Whether in the Elizabethan era or the Victorian era, corsets were a necessity for women, cinching their waists until they seemed slender enough to grasp in one hand.
Next came the enormous skirts. Layer upon layer of different fabrics not only looked beautiful, but rustled softly as they walked.
They looked utterly dreamlike, and every girl attending a ball hoped hers would be the most eye-catching dress there.
In Queen Victoria's time, there was also a famous couple: Princess Cissy and Emperor Franz of Austria. However, Franz's mother, Princess Sophie, had never liked Cissy, even though Cissy was not a "commoner."
To maintain her slender figure, Cissy was almost ruthlessly strict with herself. As a result, even after four pregnancies, she retained the waistline of a young girl.
Queen Victoria was not so harsh on herself in that regard. She still wore corsets on formal occasions, but usually dressed in loose garments, almost like nightclothes. In her later years, the Queen strongly disapproved of pregnant women wearing corsets, though she generally only scolded her granddaughters over it.
When Queen Elizabeth I was fifty-three, she met a young man named Egremont one day. His father had been made an earl by the Queen, and when his father died, he was only nine years old. The boy soon discovered that he had inherited an illustrious title, yet was the poorest earl in all England.
Fortunately, he had a handsome face, was skilled at hunting, and could write in Latin. At eighteen, he became a cavalry general, a position meant more for decoration than any real duty. In short, he became a frequent presence at court and the Queen's inseparable "friend."
The young man rode beneath the sun, practicing horsemanship alongside equally vigorous cavalrymen, while the Queen stood smiling in the shadows. At