after the new guise a French cloake scarce reaching to the wast, a long beaked doublet hanging downe to his thies, & an high paire of silke netherstocks that couered all his buttocks and loignes the Councellor marueled to see him in that sort disguised, and otherwise than he had binwoont to be.  Sir quoth the Gentleman to excuse it:  if I should not be able whan I had need to pisse out of my doublet, and to do the rest in my netherstocks (vsing the plaine terme) all men would say that I was but a lowte, the Councellor laughed hartily at the absurditie of the speech, but what those sower fellows of Rome haue said trowe ye? truly in mine opinion, that all such persons as take pleasure to shew their limbes, specially those that natures hath commanded out of sight, should be inioyned either to go starke naked, or else to resort backe to the comely and modest fashion of their owne countrie apparel, vsed by their old honourable auncestors.

And there is a decency of apparel in respect of the place where it is to be vsed:  in the Court to be richely apparelled:  in the countrey to weare more plain & homely garments.  For who would not thinke it a ridiculous thing to see a Lady in her milke-house with a velvet gowne, and at a bridal in her cassock of mockado:  a Gentleman of the Countrey among the bushes and briers, goes in a pounced dublet and a paire of embroidered hosen, the the Cities to weare a fries Ierkin and a paire of leather breeches? yet some such phantasticals haue I knowen, and one a certaine knight, of all other the most vaine, who commonly would come to the Sessions, and other ordinarie meetings and Commissions in the Countrey, so bedect with buttons and aglets of gold and such costly embroideries, as the poore plaine men of the Countrey called him for his gaynesse, the golden knight.  Another for the like cause was called Saint Sunday; I thinke at this day they be so farre spent, as either of them would be content with a good cloath cloake:  and this came by want of discretion, to discerne and deeme right of decencie, which many Gentlemen doe wholly limite by the person or degree where reason doeth it by the place and presence:  which may be such as it might very well become a great Prince to wear courser apparel than in another place or presence a meaner person.

Neuerthelesse in the vse of a garment many occasions alter the decencies, sometimes the qualities of the person, sometimes of the case, otherwise the countrie custome, and often the constitution of lawes, and the very nature of vse it selfe.  As for example a king and prince may vse rich and gorgeous apparel decently so cannot a meane person doo, yet if an herald of armes to whom a king giueth his gowne of cloth of gold, or to whom it was incident as a fee of his office, do were the same, he doth it decently, because such hath alwaise bene th’allowances of heraldes:  but if such herald haue worne out, or sold, or lost that gowne, to buy him a new of the like stuffe with his owne mony and to weare it, is not decent in the eye and iudgement of them that know it.