The Mirror & the Light & the Hats

We all have our obsessions — for Kendra, it’s 18th-century hair; for some of you, it’s horses; for me, it’s 16th-century hats (and kind of hair, but that’s not seen much because of the hats). While I adored everything about the first series of Wolf Hall in 2015, I was shocked and appalled by the shitty headband-style French hoods that Anne Boleyn and the rest of the women wore. So I was wary about Wolf Hall: The Mirror & The Light (2024), wondering how series 2 would measure up when it came to the millinery (check out my deep-dives on episodes 1 to 3 and 4 to 6 for how I feel about the rest of the costumes).

Thank the gods, the headgear was good! Including the French hoods! OK, I did find a few clunkers, which I will diligently point out here, but overall, they fixed the problem in the intervening decade. While costume designer Joanna Eatwell did some press for the series, I can’t find any press or even an IMDB credit for a milliner or hat maker. Roseann Samuel seems to be the lead hair designer, and also a make-up artist, so I assume she’d work with the hats so they fit correctly on the head with the hair. But otherwise, I guess the headgear was also part of Eatwell’s designs, and her general team made them. Or someone didn’t get a screen credit, IDK!

Let’s recap from series one so everyone can appreciate the upgrade in series two. A decade ago, the court ladies of Wolf Hall just wore these dumb headbands, usually with sheer veils:

Sometimes the hair underneath was super messy:

And at least one character got a sticky-uppy French hood:

Which is all wrong on so many levels! As I’ve said before, the French hood (also just called a “hood”) was a very popular form of headgear worn first by upper-class women, and then filtered down to middling classes, in Europe from about 1510 up to 1600. It’s sometimes said that Anne Boleyn first brought the style from France to England, which is probably not true, although she may have popularized wearing it. And her successor, Jane Seymour, purposefully went back to wearing the more English gable hood when she was queen to distance herself from Anne.

The basics are that the French hood is a crescent-shaped hat worn midway back on a woman’s head, with only the very front of her hair showing. That top crescent sits low and mostly flat to the head. The height of the French hood varies over time and from person to person, but it does not stick stick straight up. This headgear is covering the head and hair underneath, it’s not adding structure.

This is about it for a French hood’s height:

The whole hat is typically built up of several layers that may or may not be permanently attached to each other (there’s much conjecture among academics and reenactors, but I don’t find that useful for TV and film). Not every French hood has every single layer — it seems to have changed over time, and in portraiture from later in the century, fewer layers may be shown.

This engraving has a good side-view of a French hood, featuring many layers, from the period that The Mirror and the Light portrays:

Key to this headgear is the veil, or hood, itself that hangs down a woman’s back, covering her hair. I’ve looked at a ton of period imagery for hoods, and all I’ve seen are veils that appear to be in opaque black or other solid dark color.

Check out these Germanic women of gentry or upper class who are all wearing hoods with solid black veils. It was also common for the veil to be flipped up on top of the woman’s head and pinned, sometimes in multiple folds. Because fashion! Also note how the women’s hair is entirely covered except for the very front.

Underneath this hood, a woman’s hair would be braided and taped into a tidy circle that’s quite easy to secure the hood onto (because they’re meant to work together!). The hair would also be covered with a snug linen cap (coif).

These next visual examples are from later in the 16th century and lower class than the characters of Wolf Hall, but these basic styles were consistent because they’re easy to do (watch this Tudor Tailor video to see how!) and practical whether you’re working or want to keep a fancy hat on. Here’s hair taping (the white part is the tape, and it’s wound into the hair to help tie it all together):

This shows two coifs worn layered — the bottom one ties under her chin, while the top one is held in place by ties that wrap around the top, which settle into the ridge of the taped hair and don’t move. She’s wearing two because the top one is “fancy” for her status, given how sheer and delicate it is.

The last important feature is the trim. Because this began as high fashion, upper-class women trimmed this headgear with one or more lines of jewels that could be removed, and these were thought of as a separate item of jewelry called “billaments.” Later in the century, when French hoods began to be worn by the middling class, they tend to be plainer and unjeweled.

This miniature shows two rows of billaments on her white hood, plus a gold frill at the very front:

OK, now let’s get into the French hoods of The Mirror and the Light! Since Anne is gone, no main characters are wearing this type of headgear — it’s all ladies in waiting and often non-speaking roles. So you’d think they’d cheap out on the hats, and yeah, sometimes they do. But not always. Pouring over scenes and making screencaps, I found that the bigger a role the character plays, the more likely she is to wear a decent French hood. The women who are total background figures with no lines and no names, they may get some crappy headgear. I’m not mad about this — that’s a reasonable choice for TV / movies / theater.

Notice how these ladies surrounding Princess Lady Mary have a grab-bag of headgear — some decent gable hoods but some questionable French hoods. The woman in burgundy on the left looks like she’s recycling a headband hood from season 1, and the woman on the far right in yellow has a sticky-uppy hood. None of these ladies have speaking roles.

Here’s a better view of the lady in yellow, plus another of Mary’s silent, unnamed ladies wearing bad French hoods:

But the lady-in-waiting who says a few words to Mary and helps with her train in episode 1 has a noticeably more accurate French hood:

Similarly, Jane’s ladies-in-waiting have varied headgear depending on how relevant of a role they play. Lady Jane Rochford is a significant figure here, and she’s up front with a nice tidy hood. Behind her are three unnamed ladies with sticky-uppy hoods.

In fact, the lady directly to the left of Rochford was at Jane’s wedding, and ooff, the cheezy lace doesn’t help.

In episode 3, we get another view of the lady-in-waiting who’s behind and to the right of Rochford, confirming that her hat is very like an upside-down visor.

But wait, didn’t I say this season of Wolf Hall had better French hoods than last time around? Yes, it does! But we’re nitpickers here at Frock Flicks, lol!

Rochford gets the best French hood glow-up, having worn a flimsy visor the first time around. Now she gets really proper headgear.

Check this out — the wind kicks up the veil of her French hood and shows that she is actually wearing a coif underneath! Be still my heart!!!

Anne Seymour is shown as Jane’s chief lady-in-waiting, since she’s the queen’s sister-in-law. Called “Nan” in the credits, she gets a couple outfits and coordinating headgear. In episode 3 where she shows off her new baby, she wears a simple black hood that lays quite flat to her head.

I’m never sure where the veil attaches, from the bottom or top of the crescent shape. Period imagery showing a side view seems more like the veil starts at the top, making that gap between the top and the back of the veil seem a little odd to me.

The other hood Nan wears is red with lots of bling. She’s seen in this while sewing with the queen in episode 2 and again in episode 3 when the queen’s portrait is being painted. Looks good!

There’s a few women who aren’t ladies-in-waiting who also wear historically accurate French hoods. Lady Margaret Douglas is interrogated by Thomas Cromwell, and she’s accompanied by Lady Richmond.

Richmond’s hood sticks up a bit more than I’d like, but the trimmings are accurate to her station.

Lady Bess Oughtred also gets an accurate hood, with trim that shows she’s wealthy gentry, though not serving at court.

While the queen usually wears a gable hood, there’s one scene in episode 2 that she wears a nicely made French hood too:

Breaking the rule that named, relevant characters get better headgear, here comes Catherine Howard, who wears this mess in episode 5. First of all, it sticks straight up:

Secondly, WTFrock is going on with her hair in the back, under the veil? Is she hiding her lunch under there or something?

Scroll back up to any of the side-view period images I shared — the reason the veil hangs smoothly down over the back of the head is because the wearer’s hair is braided and taped into a coil that wraps into a neat, tidy circle (as noted earlier). This looks like she’s using a modern claw clip! Baaaaaaad.

Catherine is loitering around while the maids of honor for Anne of Cleves are getting dressed, and that scene also features this weird headgear:

That’ll put your eye out, girl. Also, why is it attached to a swim cap?

That same scene did have some good hairstyling on other maids of honor, like this, showing hair taping!

Just … inconsistent.

Lastly, watching Anne of Cleves’ arrival at court is another nameless lady in bad headgear:

Now, you know we hate the sticky-uppy hoods, but no, they aren’t supposed to lay totally flat, falling off the head, either!

Series 1 got the gable hoods right, and so does series 2, since that’s what Jane wears mostly.

Straight outta Holbein:

With her purple gown in episode 3, she pins up the veil on one side of her coordinating purple hood.

Portrait images, especially Holbein’s drawings, show that women had many different fashions for pinning up their veils, like this:

Let’s finish up with the non-English hats! Starting with Jenneke, Cromwell’s fictional long-lost daughter from Antwerp. With the caveat that I am nowhere near as knowledgable about Germanic headgear of the 16th century as I am about English, French, and Italian, I’m just going to say this looks plausibly accurate.

The shape is reminiscent of period images, although the higher styles seem to be covered with a veil, while netted styles would be worn lower and sometimes with a flat beret-type cap. The TV costume might be a bit of a historical hodgepodge? In spite of hours of research, here’s the closest period example I could find to compare with what Jenneke wears:

However, Anne of Cleves‘ headgear does seem to reference her portrait and other contemporary images. She arrives at court wearing this:

I think it’s the same headdress she wears in her one other scene, but for the wedding, the beaded forehead piece is removed.

It’s not exactly the same headdress as in her famous portrait (the beading design looks different and it’s missing the tassel on the side), but it’s close:

Her ladies-in-waiting wear yet another style of Germanic headgear:

Well, an attempt was made. I think it’s a clumsy version of this style, which reenactors suggest was created by draping a veil over a soft or even wicker form, but this TV version looks carved out of upholstery foam.

I’m going to wrap up with a fun hat worn by the ambassador Eustace Chapuys. It’s a fancy twist on the standard men’s Tudor style.

That nifty tabbed brim is from Holbein!

Oh wait, one more thing, hat-adjacent — the beekeepers! You know they didn’t make this up:

Yep, basket-faced beekeepers were the thing!

 

Is anyone out there as into 16th-century headgear as I am?

 

 

 

 

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