Part 9 (1/2)

MILLINERY.

Saith Sir William Dugdale, in his chapter concerning the personal attire of judges--”That peculiar and decent vestments have, from great antiquity, been used in religious services, we have the authority of G.o.d's sacred precept to Moses, '_Thou shall make holy rayments for Aaron and his sons, that are to minister unto me, that they may be for glory and beauty_.'” In this light and flippant age there are men irreverent enough to smile at the habiliments which our judges wear in court, for the glory of G.o.d and the seemly embellishment of their own natural beauty.

Like the stuff-gown of the utter-barrister, the robes of English judges are of considerable antiquity; but antiquaries labor in vain to discover all the facts relating to their origin and history. Mr. Foss says that at the Stuart Restoration English judges resumed the robes worn by their predecessors since the time of Edward I.; but though the judicial robes of the present day bear a close resemblance to the vestments worn by that king's judges, the costume of the bench has undergone many variations since the twentieth year of his reign.

In the eleventh year of Richard II. a distinction was made between the costumes of the chiefs of the King's Bench and Common Pleas and their a.s.sistant justices; and at the same time the Chief Baron's inferiority to the Chief Justices was marked by costume.

Henry VI.'s Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Sir John Fortescue, in his delightful treatise 'De Laudibus Legum Angliae,' describes the ceremony attending the creation of a justice, and minutely sets forth the chief items of judicial costume in the Bench and Common Pleas during his time. ”Howbeit,” runs Robert Mulcaster's rendering of the 'De Laudibus,' ”the habite of his rayment, hee shall from time to time forwarde, in some pointes change, but not in all the ensignments thereof. For beeing serjeaunt at lawe, hee was clothed in a long robe priestlyke, with a furred cape about his shoulders, and thereupon a hoode with two labels such as Doctours of the Lawes use to weare in certayne universityes, with the above described quoyfe. But being once made a justice, in steede of his hoode, hee shall weare a cloake cloased upon his righte shoulder, all the other ornaments of a serjeant still remayning; sauing that a justyce shall weare no partye coloured vesture as a serjeant may. And his cape is furred with none other than menever, whereas the serjeant's cape is ever furred with whyte lambe.”

Judicial costume varied with the fas.h.i.+on of the day or the whim of the sovereign in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Subsequent generations saw the introduction of other changes; and in the time of Charles I. questions relating to the attire of the common law judges were involved in so much doubt, and surrounded with so many contradictory precedents and traditions, that the judges resolved to simplify matters by conference and unanimous action. The result of their deliberation was a decree, dated June 6, 1635, to which Sir John Bramston, Chief of the King's Bench, Sir John Finch, Chief of the Common Pleas, Sir Humphrey Davenport, Chief of the Exchequer, and all the minor judges of the three courts, gave subscription.

CHAPTER XXI.

WIGS.

The changes effected in judicial costume during the Commonwealth, like the reformation introduced at the same period into the language of the law, were all reversed in 1660, when Charles II.'s judges resumed the attire and usages of their predecessors in the first Charles's reign.

When he had satisfied himself that monarchical principles were sure of an enduring triumph, and that their victory would conduce to his own advantage, great was young Samuel Pepys's delight at seeing the ancient customs of the lawyers restored, one after another. In October, 1660, he had the pleasure of seeing ”the Lord Chancellor and all the judges riding on horseback, and going to Westminster Hall, it being the first day of term.” In the February of 1663-4 his eyes were gladdened by the revival of another old practice. ”28th (Lord's Day). Up and walked to St. Paul's,” he writes, ”and, by chance, it was an extraordinary day for the Readers of Inns of the Court and all the Students to come to church, it being an old ceremony not used these twenty-five years, upon the first Sunday in Lent. Abundance there was of students, more than there was room to seat but upon forms, and the church mighty full. One Hawkins preached, an Oxford man, a good sermon upon these words, 'But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable.'” Hawkins was no doubt a humorist, and smiled in the sleeve of his Oxford gown as he told the law-students that _peace_ characterized the highest sort of _wisdom_.

But, notwithstanding their zeal in reviving old customs, the lawyers of the Restoration introduced certain novelties into legal life. From Paris they imported the wig which still remains one of the distinctive adornments of the English barrister; and from the same centre of civilization they introduced certain refinements of cookery, which had been hitherto unknown in the taverns of Fleet Street and the Strand. In the earlier part of the 'merry monarch's' reign, the eating-house most popular with young barristers and law-students was kept by a French cook named Chattelin, who, besides entertaining his customers with delicate fare and choice wine, enriched our language with the word 'cutlet'--in his day spelt costelet.

In the seventeenth century, until wigs were generally adopted, the common law judges, like their precursors for several past generations, wore in court velvet caps, coifs, and cornered caps. Pictures preserve to us the appearance of justices, with their heads covered by one or two of these articles of dress, the moustache in many instances adorning the lip, and a well-trimmed beard giving point to the judicial chin. The more common head-dress was the coif and coif-cap, of which it is necessary to say a few words.

The coif was a covering for the head, made of white lawn or silk, and common law judges wore it as a sign that they were members of the learned brotherhood of sergeants. Speaking of the sergeants, Fortescue, in his 'De Laudibus,' says--”Wherefore to this state and degree hath no man beene hitherto admitted, except he hath first continued by the s.p.a.ce of sixteene years in the said generall studio of the law, and in token or signe, that all justices are thus graduat, every one of them alwaies, while he sitteth in the Kinge's Courts, weareth a white quoyfe of silke; which is the princ.i.p.al and chiefe insignment of habite, wherewith serjeants-at-lawe in their creation are decked. And neither the justice, nor yet the serjeaunt, shall ever put off the quoyfe, no not in the kinge's presence, though he bee in talke with his majestie's highnesse.”

At times it was no easy matter to take the coif from the head; for the white drapery was fixed to its place with strings, which in the case of one notorious rascal were not untied without difficulty. In Henry III.'s reign, when William de Bossy was charged in open court with corruption and dishonesty, he claimed the benefit of clerical orders, and endeavored to remove his coif in order that he might display his tonsure; but before he could effect his purpose, an officer of the court seized him by the throat and dragged him off to prison. ”Voluit,” says Matthew Paris, ”ligamenta coifae suae solvere, ut, palam monstraret se tonsuram habere clericalem; sed non est permissus. Satelles vero eum arripiens, non per coifae ligamina sed per guttur eum apprehendens, traxit ad carcerem.” From which occurrence Spelman drew the untenable, and indeed, ridiculous inference, that the coif was introduced as a veil, beneath which ecclesiastics who wished to practice as judges or counsel in the secular courts, might conceal the personal mark of their order.

The coif-cap is still worn in undiminished proportions by judges when they pa.s.s sentence of death, and is generally known as the 'black cap.'

In old time the justice, on making ready to p.r.o.nounce the awful words which consigned a fellow-creature to a horrible death, was wont to draw up the flat, square, dark cap, that sometimes hung at the nape of his neck or the upper part of his shoulder. Having covered the whiteness of his coif, and partially concealed his forehead and brows with the sable cloth, he proceeded to utter the dread sentence with solemn composure and firmness. At present the black cap is a.s.sumed to strike terror into the hearts of the vulgar; formerly it was pulled over the eyes, to hide the emotion of the judge.

Shorn of their original size, the coif and the coif-cap may still be seen in the wigs worn by sergeants at the present day. The black blot which marks the crown of a sergeant's wig is generally spoken of as his coif, but this designation is erroneous. The black blot is the coif-cap; and those who wish to see the veritable coif must take a near view of the wig, when they will see that between the black silk and the horsehair there lies a circular piece of white lawn, which is the vestige of that pure raiment so reverentially mentioned by Fortescue. On the general adoption of wigs, the sergeants, like the rest of the bar, followed in the wake of fas.h.i.+on: but at first they wore their old coifs and caps over their false hair. Finding this plan c.u.mbersome, they gradually diminished the size of the ancient covering, until the coif and cap became the absurd thing which resembles a bald place covered with court-plaster quite as much as the rest of the wig resembles human hair.

Whilst the common law judges of the seventeenth century, before the introduction of wigs, wore the undiminished coif and coif-cap, the Lord Chancellor, like the Speaker of the House of Commons, wore a hat. Lord Keeper Williams, the last clerical holder of the seals, used to wear in the Court of Chancery a round, conical hat. Bradshaw, sitting as president of the commissioners who tried Charles I., wore a hat instead of the coif and cap which he donned at other times as a serjeant of law.

Kennett tells us that ”Mr. Sergeant Bradshaw, the President, was afraid of some tumult upon such new and unprecedented insolence as that of sitting judge upon his king; and therefore, beside other defence, he had a thick big-crowned beaver hat, lined with plated steel, to ward off blows.” It is scarcely credible that Bradshaw resorted to such means for securing his own safety, for in the case of a tumult, a hat, however strong, would have been an insignificant protection against popular fury. If conspirators had resolved to take his life, they would have tried to effect their purpose by shooting or stabbing him, not by knocking him on the head. A steel-plated hat would have been but a poor guard against a bludgeon, and a still poorer defence against poignard or pistol. It is far more probable that in laying aside the ordinary head-dress of an English common law judge, and in a.s.suming a high-crowned hat, the usual covering of a Speaker, Bradshaw endeavored to mark the exceptional character of the proceeding, and to remind the public that he acted under parliamentary sanction. Whatever the wearer's object, England was satisfied that he had a notable purpose, and persisted in regarding the act as significant of cowardice or of insolence, of anxiety to keep within the lines of parliamentary privilege or of readiness to set all law at defiance. At the time and long after Bradshaw's death, that hat caused an abundance of discussion; it was a problem which men tried in vain to solve, an enigma that puzzled clever heads, a riddle that was interpreted as an insult, a caution, a protest, a menace, a doubt. Oxford honored it with a Latin inscription, and a place amongst the curiosities of the university, and its memory is preserved to Englishmen of the present day in the familiar lines--

”Where England's monarch once uncovered sat, And Bradshaw bullied in a broad-brimmed hat.”

Judges were by no means unanimous with regard to the adoption of wigs, some of them obstinately refusing to disfigure themselves with false tresses, and others displaying a foppish delight in the new decoration.

Sir Matthew Hale, who died in 1676, to the last steadily refused to decorate himself with artificial locks. The likeness of the Chief Justice that forms the frontispiece to Burnet's memoir of the lawyer, represents him in his judicial robes, wearing his SS collar, and having on his head a cap--not the coif-cap, but one of the close-fitting skull-caps worn by judges in the seventeenth century. Such skull-caps, it has been observed in a prior page of this work, were worn by barristers under their wigs, and country gentlemen at home, during the last century. Into such caps readers have seen Sir Francis North put his fees. The portrait of Sir Cresswell Levinz (who returned to the bar on dismissal from the bench in 1686) shows that he wore a full-bottomed wig whilst he was a judge; whereas Sir Thomas Street, who remained a judge till the close of James II.'s reign, wore his own hair and a coif-cap.

When Shaftesbury sat in court as Lord High Chancellor of England he wore a hat, which Roger North is charitable enough to think might have been a black hat. ”His lords.h.i.+p,” says the 'Examen,' ”regarded censure so little, that he did not concern himself to use a decent habit as became a judge of his station; for he sat upon the bench in an ash-colored gown silver-laced, and full-ribboned pantaloons displayed, without any black at all in his garb, unless it were his hat, which, now, I cannot positively say, though I saw him, was so.”

Even so late as Queen Anne's reign, which witnessed the introduction of three-cornered hats, a Lord Keeper wore his own hair in court instead of a wig, until he received the sovereign's order to adopt the venerable disguise of a full-bottomed wig. Lady Sarah Cowper recorded of her father, 1705:--”The queen after this was persuaded to trust a Whigg ministry, and in the year 1705, Octr., she made my father Ld. Keeper of the Great Seal, in the 41st year of his age--'tis said the youngest Lord Keeper that ever had been. He looked very young, and wearing his own hair made him appear yet more so, which the queen observing, obliged him to cut it off, telling him the world would say she had given the seals to a boy.”

The young Lord Keeper of course obeyed; and when he appeared for the first time at court in a wig, his aspect was so grave and reverend that the queen had to look at him twice before she recognized him. More than half a century later, George II. experienced a similar difficulty, when Lord Hardwicke, after the close of his long period of official service, showed himself at court in a plain suit of black velvet, with a bag and sword. Familiar with the appearance of the Chancellor dressed in full-bottomed wig and robes, the king failed to detect his old friend and servant in the elderly gentleman who, in the garb of a private person of quality, advanced and rendered due obeisance. ”Sir, it is Lord Hardwicke,” whispered a lord in waiting who stood near His Majesty's person, and saw the cause of the cold reception given to the ex-Chancellor. But unfortunately the king was not more familiar with the ex-Chancellor's t.i.tle than his appearance, and in a disastrous endeavor to be affable inquired, with an affectation of interest, ”How long has your lords.h.i.+p been in town?” The peer's surprise and chagrin were great until the monarch, having received further instruction from the courtly prompter at his elbow, frankly apologized in bad English and with noisy laughter. ”Had Lord Hardwicke,” says Campbell, ”worn such a uniform as that invented by George IV. for ex-Chancellors (very much like a Field Marshal's), he could not have been mistaken for a common man.”

The judges who at the first introduction of wigs refused to adopt them were p.r.o.ne to express their dissatisfaction with those c.o.xcombical contrivances when exhibited upon the heads of counsel; and for some years prudent juniors, anxious to win the favorable opinion of anti-wig justices, declined to obey the growing fas.h.i.+on. Chief Justice Hale, a notable sloven, conspicuous amongst common law judges for the meanness of his attire, just as Shaftesbury was conspicuous in the Court of Chancery for foppishness, cherished lively animosity for two sorts of legal pract.i.tioners--attorneys who wore swords, and young Templars who adorned themselves with periwigs. Bishop Burnet says of Hale: ”He was a great encourager of all young persons that he saw followed their books diligently, to whom he used to give directions concerning the method of their study, with a humanity and sweetness that wrought much on all that came near him; and in a smiling, pleasant way he would admonish them, if he saw anything amiss in them; particularly if they went too fine in their clothes, he would tell them it did not become their profession. He was not pleased to see students wear long periwigs, or attorneys go with swords, so that such men as would not be persuaded to part with those vanities, when they went to him laid them aside and went as plain as they could, to avoid the reproof which they knew they might otherwise expect.” In England, however, barristers almost universally wore wigs at the close of the seventeenth century; but north of the Tweed advocates wore c.o.c.ked hats and powdered hair so late as the middle of the eighteenth century. When Alexander Wedderburn joined the Scotch bar in 1754, wigs had not come into vogue with the members of his profession.