obably to the cock's comb), a knot of ribbons or a rosette
worn as a badge, particularly now as part of the livery of servants. The
cockade was at first the button and loop or clasp which "cocked" up the
side of an ordinary slouch hat. The word first appears in this sense in
Rabelais in the phrase "_bonnet a la coquarde_," which is explained by
Cotgrave (1611) as a "Spanish cap or fashion of bonnet used by
substantial men of yore ... worne proudly or peartly on th' one side."
The bunch of ribbons as a party badge developed from this entirely
utilitarian button and loop. The Stuarts' badge was a white rose, and
the resulting white cockade figured in Jacobite songs after the downfall
of the dynasty. William III.'s cockade was of yellow, and the House of
Hanover introduced theirs of black, which in its present spiked or
circular form of leather is worn in England to-day by the royal coachmen
and grooms, and the servants of all officials or members of the
services. At the battle of Sheriffmuir in the reign of George I. the
English soldiers wore a black rosette in their hats, and in a
contemporary song are called "the red-coat lads wi' black cockades." At
the outbreak of the French Revolution of 1789, cockades of green ribbon
were adopted. These afterwards gave place to the tricolour cockade,
which is said to have been a mixture of the traditional colours of Paris
(red and blue) with the white of the Bourbons, the early Revolutionists
being still Royalists. The French army wore the tricolour cockade until
the Restoration. To-day each foreign nation has its special coloured
cockade. Thus the Austrian is black and yellow, the Bavarian light blue
and white, the Belgian black, yellow and red, French the tricolour,
Prussian black and white, Russian green and white, and so on, following
usually the national colours. Originally the wearing of a cockade, as
soon as it had developed into a badge, was restricted to soldiers, as
"to mount a cockade" was "to become a soldier." There is still a trace
of the cockade as a badge in certain military headgears in England and
elsewhere. Otherwise it has become entirely the mark of domestic
service. The military cocked hat, the lineal descendant of the _bonnet a
la coquarde_, became the fashion in France during the reign of Louis XV.

See _Genealogical Magazine_, vols. i.-iii. (London, 1897-1899);
Racinet, _La Costume historique_ (6 vols., Paris, 1888).

End of the Project Gutenbe