Introduction
In 1597 an extensive inventory was made of Helmingham Hall in Suffolk. This inventory has been transcribed and published by the Suffolk Records Society. (1) The inventory contains ten folios listing what was in the wardrobe. The information below is on the clothing belonging to Lionel Tollemache. Sadly there is no portrait of that Lionel, Figure 1 below is his son, also Lionel, painted sometime after his father’s death in 1612.
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| Figure 1: Lionel Tollemache 1591-1640. Helmingham Hall |
When his father died in 1575 Lionel Tollemache (1562 – 1612) of Helmingham, Suffolk, was a minor, and to clear his father’s debts his mother entered into an arrangement with her parents. In 1596 the arrangement came to an end and Lionel finally got control of all his estates. He had married in 1580, Catherine Cromwell (1557?-1621) daughter of Henry, 2nd Lord Cromwell and Mary Paulet, and by 1596 they had produced nine children, two of whom had already died. It is against this background that the inventory of Helmingham Hall was taken in 1597. Helmingham was their main, but not their only residence, so there may have been other clothes elsewhere.
As was common at the time shirts, and other clothing linens are not kept in the wardrobe, however in the 1597 inventory, they are also not listed with the household linens (sheets, napkins, tablecloths, etc.). There is therefore no record of his shirts, ruffs, bands, cuffs, etc.
Doublets and hose
Lionel has fifteen doublets and one “privie” doublet, he also has fifteen pairs of hose. Six sets of these can be considered suits, in that the doublet and hose are of the same fabric and colour, four of these suits are black. The descriptions are detailed, for example: “i black satten dublet & hose with a broad black silke lace in spaces.” In other cases there are doublet and hose of the same colour, but different fabric; the doublet of ash coloured taffeta, striped and cut, is accompanied by hose of ash coloured velvet, the panes laid with gold lace. Cut or pinked, Lionel has a black satin doublet pinked, means that the fabric has been deliberately cut to produce a pattern, as in this detail [Figure 2] from a 1620s doublet in the Perth Museum, and in the 1593 portrait of Sir John Ashburnham in the Denver Art Museum.
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| Figure 2: Detail from a 1620s doublet in the Perth Museum. |
While most of the fabrics are silk based - satin, velvet, taffeta, grosgrain, a few are more surprising, for example a canvas doublet with hose of wrought velvet, both in corket red. He also owns a doublet and hose of brown sacking. When Spufford analysed clothing purchased for children and adolescents between 1570 and 1610 she found canvas prices ranging from 7d a yard to 2s 1½d a yard. (2) Sacking or sackcloth appears in a range of prices, Beck quotes a 1578 inventory with prices between 8d and 1s 3d a yard. (3) These prices pale in comparison to the silks. In 1598 John Anthony in Exeter had in stock taffeta at between 1s 8d a yard for Levant taffeta and 16s the ell for rich taffeta, satins at 10s and 12s 6d a yard, and velvets between 17s 6d and 25s a yard, the most expensive variety being the three pile velvets. (4)
Some doublets and hose are listed completely separately from each other, there are three fustian doublets, one white and two clay coloured. One green satin doublet has “2 arming points of black silke and silver, with great silver tagges.” Listed separately are eight yellow silk points with silver tags “whereof I wanteth a tag.” Two pair of hose are described as old, one of russet velvet and the other of black satin with black lace. The privie doublet is of buff, presumably buff leather.
Jerkin, coats and a jump
Lionel only owns one jerkin, while it is in cloth (wool) it has gold and silver buttons and loops.
He has two coats, one is black velvet laid with plain silk lace, the other is a horseman’s coat of black velvet laid with black silk and gold lace, and black silk and gold buttons, with a yellow taffeta lining.
Lionel also owns a black velvet jump, laid with a broad silver lace. According to Holme, “a jacket, jump or loose coat reaching to the thighs, buttoned down before, open or slit up behind halfway.” (5)
Cloaks
Lionel owns ten cloaks, one of which described as Dutch has sleeves. Five of the cloaks are of cloth (wool), two of taffeta, two of velvet, and one listed simply as a mourning cloak. Most are decorated with laces, and many give the lining; the French green cloth cloak is laid with a broad gold lace and lined throughout with velvet, a black velvet cloak is lined with shag, and the riding cloak of russet cloth is lined with green bayes, the cloak of purple cloth is bound about with a silver and gold lace. A crimson velvet cloak in the London Museum [Figure 3] had a crimson silk taffeta lining of which only a fragment remains, the London Museum link has close up photographs of both the embroidery and the inside of the garment.
Figure 3: Crimson velvet cloak. 1560-75. London Museum.
Stockings, boot hose and garters
Lionel has twelve pairs of worsted stockings and eight pairs of silk. Of the worsted stockings eight pair have two colours: white and green, watchet and green, watchet and yellow, white and yellow, sea green and white. The four single colour worsted stockings are black, sea green, flame colour and “popping Jaye grene.” That last colour is what Harrison meant when he wrote of, “hewes devised for the nonce, wherewith to please phantasticall heads, as a gooseturd greene..popingaie blue, lustie gallant...” (6) His silk stockings are three pair of black, two pair watchet, and a pair each of carnation, green and “filbird colour.” Filbird or filbeird is the colour of a filbert nut.
Lionel also owns four pair of boothose. One pair is of sand coloured kersey, the other three are of knit and are green.
Lionel has four pairs of garters to keep his stockings up. Two pairs are of cipris (cypress), one black, one green. Black is the more usual colour for cypress which is a thin, almost transparent fabric, usually silk as there are many sixteenth century references to satin of cypress. For the other two pair, one is of “duckes meate couller,” and the other pair are French garters of flame colour.
Footwear
Lionel has four pairs of shoes, two pair new, and two pair old, and a pair of pumps, all are listed as Spanish leather. Spanish usually indicates cordovan leather. A 1604 law forbids shoemakers to have “leather wet curried (other than…made and dressed like unto Spanish leather). (7)
Pumps are lighter weight shoes; Holme describes them as having “single soles and no heels.” (5) Many shoes have two or three layers of leather in the sole.
Immediately before the pumps are listed three pairs of pantafles, two of black velvet and one of Spanish leather. Pantafles are a type of mule, and the original grumpy old man, Philip Stubbs, says of them, “to what good uses serve these pantofles, except it be to wear in a private house, or in a mans Chamber, to keepe him warme? (for this is the onely use wherto they best serve in my iudgement) but to go abroad in them as they are now used all together, is rather a let or hinderance to a man then otherwise” (8) A rather more practical pantafle mule in leather, [Figure 4] dates from between 1590 and 1597 when Dutch seafarers left it behind at Nova Zembla, it is in the Rijksmuseum.
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| Figure 4: Pantafle or mule from Nova Zembla. 1590s. Rijksmuseum |
Gloves
Lionel has four pairs of plain sweet (scented) gloves, two pair of which have silver lace. It does not say what they are made of, and there is another pair of gloves of tanned sheep’s leather. Scented gloves had become popular by the 1590s, having been brought to England by Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford who, on his return from Italy in 1575, presented Queen Elizabeth with a pair of perfumed gloves, John Stow says that for many years this scent was known as the "Earl of Oxford's perfume.” (9)
Hats
Lionel has three black felts hats, one of which is lined with velvet. Lining for hats is common, the haberdasher Thomas Greenwood in 1593 has in stock five taffeta hats lined with velvet at 12s the hat, and a further five hats lined with velvet a 9s the hat. Lionel also has a hat of black cypress, and Greenwood’s stock includes several hundred yards of cypress at prices ranging from 4½d to 2s a yard. (4) The hat in Figure 5 is in the London Museum and dates from the 1590s, it is of black silk velvet.
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| Figure 5: Silk velvet hat. 1590s. London Museum. |
Girdles and hangers
Girdles go around the waist, and hangers are what you hang your sword from if you are a gentleman, as can be seen in Figure 1. The detail in Figure 2 shows the loops on the doublet through which the girdle would pass. Lionel has at least four girdles and hangers. Two of these are described as “of needle worke of silver and gold, whereof the one is lined with orring [orange] tawney velvet, and the other with green velvet. An early seventeenth century girdle and hanger [Figure 6] in the Victoria and Albert Museum has metallic needlework and is lined in tawney velvet, the link will take you to more photographs, including the reverse.
Figure 6: Girdle and hanger. 1600-20. Victoria and Albert Museum.
References
1. Coleman, Moira. Household Inventories of Helmingham Hall 1597-1741. Woodbridge : Boydell Press for The Suffolk Records Society, 2018.
2. Spufford, Margaret. Fabric for seventeenth century children and adolescents' clothes. Textile History. 2003, Vol. 34.
3. Beck, S. William. The Draper's Dictionary. London : The Warehousemen & Draper's Journal Office, 1882.
4. Crocker, J. Elizabethan Inventories and Wills of the Exeter Orphans' Court, vol. 2. Exeter : Devon and Cornwall Records Society, 2016.
5. Holme, Randle. The academy of armory. [Online] 1688. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/
6. Harrison, William. Harrison's Description of England in Shakspere's youth... from the first two editions of Holinshed's Chronicle, A.D. 1577, 1587. London : New Shakespeare Society, 1887.
7. Acts, statutes, etc. 2 James I, c.22. An act concerning tanners, curriers, shoemakers.... 1604.
8. Stubbes, Philip. Anatomie of Abuses. London : Richard Jones, 1583.
9. Stow, John and Howes, E. Annales, or, a general Chronicle of England; begun by J. Stow ... continued and augmented ... unto the end of ... 1631, by E. Howes. London : Printed by A. M. for R. Meighen, 1631.
