"There she sat with her poking-stick, stiffening a fall."
When the use of starch and poking-sticks had rendered the arrangement of a ruff easy, the size began rapidly to increase. "Both men and women wore them intolerably large, being a quarter of a yard deep, and twelve lengths in a ruff."[[886]] In London this fashion was termed the French ruff; in France, on the other hand, it was called "the English monster."[[887]] Queen Elizabeth wore hers higher and stiffer than anyone in Europe, save the Queen of Navarre, for she had a "yellow throat," and was desirous to conceal it.[[888]] Woe betide any fair lady of the court who dared let her white skin appear uncovered in the presence of majesty. Her ruffs were made of the finest cut-work, enriched with gold, silver, and even precious stones. Though she consumed endless yards of cut-work, purle, needlework lace, bone lace of gold, of silver, enriched with pearls, and bugles, and spangles in the fabrication of the "three-piled ruff,"[[889]] she by no means extended such liberty to her subjects, for she selected grave citizens and placed them at every gate of the city to cut the ruffs if they exceeded the prescribed depth. These "pillars of pride" form a numerous item among the New Year's Gifts. Each lady seems to have racked her brain to invent some novelty as yet unheard of to gratify the Queen's vanity. On the new year 1559-60, the Countess of Worcester offers a ruff of lawn cut-work set with twenty small knots like mullets, garnished with small sparks of rubies and pearls.[[890]]
The cut-work ruff is decorated or enriched with ornament of every description. Nothing could be too gorgeous or too extravagant.[[891]] Great was the wrath of old Philip Stubbes[[892]] at these monstrosities, which, standing out a quarter of a yard or more, "if Æolus with his blasts or Neptune with his stormes chaunce to hit upon the crazie bark or their bruised ruffes, then they goe flip flap in the winde like ragges that flew abroade, lying upon their shoulders like the dishclout of a slut. But wot ye what? the devill, as he, in the fulnesse of his malice, first invented these great ruffes," etc., with a great deal more, which, as it comes rather under the head of costume than lace, we omit, as foreign to our subject.
Lace has always been made of human hair, and of this we have frequent mention in the expenses of Queen Elizabeth. We believe the invention to be far older than her reign, for there is frequent allusion to it in the early romaunces. In the Chevalier aux ij Epées (MS. Bib. Nat.), a lady requires of King Ris that he should present her with a mantle fringed with the beards of nine conquered kings, and hemmed with that of King Arthur, who was yet to conquer. The mantle is to have "de sa barbe le tassel." The entries of Elizabeth, however, are of a less heroic nature; and though we are well aware it was the custom of old ladies to weave into lace their silver-grey locks, and much as the fashion of hair bracelets and chains prevails, in Queen Elizabeth's case, setting aside all sentiment, we cannot help fancying the "laquei fact' de crine brayded cum lez risinge puffs,"[[893]] as well as the "devices fact' de crine similiter les scallop shells,"[[894]] to have been nothing more than "stuffings"—false additions, to swell the majesty of the royal "pirrywygge."
That point tresse, as this hair-lace is called, was known in her day, we have evidence in the Chartley inventory of Mary Stuart, in which is mentioned, "Un petit quarré fait à point tresse ouvré par la vieille Comtesse de Lennox elle estant à la Tour"; a tribute of affection the old countess would scarcely have offered to her daughter-in-law had she regarded her as implicated in the murder of her son. The writer saw at Chantilly an aged lace-maker employed in making a lace ground of hair on the pillow, used, she was informed, by wig-makers to give the parting of the hair; but the fabric must be identical with the point tresse sent by the mother of Darnley to the Queen of Scots. Point tresse, when made out of the hair of aged people, is occasionally to be met with on the Continent, where, from its rarity, it fetches a high price. Some districts gained a reputation for their work, according to Turner:—"And Bedford's matrons wove their snowy locks." It may be detected by the glittering of the hair when held up to catch the sunbeams, or by frizzing when exposed to the test of fire, instead of blazing.
With this mention of point tresse we conclude the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
CHAPTER XXIV.
JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION.
JAMES I.