CHAPTER VIII

COLONIAL LIFE AND ARISTOCRACY

WHEN King Charles I declared it his purpose to "more eminently distinguish Maryland above all other regions in America," and "to decorate it with more ample titles" by erecting it into a province, with all the royal rights and privileges of the Palatinate of Durham-we have reason to believe that he knew what he was about.

His majesty, by his royal gifts and privileges, had transplanted a little kingdom across the sea. The younger sons of the principal Secretary of State, under King James I were naturally a part of the court circle under Charles I and, accustomed as they were to the luxurious life of the English court at the zenith of the decadent splendor preceding its overthrow, had no thought of taking vows of renunciation, when, as representatives of the Lord Baltimore, they set forth for a new and fertile land, in which they were to reign supreme.

And we have reason to believe that a right gallant company of Cavaliers followed in their train, and soon changed the primeval forest into a mimic rural England.

Manor houses with outstretched wings were built to gather under their sheltering roofs the dozen or more little ones who usually came to break the stillness of the quiet days in that far-off time, when there was more of maternity than nervous energy in the world. The days before the club woman was evolved from the childless home and empty-handed mother.

In the Colonial days every mother was practically a club president-the home club composed of her growing family on the one hand, and her dependent servants on the other, left her no time for improving civic conditions. And be it remembered there were practically no civics to improve.

True to the habits and traditions of the mother country the early gentry lived in the heart of their vast possessions, which gave them the seclusion and power so dear to the Briton. These had imported not only the language, manners and legends of the English court life, but had brought over their hounds and hunters, their mahogany and plate, and other evidences of luxurious living, when the Provincial Government had become firmly established. Towns did not flourish in the early days and the manors and large plantations were the centers of the social life.

The Colonial mansions of ample dimensions which have survived stand as monuments to the hospitality so graciously dispensed in the day when family coaches filled with merry young folks, accompanied by attendant cavaliers on horseback came unbidden and remained for weeks-"the days when the music of horns and the bay of hounds were often the first intimation to a hostess that the house was soon to be filled to overflowing with the pleasure-seekers already crossing her husband's preserves." These were the days when the lords of the manor were privileged to exercise the rights of Court Baron and Leet in true lordly style.

Every woman in Colonial days could sit a horse as firmly as she could a rocking chair, as the quickest and easiest mode of travel was through the bridle paths.

Many a high-bred dame also rode to hounds with all the daring of her brother, the squire or lord of the manor, and, doffing habit, top hat and top boots, presided at her father's well-spread mahogany with the grace of one “to the manner born."

The wills of the early Colonial period give us not only glimpses of the wardrobe of a lady of that time, but throw charming sidelights on the furnishings of a Colonial home. In a typical will of a Colonial lady who died about 1665 she leaves her taffeta suit and serge coat to her stepdaughter, Teresa; also all her fine linen, her hoods and scarfs, except the great one, and her three petticoats, the tufted Holland one, the new serge and the spangled one. To her three boys she leaves "that great scarf" and all her jewels, plate and rings, except her wedding ring, which goes to Teresa. To Thomas, the Indian servant, two pairs of shoes and a match coat. To her two stepsons she leaves an ell of "taffeta."

Just what a yard and a quarter of silk was to two boys does not appear at this writing, but no doubt it had its uses to the young "macaronies" of that day.

This piece of silk reminds me of a roll of 12 yards of figured "taffeta" which has descended from one of the Colonial dames of "Myrtle Grove," Talbot county, to a no less charming and witty descendant in Cambridge.

At a loan exhibition of Colonial relics this exquisite roll of embroidered white silk was noticed by a visitor in town from Virginia.

"My!" quoth this lady of the Old Dominion to a bystander, "I wonder why this piece of silk is exhibited. My great-grandmother used to wear such as that every day!" "But my great-great-grandmother was above

wearing it at all, you see," replied the fiery young aristocrat who had lent it, "since she never had it made up for every day even." She was very young and very proud of her roll of silk! In numerous wills of the Colonial gentry we find bequests of nails, brass kettles and other household utensils, along with "the plate in the house," that "came this year out of England." Occasionally we find a coat-of-arms willed to some member of the family, a "silver seal to my son," etc.

In the days when gentlemen wore white hair wigs of such flowing proportions that they were obliged to carry their cocked, gold-laced hats under their arms, they willed these costly importations with other personalities.

Indeed, as late as the nineteenth century a Baltimore gentleman of the old school bequeathed his red-hair wig and false teeth to his faithful old black body servant, who it is said proudly arrayed himself in these memorial tokens of his deceased master and wore them ever after!

CHAPTER IX

A GLIMPSE THROUGH COLONIAL DOORWAYS

THAT Caecilius Calvert, second Lord Baltimore, wished to emphasize class distinction in Colonial Maryland is evident from his instructions to his son, "that you seriously take into your consideration to finde and speedily to propose unto us some convenient way of and for making of some visible distinction and distinctions between you, our lieutenant-general, our chancellor, principal secretary, general officers, councillors, judges and justices and the rest of the people of the said province, either by the wearing of habits, medals or otherwise."

That this command of the Lord Proprietary was carried out we have no reason to doubt, but just what form of distinction the officers of this mimic English court disported themselves in, has not yet been brought to light.

The early inventories, however, make clear to us that the picturesque costume of the time of King Charles I was worn by those who were near to Lord Baltimore's little throne in his palatinate of Maryland. Here we find our lordly esquires in gold-banded hats, with drooping plumes, the plushed-lined coat and embroidered belt, the falchion and the rapier, lace cuffs and silken hose and garters of like richness. Signet rings adorned the white hands of the gentry and mourning rings were favorite mementoes left to friends in their early wills. Not only have these descended in many families, but one from