A safeguard or saveguard was a riding garment or overskirt worn by women in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Some safeguards were intended to protect skirts or kirtles worn beneath. [1] Mary Frith, dramatised as the character Moll Cutpurse in The Roaring Girl , wore a black safeguard over breeches. [2] The safeguard, and its French equivalent, the devantiére, can be described as a wrap-around apron, possibly worn over some kind of breeches. [3]
One of the earliest mentions of a safeguard is in a list of purchases made around 1546, when lace and fringes were bought "for my Mistress's gown, cloak, and safeguard". [4] In 1555, a cloak and a safeguard of broadcloth were made for Thomasine Petre, an English gentry woman, the youngest daughter of William Petre, in anticipation of travel from London to Hampshire to join the household of the Marchioness of Exeter. She ordered similar garments in 1559. [5] Margaret and Mary Kitson were bought "savegardes" of peach coloured cloth in February 1573. [6] Mary, as Countess Rivers, made bequests of clothing in 1641 including "my best cloak and safeguard laid with gold buttons" and an "old safegard laid with gold lace". [7]
Safeguards made for Elizabeth I seem have been tied to the stirrup or foot. [8] Some safeguards had pockets. In 1574, Elizabeth's tailor, Walter Fyshe worked on a safeguard of French "ashe colour Abramamasio" fabric, with laces of Venice gold, silver and silk, and added "newe pockettes" of green taffeta. [9] During a tournament and entertainment at New Hall in September 1579, the Earl of Sussex gave Elizabeth a horse, a cloak, and a safeguard "to keep her from evil weather that might hap" in the next day's hunting. [10]
Elizabeth's inventory of clothing includes safeguards matched in sets or ensembles with cloaks, and with jupes, and sets of matching cloaks, jupes, and safeguards. [11] As a New Year's Day gift for 1589, Francis Walsingham gave Elizabeth a doublet with a cloak and a safeguard of "fair coloured velvet" lined with white sarsenet, and a Mistress Dale gave a safeguard of russet satin, with buttons and loops of Venice gold and silver at the front. [12] [13] A favourite safeguard and jupe embroidered with stars of Venice silver and gold wheat ears was repaired twice, and washed and mended by the queen's silkwoman Dorothy Speckard. [14]
Godfrey Goodman doubted that Elizabeth I rode very often by 1597, when discussing a plot involving a clerk in the royal stable Edward Squire to poison her. Squire is said to confessed to sprinkling poison on her saddle without effect. [15]
In July 1590, Paul Rey, a Danish tailor working in Scotland for Anne of Denmark, made her a set of riding clothes, including a cloak and "rydding saifgard" of Spanish incarnadine coloured satin lined with taffeta of the same colour, and trimmed with silk ribbons and gold passementerie. Another safeguard was made for her in October 1594 of fine tanny London cloth with strings of orange Florence ribbon. Orange ribbon was supplied for riding clothes of London brown in October 1597. [16]
Anne of Denmark's wardrobe inventory of 1608 lists eight "saveguards", four made with white, grass-green, orange, and straw coloured satin, trimmed with silver and gold lace, and three party-coloured safeguards, one of crimson and white damask, another of deer colour and white camlet, and one of willow colour and white damask. Another had a ground of silver camlet tufted with orange silk "of small tuft", lined with sarsenet. This safeguard had gold and silver seams with long buttons and loops woven of silver and gold thread. [17]
Lady Anne Clifford bought more practical and hardwearing riding garments when she stayed at Brougham Castle in Westmorland in November 1616, a "cloak and a safeguard of cloth laced with black lace to keep me warm on my journey" to London. [18] Safeguards of cloth (broadcloth) are listed in many inventories of costume. In 1586, Margaret Grey and Mary Grey, daughters of a Newcastle miller, owned broadcloth safeguards listed with their petticoats. [19] In 1596, Elizabeth Woode of Ramsey left a russet petticoat and a russet safeguard to her daughter. [20] Bequests made by Anne Bikarstaffe of Stockport in 1599 include a "partelytt and savegard". [21] Dame Honor Proctor of Cowling Hall near Bedale made a bequest of her "ryding savegard and cloak, hoodd and mittons" in 1625. [22]
When Arbella Stuart tried to leave England in disguise, the black hat and riding safeguard worn by one of her companions reminded a witness, John Bright, of Moll Cutpurse. [23] This was a probably a reference to the play The Roaring Girl. [24] In the play, a speech makes reference to the safeguard, an item of female clothing, transformed into a slop, a word for male breeches. [25]
A number of safeguards seem to have been provided by a tailor John Anderson for the family of Regent Arran in Scotland in the 1540s and 1550s. Described in the Scots language as wardegardes, a word sometimes interpreted as a carrying bag for clothes, [26] these may have been practical riding garments of hard-wearing buckram, fustian, and gray wool. A piece of leather was used in their construction. [27] The French equivalent word for safeguard seems to have been devantiére. [28]
An inventory of the clothes of Mary, Queen of Scots, includes a vardingard of black taffeta with a satin foreskirt embroidered with gold passementerie, another of black taffeta, and a third of buckram. Possibly a source of confusion, the same inventory uses the word vardingaill for farthingale, a support undergarment to volumize a skirt. [29] One of her French inventories includes a black taffeta verdugall which likely indicates a farthingale. [30] A satirical poem describing women's riding garments in the Maitland Quarto using the form fartigard may mean a safeguard. [31]
The word "safeguard" for the women's riding garment, as in England, appears in a number of Scottish 16th- and 17th-century wills. [32]
A farthingale is one of several structures used under Western European women's clothing - especially in the 16th and 17th centuries - to support the skirts in the desired shape and to enlarge the lower half of the body. The fashion originated in Spain in the fifteenth century. Farthingales served important social and cultural functions for women in Renaissance Europe as they expressed, primarily when worn by court women, high social position and wealth.
A visard, also known as a vizard, is an oval mask of black velvet which was worn by travelling women in the early modern period to protect their skin from sunburn. The fashion of the period for wealthy women was to keep their skin pale, because a tan suggested that the bearer worked outside and was hence poor. Some types of vizard were not held in place by a fastening or ribbon ties, and instead the wearer clasped a bead attached to the interior of the mask between their teeth.
A zibellino, flea-fur or fur tippet is a women's fashion accessory popular in the later 15th and 16th centuries. A zibellino, from the Italian word for "sable", is the pelt of a sable or marten worn draped at the neck or hanging at the waist, or carried in the hand. The plural is zibellini. Some zibellini were fitted with faces and paws of goldsmith's work with jeweled eyes and pearl earrings, while unadorned furs were also fashionable.
A partlet was a 16th-century fashion accessory. The partlet was a sleeveless garment worn over the neck and shoulders, either worn over a dress or worn to fill in a low neckline.
Lady Audrey Walsingham was an English courtier. She served as Lady of the Bedchamber to queen Elizabeth I of England, and then as Mistress of the Robes to Anne of Denmark from 1603 until 1619.
Dorothy Speckard or Speckart or Spekarde was a courtier, milliner, silkwoman, and worker in the wardrobe of Elizabeth I of England, Anne of Denmark, Prince Henry, and Henrietta Maria. Her husband, Abraham Speckard, was an investor in the Somers Isles Company which colonised Bermuda.
Mary Radcliffe or Ratcliffe (1550-1617) was a courtier of Queen Elizabeth I of England.
Aura Soltana, also known as Ipolitan the Tartarian or Ipolita or Ippolyta, was a Tartar woman at the court of Elizabeth I after arriving from Russia to England, apparently as a slave.
The wardrobe of Mary, Queen of Scots, was described in several contemporary documents, and many records of her costume have been published. Mary's clothing choices are apparent in the contexts of her appearance as a ruler, at her pastimes, and as a prisoner in England. Her choice of clothing at Fotheringhay has been examined as gesture and political theatre. Mary was involved in textile crafts, dressed her gentlewomen en-suite, organised events including costumed masques, and made and accepted gifts of clothing.
Fremyn Alezard was a French shoemaker based in Edinburgh who worked for Mary, Queen of Scots and subsequently her political rivals.
An inventory of the jewels of Mary I of England, known as Princess Mary or the Lady Mary in the years 1542 to 1546, was kept by her lady in waiting Mary Finch. The manuscript is now held by the British Library. It was published by Frederic Madden in 1831. Some pieces are listed twice. The British Library also has an inventory of the jewels she inherited on coming to the throne in 1553.
William Cookesbury or Coksbery, or Cookisbury was a London capper, haberdasher, and supplier of feathers.
Peter Jonson or Johnson and Garret Jonson were London-based shoemakers who worked for Elizabeth I and James VI and I. The records of shoes they made for monarchs and courtiers gives an idea of changing fashions.
Peter Rannald was a Scottish tailor who worked for Anne of Denmark, the wife of James VI of Scotland. He made her gowns and the costumes she wore at masques.
Oes or owes were metallic O-shaped rings or eyelets sewn on to clothes and furnishing textiles for decorative effect. Made of gold, silver, or copper, they were used on clothing and furnishing fabrics and were smaller than modern sequins. They were made either from rings of wire or punched out of a sheet of metal.
A silkwoman was a woman in medieval, Tudor, and Stuart England who traded in silks and other fine fabrics. London silkwomen held some trading rights independently from their husbands and were exempted from some of the usual customs and laws of coverture. The trade and craft of the silkwoman was encouraged by a statute of Henry VI of England as a countermeasure to imports of silk thread, and a suitable occupation for "young gentlewomen and other apprentices".
A chamberer was a female attendant of an English queen regnant, queen consort, or princess. There were similar positions in aristocratic households.
Walter Fyshe was a London tailor who worked for Elizabeth I until 1582. He also made some of her farthingales. Fyshe made the queen's ceremonial clothes and coronation robes, altering robes made for the coronation of Mary I of England.
At the Tudor and Stuart royal courts in Britain it was traditional to give gifts on New Year's Day, on 1 January. Records of these gift exchanges survive, and provide information about courtiers and their relative status. A similar custom at the French court was known as the étrenne. Historians often analyse these gift economies following the ideas of the anthropologist Marcel Mauss and Bronisław Malinowski's description of the Kula ring.
Much is known of the wardrobe of Anne of Denmark (1574–1619), queen consort of James VI and I, from her portraits and surviving financial records. Her style included skirts supported by large farthingales decorated with elaborate embroidery, and the jewellery worn on her costume and hair.
