The peruke fashion eventually died away, in France during the Revolution when the citizens apparently decided that wigs were a symbol of the effete and decadent aristocracy... those aristos could jolly well go about bald and scabby like everyone else. In England, their gradual demise was less dramatic and more prosaic, as might be expected. In 1795, while the French were confiscating wigs and doing even less pleasant things to the heads of the upper class, British Prime Minister William Pitt instituted a tax on wig powder, ironically to fund war with France. Or rather, it was already taxed, but he introduced a licence fee that anyone buying powder would have to pay on top of that. At first people started using flour to powder their wigs instead, but then there was a bad growing year with a poor harvest and the price of flour went through the roof. So the thrifty English got rid of their wigs rather than pay the licence fee (the BBC should take note). The history of the powder tax is actually quite an interesting one- to history nerds like me, anyway... I once wrote a paper on 17th-18th century fashion and had a whole chapter on it. I'll stop here though, in case others don't find the subject quite as fascinating, and show a few pictures of bewigged characters from various movies instead:
My pastor brother-in-law was given a peruke (one of those 18th century style wigs) as a joke gift recently. Yesterday he wore it while picking up his two high school aged young'uns from school because frankly, if you can't embarrass your kids, what's the point? The peruke or powdered wig came into existence for two main- and nasty- reasons: syphilis and head lice. In the 17th century, an epidemic of syphilis swept across Europe, ravaging the antibiotic-less populace. Included among its many unpleasant symptoms were developing open sores- including on the head- and having one's hair fall out in patches. Let this be a lesson to you about sexually transmitted diseases and indiscriminate sex. In any case, to hide these embarrassing symptoms people started wearing wigs when they went out; they were frequently made of horsehair but also could be of human hair. The powdering of wigs was done to hide their unpleasant smell (powder was scented). And the other reason people wore wigs was because of the proliferation of head lice. To get rid of them, people would shave their own hair and don wigs. Of course, the lice then took up residence in the wigs but were easier to deal with since a person could take their wig off, delouse it, and toss it in a pot of boiling water to get rid of nits. At first worn out of necessity, wigs became a fashion statement when King Louis XIV of France (the Sun King) started wearing elaborate ones. In reality this was done because vainglorious ol' Louis started going bald when he was 17... maybe he had male pattern baldness, but more likely venereal disease. In any case, when all his courtiers saw the Sun King swanking around in a big curly wig, they followed suit. As did his cousin, King Charles II of England who, though not balding, was apparently going prematurely grey. So the fad swept across the Channel. The peruke fashion eventually died away, in France during the Revolution when the citizens apparently decided that wigs were a symbol of the effete and decadent aristocracy... those aristos could jolly well go about bald and scabby like everyone else. In England, their gradual demise was less dramatic and more prosaic, as might be expected. In 1795, while the French were confiscating wigs and doing even less pleasant things to the heads of the upper class, British Prime Minister William Pitt instituted a tax on wig powder, ironically to fund war with France. Or rather, it was already taxed, but he introduced a licence fee that anyone buying powder would have to pay on top of that. At first people started using flour to powder their wigs instead, but then there was a bad growing year with a poor harvest and the price of flour went through the roof. So the thrifty English got rid of their wigs rather than pay the licence fee (the BBC should take note). The history of the powder tax is actually quite an interesting one- to history nerds like me, anyway... I once wrote a paper on 17th-18th century fashion and had a whole chapter on it. I'll stop here though, in case others don't find the subject quite as fascinating, and show a few pictures of bewigged characters from various movies instead: Here's Benedict Cumberbatch in the 2006 film Amazing Grace. It's about William Wilberforce (played by Ioan Gruffudd), who got legislation through the British Parliament to end the slave trade (huzzah!). Cumberbatch is playing that old wig killer himself, William Pitt the Younger. This is a picture from the 1994 movie The Madness of King George, starring Nigel Hawthorne in the title role. It is about King George III's descent into mental illness, which results in the Regency period in England which is to blame for so many romance novels. Coincidentally, Pitt was prime minister for a good portion of the time period covered in the film. Here is Tom Hulce starring as Mozart (1756-1791) in the 1984 film Amadeus. His wig, like his life, is rather dishevelled. Robert Hardy played the always hospitable and jolly Sir John Middleton in the 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Sense and Sensibility, which is set in the 1790's. He's standing, charmingly bewigged, next to his equally goodhearted mother-in-law Mrs. Jennings (Elizabeth Spriggs). Last but not least, here's Peter Vaughn as Admiral Lord Hood in The Wrong War, the fourth episode of the Horatio Hornblower miniseries (1999). He orders Captain Pellew and his crew on a foolhardy mission which will see Hornblower and some of his men stranded in hostile French territory, on the wrong side of the English Channel. It is based on a chapter from the C.S. Forester book Mr. Midshipman Hornblower and was inspired by an actual historic event: the disastrous Quiberon Expedition in 1795.
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