The History of Underclothes

by C. Willett

  Odious! In woollen! T’would a saint provoke

  (were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke);

  No; let a charming chintz and Brussels lace Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face:

  One would not, sure, be frightful when one’s dead—

  And—Betty—give this cheek a little red.

  A rare form of ‘undergarment’ of the period deserves historical notice as illustrating social customs; this was the ‘Sheet of Repentance,’ in which a woman had to be clad when confessing in church that she had committed adultery. The Saffron Walden churchwarden’s accounts for 1629 has this entry: ‘for five yardes of callico for making of a sheete to do Pennance withall, 5/.’

  MEN

  1. THE DAY-SHIRT

  At the beginning of this period the front and back of the doublet were slashed, and until the middle of the century its sleeves gaped down the front seam, were unbuttoned, and turned back at the wrists. The shortened doublet of 1640 exposed still more of the shirt all round above the breeches, the doublet being left unbuttoned. The shirt was thus conspicuously displayed. ‘I hope you will consider to buy me some good shirts or else some sort of wastcoat, for it is not fashionable for any gentleman to go buttoned up either winter or summer.’3 Its neckband was narrow; to it the material was gathered, with a short centre-opening in front, edged with lace or a linen frill. The opening was tied at the neck with strings or buttoned. Sometimes the neckband was extended into a ‘stand-up turned down’ collar, tied with strings, or fastened by two buttons (figure 21).

  Throughout the period the sleeves were full and were caught in at the wrist (sometimes at the elbow as well) with ribbon ties, which produced puffing between the ties. These ribbons survived till the end of the period.4 For instance, the shirt on the funeral effigy of Charles II, in Westminster Abbey, is contemporary in date (1686). Its sleeves are gathered into full puffs at elbow and forearm; the wristbands have four buttonholes to which lace ruffles were attached. Strips of lace edge the front opening. The narrow neckband has two buttonholes on the left (the neck has been cut out and mutilated). The length of the garment is 43 inches.5

  FIG. 21. (left) SHIRT WORN BY JAMES, DUKE OF RICHMOND, 1612–55; (right) SHIRT AND DRAWERS FROM THE EFFIGY OF CHARLES II, WESTMINSTER ABBEY

  The materials for the shirt were fine holland, linen, lace, frieze holland, and for inferior qualities a coarse kind of linen called lockeram.6

  At the beginning of this period the neck region was concealed by the falling bands of fine linen or lace. The band gradually spread until it entirely covered the shoulders. About 1640 it became smaller and was replaced at the middle of the century by the cravat hanging down over the front. This became longer and narrower, often extending down nearly to the waist by the end of the century. A form of the cravat, the ‘Steinkirk’—in which the ends were twisted ropewise together (figure 33), appeared about 1690, but may be seen in some portraits even before the date of the battle after which it was called. The cravat concealed the front opening of the shirt which was edged with a gathered frill of lawn or lace (the ‘jabot’); but it was narrow enough to expose the shirt on either side of it, and as the vest was usually left unbuttoned, from the ’nineties onwards, an extensive area of shirt was thus visible.

  FIG. 22. SHIRT, c. 1635. FROM LODGE’S ENGRAVING OF JAMES, DUKE OF RICHMOND, 1612–55

  The termination of the sleeves at the wrist underwent changes. Reversed cuffs of lace or lawn, with vandyked edges, by the middle of the century were worn limp and ruffled; and with the Restoration of 1660 the wrist ruffles of lawn or lace expanded on to the hands—a very characteristic expression of superior rank. A number of portraits, however, show no ruffles but simply a coat-sleeve, shortened to expose a narrow wristband buttoned, with the shirt puffed out above. Sometimes the coat cuff was left unbuttoned to reveal still more of the shirt. In a garment designed to indicate social finery there will always be a considerable range of degree. Portraits, especially towards the close of this period, may show sitters with no ruffles, or with only a slight amount of shirt visible at the wrist; others wear no cravat at the neck. The more magnificent examples are to be found, as we should expect, in those who ruffled it in Court circles, and the shirt served to indicate these finer shades of gentility.

  FIG. 23. SHIRT AND CRAVAT (CHARLES, DUKE OF SHREWSBURY) c. 1690

  2. THE HALF SHIRT

  This was a short under shirt, about hip length, apparently corresponding to the garment which M. Leloir7 describes as a ‘camisole,’ which, he states, was made of flannel in winter and linen in summer. We have not found evidence of flannel used for it in this country.

  The first reference to this garment comes from Scotland about 1578—‘6 fine whole sheirtes. I fine laced halfe sheirte.’8 An early mention of it in England comes from the steward’s accounts to Viscount Scudamore, of Holme Lacy, Hereford, recently discovered in the cathedral archives by Mr. F. C. Morgan: ‘3 ells and a halfe of holland at 9/ a yarde £1 11. o. making shirtes and half shirtes 6/.’9 This is in 1632. Next come the household accounts of the Marquis of Hertford for 1641–42, which record ‘10 ells of bone lace for six halfe shirtes for my Lord Henry’—from which it seems that the garment required two and a half yards of material. Pepys has some information to give: ‘This day put on a half shirt first this summer, it being very hot; yet so ill-tempered I am grown that I am afeard I shall catch cold’ (June 28, 1664); and again, October 31, 1661, ‘this day left off half shirts and put on a wastcoat’—presumably for greater warmth. The half-shirt was also a Continental fashion; and two youths, doing the Grand Tour with their tutor in 1670, recorded their purchases in Paris: ‘4 half-shirts laced, 4 payr of cuffs laced, 4 cravattes, 2 payr of drawers, two payr stockings fr. 90. 10.’ ’2 payr half shirts for me, a cravatte, 2 payr of cuffs fr. 32.’ Half-shirts with point de Paris are also mentioned.10

  3. DRAWERS

  These were of two types. An example of the first are the drawers for the effigy of Charles II, in Westminster Abbey. They are silk trunks, 13 inches long, cut full and square; they are fastened with ribbons in front, have a small slit behind, and are tied at the back.

  The second type consists of long drawers with ‘stirrups’—a band, which passed under the instep to prevent the garment from slipping up the leg. ‘A paire of Longe Linnen Drawers to put under the Breeches’ was bought for 7s. for the Duke of Albemarle’s effigy (1670). Richard Legh paid £2 for ‘2 pairs of large worsted drawers with stirrups’ in 1675.11 Worsted was an unusual material for this garment, and suggests that it was intended for winter wear or for riding.

  Pepys mentions lying ‘in my drawers and stockings and waste coate till five of the clock’ in hot weather, and also refers to his ‘cool holland drawers.’ But in neither entry nor in Mrs. Behn’s The Rover is there a clue to their cut.

  4. NIGHTCLOTHES

  That of the fine gentleman was as elaborate as the day-shirt, often with lace insertion at the neck and down the sides of the sleeves, with ruffles at the wrist. The sleeves were very full; the neck opening was somewhat deeper than in the day-shirt and the collar lay flat. It was customary for the bride and bridegroom to give each other their wedding nightclothes; the cost may be gathered from a letter written by one of the prospective mothers-in-law to the other: ‘I believe stockings and slippers is usual for lovers to give before the wedding. I think the nightclothes may be spared; they will cost £4 at least. I doubt £4 will not do it if of lace that will be commendable. These things will draw money, do what you can.’12

  FIG. 24. NIGHTCLOTHES. FROM AN ENGRAVING, 1646

  Gentlemen in mourning wore black nightclothes. ‘Two black taffety nightclothes with black night capps’ are mentioned in the Verney Memoirs (1651).

  Night-caps, usually of wrought linen, might be equally ornate. Thomas Verney has ‘six fine night capps laced, marked V in black silks; four plain capps marked in blew silke.’ There is also mention of ‘thirty fine peaked night capps.’

 
WOMEN

  I. CHEMISE, OR ‘SMOCK’

  This was usually made of holland and was heavily perfumed. It was plain except for a frill, sometimes edged with lace, at neck and sleeves. The neck line was cut low, with a short V opening in front where it was tied by means of a threaded draw-string. When in the 1650’S the décolletage of the bodice was cut horizontally off the shoulders, the chemise, previously exposed and acting as a ‘tucker,’ was reduced to a narrow white line or completely hidden. The lace border, however, reappeared in the sixties and was usually much in evidence to the end of the period.

  The large balloon sleeves, reaching just below the elbows, and protruding beyond the bodice sleeves, were finished with stiff lace ruffles, which, after 1630, were replaced by funnel-shaped turn-up cuffs. These were frequently scarcely visible below the dress sleeves, which were worn long until the sixties, when the shorter style again exposed the sleeves of the chemise. The cuff was then discarded for a soft drooping frill, either plain or edged with lace, and falling from the narrow band to which the sleeve was gathered (figure 27). This band was pierced with buttonholes through which ribbon ties were fastened. Occasionally the frill was omitted and the sleeve was puffed by means of a ribbon tied higher up.

  FIG. 25. CHEMISE, 1678–80. FROM LELY’S PORTRAIT OF ELIZABETH, LADY OXENDEN

  2. THE CORSET

  The corset itself has to be distinguished from the boned corsage of the gown. When the latter was in fashion, with its tight back lacing and long pointed busk in front, the wearing of a corset in addition would have been superfluous, if not impossible.

  FIG. 26. SHIRT WORN BY CHRISTIAN IV OF DENMARK, d. 1648

  FIG. 27. LINEN CHEMISE, c. 1700, OR EARLIER

  The corset, heavily boned, had a long busk in front and was laced up behind. The lower edge was tabbed. The extreme décolletage of the bodice would have required the corset to be without shoulder straps, though there may have been, as in the next century, straps across the upper arm. Near the end of the century some stays appear to have been made in two parts and laced up front and back, but the older form persisted. The degree of tight-lacing may be gathered from the comment:

  ‘Another foolish affectation there is in young virgins, though grown big enough to be wiser; but they are led blindfold by a custom to a fashion pernicious beyond imagination, who, thinking a slender waist a great beauty, strive all they possibly can by straight- lacing themselves to attain unto a wand-like smallness of waist, never thinking themselves fine enough till they can span the waist. By which deadly artifice, while they ignorantly affect an august or narrow breast, and to that end by strong compulsion shut up their waists in a whalebone prison, they open the door to consumptions.’13

  3. PETTICOATS

  The farthingale ceased to be fashionable about 1625, and as the skirt of the gown then became trained and flowing it would doubtless have required a number of under-petticoats (not to be confused with ‘skirt-petticoats’) to support it. There is, however, little direct or detailed evidence about this garment. Mrs. Isham asks:14 ‘I pray you send me word if wee bottone petticoates and waste-cotes whear they must be botoned.’ The Hertford Household Accounts enter ‘17 yards of white flannel to make under-petticoats for the three young ladies, at 1/8 a yard’; and the two playwrights, Etherege and Mrs. Aphra Behn, concur a generation later in references to flannel as a petticoat material. Red seems to have been a popular colour.

  4. THE BUSTLE

  About 1690, with the overskirt becoming bunched up at the back, it was natural that the bustle should return—at least for a brief spell15—only to be replaced early in the eighteenth century by the hooped petticoat. A precisely similar development occurred in the middle of the nineteenth century when the cage crinoline replaced the bustle.

  5. THE WAISTCOAT

  That women often wore this as an undergarment—even, apparently, next to the skin—may be gathered from the will of the Countess Rivers (1644), where mention is made of ‘Holland waste-cotes to wear under my gowne; two yellow wastecotes to wear next me. . . .’ Presumably this undergarment corresponded to the gentleman’s ‘half-shirt.’

  6. DRAWERS

  M. Leloir16 describes ‘les caleçons’ as habitually worn by French ladies from the middle of the sixteenth century, and he gives quotations to support the statement. We, however, have failed to find evidence of drawers being worn by Englishwomen of any rank, except for a solitary reference in Pepys’ diary (1663); when he suspected his wife of intended infidelity and watched her dressing. ‘I am ashamed to think what a course I did take by lying to see whether my wife did wear drawers today as she did use to, and other things to raise my suspicions of her.’ Mrs. Pepys, however, was a Frenchwoman and may have acquired the habit before her marriage.

  We should, perhaps, qualify the above statement by mentioning that in the country festivals when such items as ‘smock races’ were run by young women (the prize being a new smock) the competitors sometimes, at least, ran in ‘drawers.’ Thus, a seventeenth-century ballad, The Virgins’ Race or Yorkshire’s Glory,17 describes how:

  In half-shirts and drawers these Maids did run

  But bonny Nan the race hath won.

  —each sprinter wearing drawers of a different colour.

  We must suppose that, in this case, ‘half-shirts’ were something in the nature of blouses.

  The materials used by country folk may be gathered from a libellous ‘poem’ which the composer was charged with having uttered, at the Essex Quarter Sessions of 1644: the first verse being:

  FIG. 28. SIR THOMAS ASTON AT THE DEATH-BED OF HIS WIFE, 1635

  I prithee little Martin amend thy life,

  And ly no more with Dick Graygoose wife;

  Though he sell nothing but canvas for frocks,18

  Yet thou hast holland to make fine lasses’ smocks;

  If any one would know how thou art bent

  They may know more of thy lechery in Kent . . .

  7. NIGHTCLOTHES

  We have no precise description of the nightdress, though pictures give us some idea of its nature and show that, for the higher ranks, it was lavishly trimmed with lace. Mrs. Aphra Behn refers to ‘point night clothes.’19 A coif covered the head.

  It seems to have been a fashion, when a wife died, to have her ‘portrait’ together with that of her (living) husband and children, painted as the body lay in its nightclothes. Such pictures supply us with most of the information we have as to this garment. But there are a few later references. For instance, Mrs. Centlivre mentions ‘modish French night-clothes’ in her play The Platonic Lady (1707); and that they were sometimes made of silk is indicated in Colley Cibber’s She Would and She Would Not—‘steal out of her bed . . . with nothing but a thin silk night-gown about her’ (1703).

  8. POCKETS

  These were detachable, in the shape of a narrow bag with a centre slit, and were fastened round the waist under the petticoats.

  Sometimes the pocket was a single one:

  Therefore all the money I have, which,

  God knows, is a very small stock,

  I keep in my pocket, ty’ed about my middle,

  Next to my smock.20

  Sometimes there were two of these bag-pockets attached together by a band and carried one on each hip.

  The underclothing of the period was sufficiently uncomfortable to tempt ladies to discard some of it when circumstances permitted. We learn from Vanbrugh’s The Provok’d Wife (1697) that ‘One may go to church without stays on’; and we hear of one ‘with nothing on but her stays and her quilted petticoat.’ Another admits ‘If there were no men, adieu fine petticoats, we should be weary of wearing ’em.’ That there were other mysteries of the wardrobe is suggested by Vanbrugh in his comedy The Confederacy, in which ‘Mrs. Amlet, a seller of all sorts of private affairs to the ladies,’ supplies, among other things, ‘false hips.’ We regret she is not more explicit.

  * * *

  1 Thomas Verney asks for ‘a lace shirt to k
eep me from lice.’ Verney Memoirs, 1639.

  2 ‘Take care I ain’t buried in flannel, ’twould never become me, I’m sure.’—Lady Brampton in Sir Richard Steele’s The Funeral.

  3 Verney Memoirs, 1688.

  4 ‘He took the very ribbons out of his shirt.’—Farquhar: The Recruiting Offier, 1706.

  5 Tanner and Nevinson: Society of Antiquaries, 1936.

  6 From the accounts of John Masters, 1646 : ‘II ells of lockeram to make my footboy 4 shirts.’ ‘12 ells of fine holland at 6/. an ell to make me 4 whole shirts.’ (An ell was 45 inches).

  7 Histoire du Costume.

  8 Edinburgh Inventories, ed. 1845. From information kindly given by Mr. J. L. Nevinson.

  9 This information is published by permission of the Dean and Chapter of Hereford Cathedral. The accounts proceed to give interesting details of prices and quantities of the materials required: ‘for lineing yor Lordships drawers 1/. 2 cambric fringed Ruffes at £1 13. 0. the peec and 4 payer of Cufes £3. 1 laced ruff and 2 payer of Cufs £2. 8. 0. Holland to make yor Lordhp Cuffes 5/. 2 payer of linnen drawers /8. 7 yards of linnen cloth at /11 the yard for shirtes for the foole (a curiously late survival) 6/5. for thrid and making them /11. Laundres for washing: 9 Ruffles at /9 pr. Ruf. 6/9 3 ruffes and cufs 1/6 6 shirts at /4 the peec 2/ 12 half shirts at /3 the peece 3/.’

  10 T. Barrett-Lennard: Account of the family of Lennard and Barrett, 1908.

  11 Lady Newton: Lyme Letters, 1925.