Safeguard (costume)

A safeguard or saveguard was a riding garment or overskirt worn by women in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Some safeguards were intended to protect skirts or kirtles worn beneath.[1] Mary Frith, dramatised as the character Moll Cutpurse in The Roaring Girl, wore a black safeguard over breeches.[2] The safeguard, and its French equivalent, the devantiére, can be described as a wrap-around apron, possibly worn over some kind of breeches.[3]

The Great Seal of Elizabeth I, designed by Nicholas Hilliard shows her riding sidesaddle with voluminous skirts

## History

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One of the earliest mentions of a safeguard is in a list of purchases made around 1546, when lace and fringes were bought "for my Mistress's gown, cloak, and safeguard".[4] In 1555, a cloak and a safeguard of broadcloth were made for Thomasine Petre, an English gentry woman, the youngest daughter of William Petre, in anticipation of travel from London to Hampshire to join the household of the Marchioness of Exeter. She ordered similar garments in 1559.[5] Margaret and Mary Kitson were bought "savegardes" of peach coloured cloth in February 1573.[6] Mary, as Countess Rivers, made bequests of clothing in 1641 including "my best cloak and safeguard laid with gold buttons" and an "old safegard laid with gold lace".[7]

Safeguards made for Elizabeth I seem to have been tied to the stirrup or foot.[8] Some safeguards had pockets. In 1574, Elizabeth's tailor, Walter Fyshe worked on a safeguard of French "ashe colour Abramamasio" fabric, with laces of Venice gold, silver and silk, and added "newe pockettes" of green taffeta.[9] During a tournament and entertainment at New Hall in September 1579, the Earl of Sussex gave Elizabeth a horse, a cloak, and a safeguard "to keep her from evil weather that might hap" in the next day's hunting.[10] Some records of Elizabeth's wardrobe describe "safeguard or kirtles", and the tailor William Jones made a gown and "sauffegard or kirtell" for the "woman dwarf" (perhaps Thomazina Muliercula) in February 1584.[11]

Elizabeth's inventory of clothing includes safeguards matched in sets or ensembles with cloaks, and with jupes, and sets of matching cloaks, jupes, and safeguards.[12] As a New Year's Day gift for 1589, Francis Walsingham gave Elizabeth a doublet with a cloak and a safeguard of "fair coloured velvet" lined with white sarsenet, and a Mistress Dale gave a safeguard of russet satin, with buttons and loops of Venice gold and silver at the front.[13][14] A favourite safeguard and jupe embroidered with stars of Venice silver and gold wheat ears was repaired twice, and washed and mended by the queen's silkwoman Dorothy Speckard.[15]

A 16th-century French drawing shows a woman riding sidesaddle and wearing a mask or vizard

Godfrey Goodman doubted that Elizabeth I rode very often by 1597, when discussing a plot involving a clerk in the royal stable Edward Squire to poison her.[16] Squire is said to have confessed to sprinkling poison on her saddle without effect.[17]

In July 1590, Paul Rey, a Danish tailor working in Scotland for Anne of Denmark, made her a set of riding clothes, including a cloak and "rydding saifgard" of 15 ells of Spanish incarnadine coloured satin lined with taffeta of the same colour, and trimmed with silk ribbons and gold passementerie.[18] Another safeguard was made for her in October 1594 of fine tanny London cloth with strings of orange Florence ribbon. Orange ribbon was supplied for riding clothes of London brown in October 1597.[19]

Anne of Denmark's wardrobe inventory of 1608 lists eight "saveguards", four made with white, grass-green, orange, and straw coloured satin, trimmed with silver and gold lace, and three party-coloured safeguards, one of crimson and white damask, another of deer colour and white camlet, and one of willow colour and white damask. Another had a ground of silver camlet tufted with orange silk "of small tuft", lined with sarsenet. This safeguard had gold and silver seams with long buttons and loops woven of silver and gold thread.[20]

Lady Anne Clifford bought more practical and hardwearing riding garments when she stayed at Brougham Castle in Westmorland in November 1616, a "cloak and a safeguard of cloth laced with black lace to keep me warm on my journey" to London.[21] Safeguards of cloth (broadcloth) are listed in many inventories of costume. In 1586, Margaret Grey and Mary Grey, daughters of a Newcastle miller, owned broadcloth safeguards listed with their petticoats.[22] In 1596, Elizabeth Woode of Ramsey left a russet petticoat and a russet safeguard to her daughter.[23] Bequests made by Anne Bikarstaffe of Stockport in 1599 include a "partelytt and savegard".[24] Dame Honor Proctor of Cowling Hall near Bedale made a bequest of her "ryding savegard and cloak, hoodd and mittons" in 1625.[25]

When Arbella Stuart tried to leave England in disguise, the black hat and riding safeguard worn by one of her companions reminded a witness, John Bright, of Moll Cutpurse.[26] This was a probably a reference to the play The Roaring Girl.[27] In the play, a speech makes reference to the safeguard, an item of female clothing, transformed into a slop, a word for male breeches.[28]

## Safeguard and wardegard

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A number of safeguards seem to have been provided by a tailor John Anderson for the family of Regent Arran in Scotland in the 1540s and 1550s. Described in the Scots language as wardegardes, a word sometimes interpreted as a carrying bag for clothes,[29] these may have been practical riding garments of hard-wearing buckram, fustian, and gray wool. A piece of leather was used in their construction.[30] The French equivalent word for safeguard seems to have been devantiére.[31]

An inventory of the clothes of Mary, Queen of Scots, includes a vardingard of black taffeta with a satin foreskirt embroidered with gold passementerie, another of black taffeta, and a third of buckram. Possibly a source of confusion, the same inventory uses the word vardingaill for farthingale, a support undergarment to volumize a skirt.[32] One of her French inventories includes a black taffeta verdugall which likely indicates a farthingale.[33] A satirical poem describing women's riding garments in the Maitland Quarto using the form fartigard may mean a safeguard.[34]

The word "safeguard" for the women's riding garment, as in England, appears in a number of Scottish 16th- and 17th-century wills.[35]

## References

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1. ^ Janet Arnold, Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd (Maney, 1988), pp. 142, 371.
2. ^ Michael Shapiro, Gender in Play on the Shakespearean Stage: Boy Heroines and Female Pages (University of Michigan, 1994), p. 26: Jean MacIntyre, Costumes and Scripts in the Elizabethan Theatres (University of Alberta, 1992), p. 245.
3. ^ John M. Gilbert, Elite Hunting Culture and Mary, Queen of Scots (Boydell, 2024), p. 7.
4. ^ Maria Hayward, Dress at the Court of Henry VIII (Maney, 2007), p. 169: Letters & Papers Henry VIII, Addenda, 1:2 (London:HMSO, 1932), p. 603 no. 1833.
5. ^ Anne Buck, 'The Clothes of Thomasine Petre, 1555–1559', Costume, 24:1 (1990), pp. 16–17: Frederick G. Emmison, Tudor Secretary: Sir William Petre at Court and Home (Longmans, 1961), p. 127.
6. ^ John Gage, The History and Antiquities of Hengrave, in Suffolk (London, 1822), p. 196.
7. ^ John Watney, Some account of St. Osyth's priory, Essex, and its inhabitants (London, 1871), p. 110.
8. ^ Janet Arnold, 'Dashing Amazons: The development of women's riding dress', Amy de la Haye & Elizabeth Wilson, Defining Dress: Dress as Object, Meaning, and Identity (Manchester, 1999), p. 12.
9. ^ Janet Arnold, Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd (Maney, 1988), pp. 212, 142.
10. ^ Neil Younger, 'Drama, Politics, and News in the Earl of Sussex's Entertainment of Elizabeth I at New Hall, 1579', The Historical Journal, 58:2 (June 2015), p. 364.
11. ^ Janet Arnold, Lost from Her Majesties Back (Costume Society, 1980), p. 78 no. 370.
12. ^ Janet Arnold, Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd  (Maney, 1988), pp. 312-316, 371.
13. ^ John Nichols, Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, 3 (London, 1823), pp. 9, 11
14. ^ Lisa M. Klein, "Your Humble Handmaid: Elizabethan Gifts of Needlework", Renaissance Quarterly, 50:2 (Summer 1997), p. 459 doi:10.2307/3039187
15. ^ Janet Arnold, Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd (Maney, 1988), p. 315.
16. ^ Nadine Akkerman & Pete Langman, Spycraft: Tricks and Tools of the Dangerous Trade (Yale, 2024), pp. 222–223: J. S. Brewer, Court of King James the First, 1 (London, 1839), pp. 156–57: A brief account of the several plots (London, 1879), p. 23.
17. ^ Francis Edwards, 'Sir Robert Cecil, Eward Squier and the poisoned pommel', Recusant History, 25:3 (May 2001), pp. 377–414.
18. ^ Jemma Field, "Dressing the Stuart Court", Kate Anderson, Art & Court of James VI & I (Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 2025), p. 46.
19. ^ Jemma Field, 'Dressing a Queen: The Wardrobe of Anna of Denmark at the Scottish Court of King James VI, 1590–1603', The Court Historian, 24:2 (2019), p. 162. doi:10.1080/14629712.2019.1626120: National Records of Scotland, E35/13.
20. ^ Jemma Field, 'The Wardrobe Goods of Anna of Denmark, Queen Consort of Scotland and England', Costume, 51:1 (March 2017), supplement nos. 62, 63, 65, 66, 82, 84, 86, 129, from CUL MS Dd.I.26. doi:10.3366/cost.2017.0003
21. ^ David J. H. Clifford, The Diaries of Lady Anne Clifford (Stroud, 1990), 42: George Charles Williamson, Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke & Montgomery (Kendal, 1922), 103.
22. ^ Durham Wills and Inventories 2 (Surtees Society, 1860), p. 144.
23. ^ Frederick. G. Emmison, Essex Wills (Essex Record Office, 1990), 80 no. 406.
24. ^ C. B. Phillips & J. H. Smith, Stockport probate records 1620–1650 (Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society, 1992), p. 299.
25. ^ John Richard Walbran, Memorials of the abbey of St. Mary of Fountains, 1 (Ripon, 1878), p. 352
26. ^ Christabel Blanche Hardy, Arbella Stuart: a biography (London, 1913), p. 285.
27. ^ Sarah Gristwood, Arbella: England's Lost Queen (Random House, 2015), p. 22.
28. ^ Kelly Stage, The Roaring Girl: Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker (Broadview, 2019) p. 91.
29. ^ Wardegard, Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue
30. ^ Melanie Schuessler Bond, Dressing the Scottish Court 1543-1553: Clothing in the Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland (Boydell, 2019), pp. 104, 469, 472, 474–75.
31. ^ John M. Gilbert, Elite Hunting Culture and Mary, Queen of Scots (Boydell, 2024), pp. 53, 99–100, 186.
32. ^ Thomas Thomson, Collection of Inventories (Edinburgh, 1815), pp. 230, 238
33. ^ Joseph Robertson, Inventaires (Edinburgh, 1863), p. 71.
34. ^ Joanna M. Martin, The Maitland Quarto (Edinburgh: STS, 2015), pp. 239, 424: W. A. Craigie, Maitland Quarto, (Edinburgh: STS, 1920), 230
35. ^ Safeguard (3): Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue

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