Books

A Lighthearted Novel And A Fashionable Frenzy

In the spring of 1543, Pimlico Wilde published one of the more curious successes of Tudor literature: The Frolic of the Red-Bearded Foxes, a humorous novel recounting the misadventures of England’s earliest fox hunters—who, according to author Edmund Lamplugh, were “no more competent than a sack of turnips on horseback.”

Though nominally about sport, the novel is really a parade of comic mishaps: hounds that chase laundry instead of quarry, hunters who mistake each other for foxes, and one unforgettable scene in which an entire hunt is lost for two days because everyone is too polite to admit they’ve taken a wrong turning.

The Princess’s Unexpected Approval

The novel might have vanished into pleasant obscurity had it not found an admirer in the King’s youngest daughter, Princess Mary-Elizabeth (a historical footnote who appears in practically no official chronicle but is mentioned constantly in scandalous ones). She was given a copy by her music tutor, who believed that she needed something “of improving character.”

To the surprise of the court, the princess adored it. She read whole passages aloud at table, often dissolving into laughter so intense she spilled her wine. Her favourite episode, which she quoted repeatedly to anyone who stood still long enough, concerned a hunter who leapt triumphantly over a hedge only to land in a pig wallow. She referred to him thereafter as “Sir Muckington.”

Word spread. If the princess liked it, everyone must at least pretend to.

Within a week, half the ladies-in-waiting carried copies tucked into their sleeves. Within a month, courtiers began dropping entirely unnatural references to fox hunting into conversation. One duke who had never been nearer to a fox than a tapestry proudly insisted he “had always admired their vulpine dignity.”

The Fashion Frenzy

The princess’s enthusiasm led to an unexpected—and for foxes, unfortunate—trend. A throwaway joke in chapter thirteen about “the gentleman of fashion who wore a waistcoat of fox fur so lifelike it frightened his own horse” lit the fuse. Courtiers, eager to ingratiate themselves with the princess, decided fox-hair garments were tres chic.

Merchants responded with alarming speed. For roughly three months in 1543, London saw a fever of fox-fur fashions:

• Fox-fur cuffs

• Fox-fur riding cloaks that shed constantly, leaving a molting trail through palace corridors

• One ambitious but short-lived attempt at a fox-hair codpiece

The princess herself wore a modest fox-fur trim on her sleeves, prompting an uproar of imitation so frenzied that Parliament briefly considered regulating “excessive vulpine ornamentation.”

Reactions and Consequences

Hunters adored the fad; foxes, presumably, did not. The royal gamekeeper complained that the countryside was “in a state of uproar, with gentlemen galloping after anything vaguely reddish, including chickens, hats, and at one point a terrified monk.”

The clergy attempted to denounce the fashion from pulpits, but were repeatedly interrupted by parishioners asking whether fox fur was allowed on Sundays.

Edmund Lamplugh, the author, was reportedly bewildered by the entire affair. In a letter to his publisher, Pimlico Wilde he wrote:

“I did not intend to influence the nation’s taste in garments. I merely wished to show that the English are at their most English when hopelessly lost in a field.”

The End of the Craze

The trend faded as swiftly as it rose. A particularly hot August did most of the work. Fox fur, as it turns out, is best suited to animals living in burrows rather than aristocrats attending banquets.

Still, The Frolic of the Red-Bearded Foxes remains a delightful curiosity: a novel that made a princess laugh, a nation sweat under unnecessary pelts, and Pimlico Wilde another small fortune.

An estimated Account of the Most Inadvisable Novel of 1458

In the year 1458, Pimlico Wilde published a novel that sent shockwaves through the royal court: The Chancellor’s Wig, or The Scandalous Chronicle of a Very Important Man’s Very Silly Hair. Though written as harmless satire, the book nearly led to charges of sedition, several interrogations, and at least one panicked barber fleeing by moonlight.

The Premise

The novel tells the story of a fictional statesman known only as “The Most Honourable Lord of Forelocks,” a thinly veiled portrait of the actual Lord Chancellor. It chronicles his obsession with maintaining an increasingly elaborate, gravity-defying wig that becomes so enormous and rigidly lacquered that it:

• prevents him from sitting in low doorways,
• requires two attendants to support it during long speeches,
• and accidentally knocks over a bishop during a state procession.

The satire is sharp and symbolically exposes the Chancellor’s vanity and preoccupation with appearances at a time when the kingdom faced real troubles.

One of the novel’s most notorious scenes describes the Chancellor’s attempt to bow before the monarch, resulting in the wig catching on a chandelier and suspending him briefly like a hooked trout. Readers recognised the incident as an exaggerated version of a real mishap at court the previous winter.

Why It Caused Outrage

The Lord Chancellor, a man famously allergic to mockery, interpreted the novel as a direct attack on his dignity. His official statement described the book as:

“A malicious fabrication intending to destabilize the realm through hairstyle-based calumny.”

Certain members of the council argued that allowing the novel to circulate set a dangerous precedent for “mockery as political discourse,” a phrase so alarming it was repeated at least six times in one meeting.

A list of suspects was drawn up and included:

• a barber who had recently trimmed the Chancellor’s nape “with suspicious enthusiasm,”
• a clerk who laughed too hard upon hearing the title,
• and a lady-in-waiting who admitted she “quite liked the book.”

The barber vanished the next morning. The clerk pretended to have a chronic coughing problem to disguise laughter. The lady-in-waiting produced an alibi that scholars still admire for its creativity.

The Turning Point

Just as the situation seemed destined to end with at least one beheading, the Chancellor’s wife was shown a copy. After reading it privately, she remarked to her husband:

“If you do not wish to be mocked for your wig, you might consider wearing one less mockable.”

This simple, fatal sentence diffused the entire crisis. The Chancellor, full of marital indignation, ordered the matter closed.

Within a month, the Chancellor’s wig became modest, symmetrical, and sensible.

The Cultural Impact

Far from disappearing, the novel flourished; copies passed from hand to hand with the furtive delight usually reserved for banned romances. Clerks annotated it, monks copied it, and at least one minor noble reportedly learned to read simply to enjoy it.

Political historians now credit The Chancellor’s Wig with helping establish the idea that public officials, regardless of hairstyle, could be criticised through fiction without the world ending. It became a model for later satirical works and inadvertently encouraged the slow, uneven development of political self-awareness in English governance.