HARD-DRINKING and high born, the irate courtier was in no mood to mince her words in the winter of 1714. In Britain, she explained to the Countess of Buckeburg—favourite lady-in-waiting of the new German Princess of Wales, Caroline of Ansbach—noblewomen showed their quality ‘by Birth and Titles, and not by sticking out their Bosoms’. The Countess duly reported back to her mistress. Neither princess nor lady-in-waiting, however, ever fully reviewed their first impression that ‘English Women made themselves look… always in a Fright, whereas those that are Foreigners hold up their Heads and hold out their Breasts, and make themselves look as great and stately as they can’.
In 1714, the Hanoverian Succession guaranteed Protestant monarchy in Britain; it also heralded an era of ‘great and stately’ sartorial magnificence that survived into the early years of the 19th century. In part traceable to the sumptuous display typical of
