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