Gown

What would this gown look like? We have four pieces of information to go on. The colour is the most immediate descriptor and, though ‘grossie’ can be used to mean gross, thick or large it is more likely to be a variation in spelling of ‘grassie’. Grassie green as a term can be found in other sixteenth century sources, for example in Stephen Gosson’s Pleasant quippes for upstart newfangled gentlewoman, published in 1596 he describes garments of ‘the swarthy-blacke, the grassie-greene, pudding red and dapple graie’.^[i]

The other two descriptions tell us that the sleeves are made of satin and that they are ‘hanging by’. Extant gowns and portraits featuring hanging sleeves all have them made from the same material as the rest of the gown, so a green satin gown with hanging sleeves is most likely what is being described here.

The final piece of information is the 1580 date when the ballad was originally published. Queen Elizabeth I had been on the throne for twenty two years and her wardrobe accounts include many gowns with hanging sleeves, also called ‘pendant sleeves’ or ‘Spanish round sleeves’. For example, a ‘greate spanyshe sleve’ was made for a black velvet gown with a train in 1569, sleeves ‘cut verie longe to hange by the bodies’ can be found in a warrant dated 1575, ‘a frenche Gowne with…great pendaunte slevis of the spanishe facion’ 1576 and ‘Verie lardge pendaunt slevis’ in a warrant dated 1582.^[ii]

Portraits of the Queen and the ladies of her court wearing a range of fashionable styles are numerous. Hanging sleeves were a feature of both French and Spanish style gowns and the bodies could have low, square necklines or be 'high-bodied' doublet style.

Lettys Knollys is depicted wearing a high-bodied gown with Spanish round sleeves, in her portrait by George Gower painted c1585 at Longleat House. No gown of this exact style survives but important sources of information for the cut and construction of similar garments are the extant gown worn by Pfalzgrafin Dorothea Von Neuberg in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich, Germany and patterns for women’s gowns drawn in Juan de Alcega's tailor’s book of 1589.

[i] https://archive.org/details/bim_early-english-books-1475-1640_pleasant-quippes-for-ups_gosson-stephen_1596

[ii] Janet Arnold, Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d (Leeds: Maney, 1988), pp. 114 &-127