SON OF THE PAINTER DIRCK DE VRIES.
Engraved by Goltzius.
There appears to be considerable contradiction of terms, as applied to the different collars, both with the writers of the time and with subsequent writers. Barnabe Rich, in his "Honesty of the Age," says: "The body is still pampered up in the very dropsy of excess.... He that some forty years sithence should have asked after a pickadilly, I wonder who should have understood him or could have told what a pickadilly had been, either fish or flesh."
There was, however, the small ruff, such as is seen in the portraits of Sir Thomas Gresham and Philip II. of Spain (pp. [121]-[123]). There was the large formal ruff which appears in the portrait of Lord Burleigh ([p. 93]), and the still larger ruff of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia ([p. 187]). There was the less formal ruff which fell upon the shoulders, which is seen in many portraits by Franz Hals. There was the high standing pointed collar, such as appears in William Rogers's print of Queen Elizabeth. There was a plain high-standing collar without lace, which went round the back of the head. There was the plain collar of the Cromwellians, which covered the shoulders, and there was also the rich lace collar of the latter part of the reign of Charles I. The plaits of the ruff were occasionally pinned, the rows being sometimes two and three deep. In the "Antiquary," a comedy by Shakerley Marmion, 1641, quoted by Strutt, a lover says to his mistress: "Do you not remember what taskes you were wont to put upon me when I bestowed you gowns and petticoats: and you in return gave me bracelets and shoe-ties? How you fool'd me, and set me sometimes to pin pleats in your ruff two hours together?"
CHARLES I. (IN THREE VIEWS).
After Vandyck. Engraved by W. Sharp.
In an old play called "Lingua; or, the Combat of the Tongue and the Five Senses for Superiority," 1607, one of the characters remarks:—
"It is five hours ago since I set a dozen maids to attire a boy like a nice gentlewoman; but there is such doing with their looking-glasses; pinning, unpinning, setting, unsetting, formings and conformings; painting of blue veins, and rosy cheeks; such a stir with combs, cascanets, purls, falls, squares, busks, bodices, scarfs, necklaces, carkonels, rabatoes, borders, tires, fans, palisadoes, puffs, ruffs, cuffs, muffs, pustles, fusles, partlets, frislets, bandlets, fillets, corslets, pendulets, amulets, annulets, bracelets, and so many lets that the poor lady of the toilet is scarce dressed to the girdle. And now there is such calling for fardingales, kirtles, busk-points, shoe-ties and the like, that seven pedlars' shops, nay, all Stourbridge fair, will scarcely furnish. A ship is sooner rigged by far than a nice gentlewoman made ready."
Towards the latter part of the reign of Charles I. both ruff and whisk give place to the falling band, which was worn both plain and laced. It had, indeed, appeared earlier, even in the latter years of Elizabeth, but was not in general use until the time of Charles. The trouble occasioned by the ruff and whisk appears to have been a factor of their downfall. A character in the "Malecontent," 1604, exclaims: "There is such a deal of pinning these ruffles when a fine cleane fall is worth all."