CLOAKS AND THEIR COUSINS

Under the general heading of cloaks I intend to write of the various capelike shoulder-coverings, for both men and women, which were worn in the two centuries of costume whereof this book treats. Often it is impossible to determine whether a garment should be classed as a hood or a cloak, for so many cloaks were made with head-coverings. Both capuchins and cardinals, garments of popularity for over a century, had hoods, and were worn as head-gear.

There is shown here a full, long cloak of rich scarlet broadcloth, which is the oldest cloak I know. It has an interesting and romantic history. No relic in Salem is more noteworthy than this. It has survived since witchcraft days; and with right care, care such as it receives from its present owner, will last a thousand years. It was worn by Judge Curwen, one of the judges in those dark hours for Salem; and is still owned by Miss Bessie Curwen, his descendant. It will be noted that it bears a close resemblance to the Shaker cloaks of to-day, though the hood is handsomer. This hood also is detached from the cape. The presiding justice in the Salem witchcraft trials was William Stoughton, a severe Puritan. In later years Judge Sewall, his fellow-judge, in an agony of contrition, remorse, self-reproach, self-abnegation, and exceeding sorrow at those judicial murders, stood in Boston meeting-house, at a Sabbath service while his pastor read aloud his confession of his cruel error, his expression of his remorse therefor. A striking figure is he in our history. No thoughtful person can regard without emotions of tenderest sympathy and admiration that benignant white-haired head, with black skullcap, bowed in public disgrace, which was really his honor. But Judge Stoughton never expressed, in public or private, remorse or even regret. I doubt if he ever felt either. He plainly deemed his action right. I wish he could tell us what he thinks of it now. In his portrait here he wears a skullcap, as does Judge Sewall in his portrait, and a cloak with a cape like that of his third associate, Judge Curwen. Judge Sewall had both cloak and hood. Possibly all judges wore them. Judge Stoughton's cloak has a rich collar and a curious clasp.

Stubbes of course told of the fashion of cloak-wearing:--

"They have clokes also in nothing discrepant from the rest; of dyverse and sundry colours, white red tawnie black, green yellow russet purple violet and an infinyte of other colours. Some of cloth silk velvet taffetie and such like; some of the Spanish French or Dutch fashion. Some short, scarcely reaching to the gyrdlestead or waist, some to the knee, and othersome trayling upon the ground almost like gownes than clokes. These clokes must be garded laced &; thorouly full, and sometimes so lined as the inner side standeth almost in as much as the outside. Some have sleeves, othersome have none. Some have hoodes to pull over the head, some have none. Some are hanged with points and tassels of gold silver silk, some without all this. But howsoever it bee, the day hath bene when one might have bought him two Clokes for lesse than now he can have one of these Clokes made for. They have such store of workmanship bestowed upon them."

It is such descriptions as this that make me regard in admiration this ancient Puritan. Would that I had the power of his pen! Fashion-plates, forsooth! The Journal of the Modes!--pray, what need have we of any pictures or any mantua-maker's words when we can have such a description as this. Why! the man had a perfect genius for millinery! Had he lived three centuries later, we might have had Master Stubbes in full control (openly or secretly, according to his environment) of some dress-making or tailoring establishment pour les dames.

The lining of these cloaks was often very gay in color and costly; "standing in as much as the outside." We find a son of Governor Winthrop writing in 1606:--

"I desire you to bring me a very good camlet cloake lyned with what you like except blew. It may be purple or red or striped with those or other colors if so worn suitable and fashionable.... I would make a hard shift rather than not have the cloak."

Similar cloaks of scarlet, and of blue lined with scarlet, formed part of the uniform of soldiers for many years and for many nations. They were certainly the wear of thrifty comfortable English gentlemen. Did not John Gilpin wear one on his famous ride?

"There was all that he might be
Equipped from head to toe,
His long red cloak well-brushed and neat
He manfully did throw."

Scarlet was a most popular color for all articles of dress in the early years of the eighteenth century. Like the good woman in the Book of Proverbs, both English and American housewife "clothed her household in scarlet." Women as well as men wore these scarlet cloaks. It is curious to learn from Mrs. Gummere that even Quakers wore scarlet. When Margaret Fell married George Fox, greatest of Quakers, he bought her a scarlet mantle. And in 1678 he sent her scarlet cloth for another mantle. There was good reason in the wear of scarlet; it both was warm and looked warm; and the color was a lasting one. It did not fade like many of the homemade dyes.

A very interesting study is that of color in wearing apparel. Beginning with the few crude dyes of mediaeval days, we could trace the history of dyeing, and the use and invention of new colors and tints. The names of these colors are delightful; the older quaint titles seem wonderfully significant. We read of such tints as billymot, phillymurt, or philomot (feuille-mort), murry, blemmish, gridolin (gris-de-lin or flax blossom), puce colour, foulding colour, Kendal green, Lincoln green, treen-colour, watchet blue, barry, milly, tuly, stammel red, Bristol red, zaffer-blue, which was either sapphire-blue or zaffre-blue, and a score of fanciful names whose signification and identification were lost with the death of the century. Historical events were commemorated in new hues; we have the political, diplomatic, and military history of various countries hinted to us. Great discoveries and inventions give names to colors. The materials and methods of dyeing, especially domestic dyes, are most interesting. An allied topic is the significance of colors, the limitation of their use. For instance, the study of blue would fill a chapter. The dress of 'prentices and serving-men in Elizabeth's day was always blue blue cloaks in winter, blue coats in summer. Blue was not precisely a livery; it was their color, the badge of their condition in life, as black is now a parson's. Different articles of dress clung to certain colors. Green stockings had their time and season of clothing the sturdy legs of English dames as inevitably as green stalks filled the fields. Think of the years of domination of the green apron; of the black hood--it is curious indeed.

In such exhaustive books upon special topics as the History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London we find wonderfully interesting and significant proof of the power of color; also in many the restrictive sumptuary laws of the Crown.

It would appear that this long, scarlet cloak never was out of wear for men and women until the nineteenth century. It was, at times, not the height of the fashion, but still was worn. Various ancient citizens of Boston, of Salem, are recalled through letter or traditions as clinging long to this comfortable cloak. Samuel Adams carried a scarlet cloak with him when he went to Washington.

I shall tell in a later chapter of my own great-great-grandmother's wear of a scarlet cloak until the opening years of the nineteenth century. During and after the Revolution these cloaks remained in high favor for women. French officers, writing home to France glowing accounts of the fair Americans, noted often that the ladies wore scarlet cloaks, and Madame Riedesel asserted that all gentlewomen in Canada never left the house save in a scarlet silk or cloth cloak.

"A woman's long scarlet cloak, almost new with a double cape," had been one of the articles feloniously taken from the house of Benjamin Franklin, printer, in Philadelphia, in 1750. Debby Franklin's dress, if we can judge from what was stolen, was a gay revel of color. Among the articles was one gown having a pattern of "large red roses and other large yellow flowers with blue in some of the flowers with many green leaves."

In the Life of Jonathan Trumbull we read that when a collection was taken in the Lebanon church for the benefit of the soldiers of the Continental army, when money, jewels, clothing, and food were gathered in a great heap near the pulpit, Madam Faith Trumbull rose up, threw from her shoulders her splendid scarlet cloth cloak, a gift from Count Rochambeau, advanced to the altar and laid the cloak with other offerings of patriotism and generosity. It was used, we are told, to trim the uniforms of the Continental officers and soldiers.

Many were the names of those pretty little cloaks and capes which were worn with the sacque-shaped gowns. The duchess was one; we revived the name for a similar mantle in 1870. The pelisse was in France the cloak with arm-holes, shown, here, upon one of Sir Joshua Reynolds's engaging children. The pelisse in America sometimes had sleeves, I am sure; and was hardly a cloak. It is difficult to classify some forms which seem almost jackets. A general distinction may be made not to include sleeved garments with the cloaks; but several of the manteaus had loose, large, flowing sleeves, and some like Madam Symonds's had detached sleeves. It is also difficult to know whether some of the negligees were cloaks or sacque-like gowns. And there is the other extreme; some of the smaller, circular neck-coverings like the van-dykes are not cloaks. They are scarcely capes; they are merely collars; but there are still others which are a bit bigger and are certainly capes. And are there not also capes, like the neckatee, which may be termed cloaks? Material, too, is bewildering; a light gauze thing of ribbons and furbelows like the Unella is not really a cloak, yet it takes a cloaklike form. There are no cut and dried rules as to size, form, or weight of these cloaks, capes, collars, and hoods, so I have formed my own classes and assignments.