these fashionable courtiers who sang of wine and women, dressed in silks, and swaggered arrogantly from tavern to theatre were degenerates, reprobate "roaring boys". The theatre had always the potential for riot, but theatricality itself seemed part of the problem. When [Sir John] Suckling raised a troop of horse for the king's military expedition north in 1638, he wanted to make a spectacle. He chose "very handsome young proper men" and kitted them out lavishly in white doublets and scarlet breeches, with coats, hats and feathers to match, making sure they had the best mounts and were fully armed.from The Times Literary Supplement: Roaring boys and Cavalier poets
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