“Come buy Lawn Sleeves”

This chapter examines how debates of hypocrisy in antiprelatical writing are a combination of the metaphorical and the literal, of texts and textiles. Drawing on John Milton's early prose and examples in which he concentrates on the materiality of clerical garments, and in particular their linen fabric, the chapter explores linen as part of Milton's efforts to fragment and destabilise the uniformity that William Laud's ecclesiastical regime strived for. The chapter considers Milton's crucial comment on linen dress as found in his 1644 pamphlet, Areopagitica, a treatise against the material regulations on print that for Milton could have unbearable internal consequences on national and individual level. Ecclesiastical dress, in the shape of the "lawn sleeves" and the "silken Gowne", captures the imagination of the satirist and emerges as an appropriate emblem for the hypocrisy of the church, covering the bishops' moral degeneration with a lavish exterior.