one may see in Bruges the women at the cottage doors
busy over their lace-making, and the English women by the sea making
nets--so in those times was every woman at her cottage door making
coarse linens and other stuffs to earn her daily bread, while my lady
was sitting in her chamber weaving, or embroidering a bearing cloth
for her child against her time.

However, the years of the Wars of the Roses had had their effect on
every kind of English work, and as the most elegant books were painted
and written by Flemings, as the finest linen came from Ypres, the best
silks and velvets from Bruges, the great masters of painting from
Florence, Germany, and Belgium, so also the elaborate and wonderful
embroidery, for which we had been so famous, died away, and English
work was but coarse at the best, until, in the early sixteen hundreds,
the new style came into use of raising figures some height above the
ground-work of the design, and the rich embroidery of the Stuart times
revived this art.

I have shown that this age was the age of fine patterns, as some ages
are ages of quaint cut, and some of jewel-laden dresses, and some of
dainty needlework.

A few ladies wore their gowns open to the waist to show the stomacher,
as the men did, and open behind to the waist, laced across, the waist
being embraced by a girdle of the shape so long in use, with long ends
and metal ornaments; the girdle held the purse of the lady.

[Illustration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY VII. (1485-1509)

Notice the diamond-shaped head-dress, the wide, fur-edged gown with
its full sleeves.]

The illustrations given with this chapter show very completely the
costume of this time, and, except in cases of royal persons or very
gorgeously apparelled ladies, they are complete enough to need no
description.

The shoes, it will be seen, are very broad at the toes, with thick
soles, sometimes made much in the manner of sandals--that is, with
only a toecap, the rest flat, to be tied on by strings.

As this work is entirely for use, it may be said, that artists who
have costumes made for them, and costumiers who make for the stage,
hardly ever allow enough material for the gowns worn by men and women
in this and other reigns, where the heaviness and richness of the
folds was the great keynote. To make a gown, of such a kind as these
good ladies wore, one needs, at least, twelve yards of material,
fifty-two inches wide, to give the right appearance.