ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the topic of what rulers wore by considering changing attitudes to royal dress and appearance between the Middle Ages and modernity in Western Europe. It suggests that the 200 years between c.1640 and c.1840 were an important transitional period in changing attitudes to royal dress and appearance. The issue of what royalty wears has long been a source of popular comment. Sustained scholarly interest in royal clothing, however, is more recent. Much of the academic writing about royal dress has been in conjunction with museums. Blue and red were popular colours in the heraldry of northwest Europe and, because of their positive meaning, became the colours of the royal houses of France and England, respectively. The commission of royal portraits that could be viewed beyond the court, albeit largely in elite circles, was useful at a time when the establishment of representative institutions increased the number of politically active subjects.
