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[Page 77]
No. 1 The Ruff
1554 The use of the Ruff in male as well as in Female attire seems to have been first adopted about the time of the marriage of Philip of Spain with mary Queen of England, on their Great Seal it appears on both impressions but it was 1558 then Short not Reaching half way to the chin; when Queen Elizabeth ascended the Throne only 4 years after this article of Dress appears to have extended itself to an Enormous Leng[th]e] may be Seen in Her majesties Great Seal when it almost overshadows the upper part of her Regal Person
at this time & for many some years after the art of Starching was unknown in England, The management of a wide Ruff must therefore have been dificult & expensive, Linnen could then be worn only once in the form of a Ruff, after having been washd it would of Course become too Limp & Loose to bear the necessary Setting out as it was Calld, with tails Calld Setting Sticks, Poking Sticks, Stricts &c necessary for Placing the Folds in that exact & accurate order necessary for which Constituted the beauty of this Preposterous attire
1564 in the 6th year of the Queens Reign Guylliem [Boonon] a Flander
See Ruffs then Dutchman was appointed her Majesties Coachman, who now Gentlemen for the first time usd a Coach # the wife of this william from after this about the same time Mrs Dinghen van den Plass, Daughter of a worshipfull Knight of Flanders & Said to have been the wife of the Queens Coachman, brought into England soon after came to England & She practisd the art of starching & chargd high Prices for her work
Some of the most Curious wives of that time made themselves Ruffes of Cambrick & sent them to Mrs Dinghen to be Starched, after a time they made them Ruffes of Lawn & thereupon rose a general Scaffe or [byeward] that shortly they would make Ruffes of Spiders web & then they began to send their Daughters to Mrs Dinghen to Learn how to Starch, her usual Price was 4 or 5 Pound to teach them how to Starch & one Pound to theach them how to Seeth Starch
The Ruffes both of men & of women now became intolerably Large being a Quarter of a yard deep & twelve Leng[th]s in a Ruffe, This Fashion was Called in London the French Fashion, but when Englishmen came to Paris The French knew it not & in derision Calld it the English monster.
Soon after this he that had the Deepest Ruffe & the Longest Rapier was held to be the Greatest Gallant