon our pole are displayed St. George’s red cross, or the banner of England, and a white pennon or streamer emblazoned with a red cross, terminating like the blade of a sword, but the delineation thereof is much faded. It is plain, however, from an inspection of the window, that the upright line of the cross, which is disunited in the engraving, should be continuous.
[Footnote: St. James was the apostle and patron of Spain, and the knights of his order were the most honourable there, and the ensign that they wore, was white, charged with a red cross in the form of a sword. The pennon, or streamer, upon the May-pole, seems to contain such a cross. If this conjecture be admitted, we have the banner of England, and the ensign of Spain upon the May-pole; and, perhaps, from this circumstance we may infer, that the glass was painted during the marriage of King Henry VIII and Katharine of Spain. For an account of the Ensign of the Knights of St. James, see Ashmole’s ‘History of the Order of the Garter’, and ‘Mariana’s History of Spain’.]
Keysler, in p 78, of his ‘Northern and Celtic Antiquities’, give us, perhaps, the original of May-poles; and that the French used to erect them, appears also from Mezeray’s ‘History of their king Henry IV,’ and from a passage in Stowe’s ‘Chronicle,’ in the year 1560. Mr. Theobald and Dr. Warburton acquaint us, that the May games, and particularly some of the characters in them, became exceptionable to the puritanical humour of former times. By an ordinance of the Rump Parliament, in April, 1644, all May-poles were taken down and removed by the constables and churchwardens, &c. After the restoration they were permitted to be erected again. I apprehend they are now generally unregarded and unfrequented: but we still, on May-day, adorn our doors in the country with flowers and the boughs of birch, which tree was especially honoured on the same festival by our Gothic ancestors.
To prove figure 9 to be Tom the Piper, Mr. Steevens has very happily quoted these lines from Drayton’s third eclogue:-
“Myself above Tom Piper to advance,
Who so bestirs him in the Morris dance
For penny wage.”
His tabour, tabour-stick and pipe, attest his profession; the feather in his cap, his sword, and silver-tinctured shield, may denote him to be a squire minstrel, or a minstrel of the superior order. Chaucer, 1721, p 181, says: “Minstrels used a red hat”. Tom Piper’s bonnet is red, faced or turned up with yellow, his doublet blue, the sleeves blue, turned up with yellow, something like red muffetees at his wrists, over his doublet is a red garment, like a short cloak, with arm holes, and with a yellow cape, his hose red, and garnished across, and perpendicularly on the thighs, with a narrow yellow lace. This ornamental trimming seems to be called gimp-thigh’d, in Grey’s edition of ‘Butler’s Hudibras’, and something almost similar occurs in ‘Love’s Labour Lost’, act iv, scene 2, where the poet mentions, “Rhimes are guards on wanton Cupid’s hose”. His shoes are brown.
Figures 10 and 11 have been thought to be Flemings or Spaniards, and the latter a Morisco. The bonnet of figure 10 is red, turned up with blue, his jacket red, with red sleeves down the arms, his stomacher white, with a red lace, his hose yellow, striped across or rayed with blue, and spotted blue, the under part of his hose blue, his shoes are pinked, and they are of a light colour; I am at a loss to name the pennant-like slips waving from his shoulders, but I will venture to call them side-sleeves, or long-sleeves, slit into two or three parts.
The poet Hocclive, or Occleve, about the reign of Richard II, or of Henry IV, mentions side-sleeves of penny-less grooms, which swept the ground; and do not the two following quotations infer the use or fashion of two pair of sleeves upon one gown or doublet? It is asked in the appendix to Bulwer’s ‘Artificial Changeling’: “What use is there of any other than arming sleeves, which answer the proportion of the arm?” In ‘Much ado about Nothing,’ act iii, scene 4, a lady’s gown is described with down-sleeves, and side-sleeves, that is, as I conceive it, with sleeves down the arms, and with another pair of sleeves, slit open before from the shoulder to the bottom, or almost to the bottom, and, by this means, unsustained by the arms, and hanging down by her sides to the ground, or as low as her gown.
If such sleeves were slit downwards into four parts, they would be quartered; and Holinshed says: “that at a royal mummery, Henry VIII and fifteen others appeared in Almain jackets, with long quartered sleeves”; and I consider the bipartite, or tripartite sleeves of figures 10 and 11 as only a small variation of that fashion.
Mr. Steevens thinks the winged sleeves of figures 10 and 11 are alluded to in Beaumont and Fletcher in the ‘Pilgrim’ :-
“That fairy rogue that haunted me,
He has sleeves like dragon’s wings.”
And he thinks, that from these, perhaps, the fluttering streamers of the present Morris dancers in Sussex may be derived. Markham’s ‘Art of Angling’, 1635, orders the angler’s apparel to be “without hanging sleeves, waving loose, like sails.”
Figure 11 has upon his head a silver coronet, a purple cap with a red feather, and with a golden knop. In my opinion, he personates a nobleman, for I incline to think that various ranks of life were meant to be represented upon my window. He has a post of honour, or “a station in the valued” file, which here seems to be the middle row, and which, according to my conjecture, comprehends the queen, the king. the May-pole, and the nobleman.
[Footnote: The right hand file is the first in dignity and account, or in degree of value; according to Count Mansfield’s ‘Directions of War, 1621’.]
The golden crown upon the head of the master of the hobby-horse denotes pre-eminence of rank over figure 11, not only by the greater value of the metal, but by the superior number of points raised upon it.
[Footnote: The ancient kings of France wore gilded helmets; the dukes and counts wore silvered ones. See Selden’s ‘Titles of honour for the raised points of Coronets’.]
The shoes are blackish, the hose red, striped across, or rayed with brown, or with a darker red, his cod-piece yellow, his doublet yellow, with yellow side-sleeves, and red arming-sleeves, or down sleeves. The form of his doublet is remarkable. There is great variety in the dresses and attitudes of the Morris dancers on the window, but an ocular observation will give a more accurate idea of this, and of other particulars, than a verbal description.
Figure 12 is the counterfeit fool, that was kept in the royal palace, and in all great houses, to make sport for the family. He appears with all the badges of his office: the bauble in his hand, and a coxcomb hood with ass’s ears on his head. The top of the hood rises into the form of a cock’s neck and head, with a bell at the latter; and Minshew’s ‘Dictionary, 1627’, under the word ‘coxcomb,’ observes, that “natural idiots and fools have [accustomed,] and still do accustome themselves to weare in their cappes cocke’s feathers, or a hat with a necke and a head of a cocke on the top, and a bell thereon,’ &c.
His hood is blue, guarded or edged with yellow at its scalloped bottom, his doublet is red, striped across or rayed with deeper red, and edged with yellow, his girdle yellow, his left side hose yellow, with a red shoe, and his right side hose blue, soled with red leather. Stowe’s Chronicle, 1614, p 899, mentions a pair of cloth-stockings, soled with white leather, called “cashambles”, that is, “Chausses semelles de cuir”, as Mr. Anstis, on the Knighthood of the Bath, observes.
The fool’s bauble, and the carved head with ass’s ears upon it, are all yellow. There is in Olaus Magnus, 1555, p 524, a delineation of a fool, or jester, with several bells upon his habit, with a bauble in his hand, and he has on his head a hood with ass’s ears, a feather, and the resemblance of the comb of a cock. Such jesters seem to have been, formerly, much caressed by the northern nations, especially in the court of Denmark; and, perhaps, our ancient ‘joculator regis’, might mean such a person.
A gentleman of the highest class in historical literature apprehends, that the representation upon my window is that of a Morris dance procession about a May-pole; and he inclines to think, yet, with many doubts of its propriety in a modern painting, that the personages in it rank in the boustrophedon form. By this arrangement, says he, the piece seems to form a regular whole, and the train is begun and ended by a fool in the following manner:
Figure 12 is the well-known fool,Figure 11 is a Morisco, and
Figure 10 a Spaniard, persons peculiarly pertinent to the Morris dance; and he remarks that the Spaniard obviously forms a sort of middle term betwixt the Moorish and the English characters, having the great fantastical sleeve of the one, and the laced stomacher of the other.
Figure 9 is Tom the Piper,
Figure 8 the May-pole.
Then follow the English characters, representing, as he apprehends, the five great ranks of civil life.
Figure 7 is the franklin, or private gentleman.Figure 6 is a plain churl or villane.
He takes figure 5, the man within the hobby horse, to be, perhaps, a Moorish king, and, from many circumstances of superior grandeur, plainly pointed out as the greatest personage of the piece, the monarch of the May, and the intended consort of our English Maid Marian.
Figure 4 is a nobleman.
Figure 3 the friar, the representative of all the clergy.
Figure 2 is Maid Marian, queen of May.
Figure 1, the lesser fool, closes the rear.
My description commences where this concludes, or I have reversed this gentleman’s arrangement, by which, in either way, the train begins and ends with a fool; but I will not assert that such a disposition was designedly observed by the painter.
With regard to the antiquity of the painted glass there is no memorial or traditional account transmitted to us; nor is there any date in the room but this, 1621, which is over a door, and which indicates, in my opinion, the year of building the house. The book of ‘Sports, or lawful Recreations upon Sunday after Evening-prayers, and upon Holy-days’. published by king James in 1618, allowed May games, Morris dances, and the setting up of May-poles; and, as Ben Jonson’s ‘Masque of the Metamorphosed Gypsies’ intimates, that Maid Marian and the friar, together with the often forgotten hobby-horse, were sometimes continued in the Morris dance as late as the year 1621.
I once thought that the glass might be stained about that time; but my present objections to this are the following ones: It seems from the prologue to the play of King Henry VIII that Shakspeare’s fools should be dressed “in a long motley coat guarded with yellow”; but the fool upon my window is not so habited, and he has upon his head a hood, which I apprehend might be the coverture of the fool’s head before the days of Shakspeare, when it was a cap with a comb like a cock’s, as both Dr. Warburton and Dr. Johnson assert, and they seem justified in doing so from King Lear’s fool giving Kent his cap, and calling it his cox-comb.
I am uncertain whether any judgment can be formed from the manner of spelling the inscrolled inscription upon the May-pole, upon which is displayed the old banner of England, and not the union flag of Great Britain, or St. George’s red cross and St. Andrew’s white cross joined together, which was ordered by King James in 1606, as Stowe’s Chronicle certifies.
Only one of the doublets has buttons, which I conceive were common in Queen Elizabeth’s reign: nor have any of the figures ruffs, which fashion commenced in the latter days of Henry VIII, and from their want of beards also I am inclined to suppose they were delineated before the year 1535, when “King Henry VIII commanded all about his court to poll their heads, and caused his own to be polled, and his beard to he notted, and no more shaven”. Probably the glass was painted in his youthful days, when he delighted in May-games, unless it may be judged to be of much higher antiquity by almost two centuries.
Such are my conjectures upon a subject of so much obscurity; but it is high time to resign it to one more conversant with the history of our ancient dresses. - Tollet.
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Index of pages on this "Betley Windows" site:
Introduction Original Betley indow Kingston-upon-Thames copy Betley Court copy Alison Bailey copy Ruth Dodworth copy Susan McKenney copy Characters in the Windows Conclusions? Two 19th Century Views of Morris Foreign connections References and Acknowledgements