FullReads

I shall transcribe from old Stowe a few extracts, which may amuse the reader:–

“In the second yeere of Queen Elizabeth, 1560, her silke woman, Mistris Montague, presented her majestie for a new yeere’s gift, a paire of black knit silk stockings, the which, after a few days’ wearing, pleased her highness so well, that she sent for Mistris Montague, and asked her where she had them, and if she could help her to any more; who answered, saying, ‘I made them very carefully of purpose only for your majestie, and seeing these please you so well, I will presently set more in hand.’ ‘Do so (quoth the queene), for indeed I like silk stockings so well, because they are pleasant, fine, and delicate, that henceforth I will wear no more CLOTH STOCKINGS’–and from that time unto her death the queene never wore any more cloth hose, but only silke stockings; for you shall understand that King Henry the Eight did weare onely cloath hose, or hose cut out of ell-broade taffety, or that by great chance there came a pair of Spanish silk stockings from Spain. King Edward the Sixt had a payre of long Spanish silk stockings sent him for a great present.–Dukes’ daughters then wore gownes of satten of Bridges (Bruges) upon solemn dayes. Cushens, and window pillows of velvet and damaske, formerly only princely furniture, now be very plenteous in most citizens’ houses.”

“Milloners or haberdashers had not then any gloves imbroydered, or trimmed with gold, or silke; neither gold nor imbroydered girdles and hangers, neither could they make any costly wash or perfume, until about the fifteenth yeere of the queene, the Right Honourable Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, came from Italy, and brought with him gloves, sweete bagges, a perfumed leather jerkin, and other pleasant things; and that yeere the queene had a pair of perfumed gloves trimmed only with four tuffes, or roses of coloured silk. The queene took such pleasure in those gloves, that she was pictured with those gloves upon her handes, and for many years after it was called ‘The Earl of Oxford’s perfume.'”

In such a chronology of fashions, an event not less important surely was the origin of starching; and here we find it treated with the utmost historical dignity.

“In the year 1564, Mistris Dinghen Van den Plasse, borne at Taenen in Flaunders, daughter to a worshipfull knight of that province, with her husband, came to London for their better safeties and there professed herself a starcher, wherein she excelled, unto whom her owne nation presently repaired, and payed her very liberally for her worke. Some very few of the best and most curious wives of that time, observing the neatness and delicacy of the Dutch for whitenesse and fine wearing of linen, made them cambricke ruffs, and sent them to Mistris Dinghen to starch, and after awhile they made them ruffes of lawn, which was at that time a stuff most strange, and wonderfull, and thereupon rose a general scoffe or by-word, that shortly they would make ruffs of a spider’s web; and then they began to send their daughters and nearest kinswomen to Mistris Dinghen to learn how to starche; her usuall price was at that time, foure or five pound, to teach them how to starch, and twenty shillings how to seeth starch.”

Thus Italy, Holland, and France supplied us with fashions and refinements. But in those days there were, as I have shown from Puttenham, as extravagant dressers as any of their present supposed degenerate descendants. Stowe affords us another curious extract. “Divers noble personages made them ruffes, a full quarter of a yeard deepe, and two lengthe in one ruffe. This fashion in London was called the French fashion; but when Englishmen came to Paris, the French knew it not, and in derision called it the English monster.” An exact parallel this of many of our own Parisian modes in the present day.