Starching at this period had not reached England; ruffs, therefore, must have been an expensive luxury, as the starched linen, imported from Flanders, could not be worn after being washed.
In 1564, one Madame Dinghen, who, as her name suggests, hailed from Flanders, set up as a clear starcher in London, and appears to have made the trade of clear starching an extremely lucrative one. Her terms were four or five pounds for teaching "the most curious wives"[17] to starch, and one pound for the art of seething starch. The "curious wives" subsequently made themselves ruffs of lawn; whereupon arose the general scoffing by-word that they would shortly make their ruffs of spider's web.
HENRY IV. OF FRANCE.
From an engraving by Goltzius.
A certain Richard Young, described as a justice, for a long time held the monopoly of the manufacture of starch in this country. From the Elizabethan State Papers we learn that in 1589 there was a prosecution against an infringer of the patent, to wit, Charles Glead, a gentleman of Kent, who declared to the Queen's messengers that he would make starch in the face of any patent or warrant yet granted, unless set down by Act of Parliament.
Setting-sticks, strutts, and poking-sticks were the tools used in the process of starching; the first made of wood or bone, and the latter of iron, which was heated in the fire. It was this heated tool which produced that beautiful regularity characteristic of this article of attire.
"They be made of yron or steele, and some of brass kept as bright as silver, yea, and some of silver itselfe; and it is well if in processe of time they grow not to be gold. The fashion whereafter they be made, I cannot resemble to anything so well as to a squirt, or a squibbe, which little children used, to squirt out water withall; and when they come to starching and setting of their ruffes, then must this instrument be heated in the fire, the better to stiffen the ruffe ... and if you woulde know the name of this goodly toole, forsooth, the devill hath given it to name a putter, or else a putting sticke, as I heare say" (Stubbes, "Anatomy of Abuses").
Upon the introduction of these tools, together with starch, ruffs rapidly increased in their proportions.