Visard

A visard, also known as a vizard, is an oval mask of black velvet which was worn by travelling women in the early modern period to protect their skin from sunburn.

[2] The practice did not meet universal approval, as evidenced in this excerpt from a contemporary polemic: When they use to ride abroad, they have visors made of velvet ... wherewith they cover all their faces, having holes made in them against their eyes, whereout they look so that if a man that knew not their guise before, should chance to meet one of them he would think he met a monster or a devil: for face he can see none, but two broad holes against her eyes, with glasses in them.

[4] A Spanish observer at the wedding of Mary I of England and Philip of Spain in 1554 mentioned that women in London wore masks, antifaces, or veils when walking outside.

[10] In September, Arbella Stuart praised her for greeting the populace at Newbury with "thankful countenance barefaced to the great contentment of native and foreign people.

"[11] When the Spanish ambassador Juan Fernández de Velasco y Tovar, 5th Duke of Frías, arrived by ship to negotiate the Treaty of London the following year, she wore a black mask while observing from a barge on the Thames.