COCKADE (1'r, cocarde or eogna•de, from cog, cock). A word first found in the works of Rabelais. and in the early part of the seven teenth century used to designate a cocked hat or cap set jauntily I In the head. Later on, how ever, it acquired a more restricted meaning, and was applied to the clasp or knot of ribbon which decorated the loop or cock of the hat. The word is now employed to designate a rosette or knot of ribbon, leather, or other material worn on the hat as a badge or ornament. Cockades have al ways been used as party badges and insignia since the War of the Spanish Succession, when the red and white cockade was adopted by the French. In England the Stuart cockade was white, the Hanoverian was black. and frequent references to the rival colors are to he met with in the literature of the time. As early as 1767, a regulatien in France provided that every Frem.11 soldier should 'mount the cockade.' the color being white; and a later decree. in 1782. restricted the wearing of cockades to the mili tary. From this period till the outbreak of the
French Revolution the cockade was an exclu sively military emblem. and 'to mount the cock ade' was synonymous with becoming a soldier, both in France and England. After the meeting of the States-Oeneral of France in 1789. cockades of green were worn by the advanced party, hut these soon gave way to the more popular red, white, and blue—the tricolor of the Revolution. See Timowe.
Every nation of Europe has its own cockade. In Germany, black, yellow, and white, and black, red, and gold have been used; in Austria. black and yellow; in Russia, green and white. In England the cockades worn are always black— the old Hanoverian color; but being used, gen erally, as part of the livery of coachmen and footmen, they have lost all special significance. Consult: (lenealogical Magazine, vols. is iii. (London. Racinet. Le costume torique (6 vols., Paris, 1888).