VI.  Mode of Life, Manners, and Customs

326.  Dress.

Great sums were spent on dress by both sexes, and the courtiers’ doublets, or jackets, were of the most costly silks and velvets, elaborately puffed and slashed.  During the latter part of the period the pointed shoes, which had formerly been of prodigious length, suddenly began to grow broad, with such rapidity that Parliament passed a law limiting the width of the toes to six inches.

At the same time the court ladies adopted the fashion of wearing horns as huge in proportion as the noblemen’s shoes.  The government tried legislating them down, and the clergy fulminated a solemn curse against them; but fashion was more powerful than Church and Parliament combined, and horns and hoofs came out triumphant.

EIGHTH PERIOD[1]

“One half her soil has walked the rest
In poets, heroes, martyrs, sages!”
O. W. Holmes

Political Reaction—­Absolutism of the
Crown—­The English Reformation and the New Learning

Crown or Pope?

House of Tudor (1485-1603)

Henry VII, 1485-1509
Henry VIII, 1509-1547
Edward VI, 1547-1553
Mary, 1553-1558
Elizabeth, 1558-1603

[1] Reference Books on this period will be found in the Classified List of Books in the Appendix.  The pronunciation of names will be found in the Index.  The Leading Dates stand unenclosed; all others are in parentheses.

327.  Union of the Houses of Lancaster and York.

Before leaving the Continent Henry Tudor (S314) had promised the Yorkist party that he would marry Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edward IV (see Genealogical Table, p. 179), and sister to the young Princes murdered by Richard III (S310).  Such a marriage would unite the rival houses of Lancaster and York, and put an end to the civil war.

A few months after the new King’s accession the wedding was duly celebrated, and in the beautiful east window of stained glass in Henry VII’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey, the Roses are seen joined; so that, as the quaint verse of that day says: 

“Both roses flourish—­red and white—­
In love and sisterly delight;
The two that were at strife are blended,
And all old troubles now are ended.”

Peace came from the union, but it was peace interrupted by insurrections which lasted for several years.

Origin of the House of Tudor

Edward III
1 2 3 | 4 5
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| | | | |
Edward William, Lionel, Duke John of Gaunt, Edmund, Duke of York
(the Black no of Clarence, Duke of |
Prince) issue from whom Lancaster /-----------------\
| descended in | Edward, Duke of Richard,
Richard II the fourth Henry IV York,