Court Plaster

The plaster of which the court ladies made their patches. These patches, worn on the face, were cut into the shape of crescents, stars, circles, diamonds, hearts, crosses; and some even went so far as to patch their face with a coach-and-four, a ship in full sail, a château, etc. This ridiculous fashion was in vogue in the reign of Charles I.; and in the reign of Anne was employed as the badge of political partisanship. (See Patches.)

“Your black patches you wear variously,

Some cut like stars, some in half-moons, some lozenges.”

Beaumont and Fletcher: Elder Brother, iii. 2.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

Court Plaster

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