In message <[email protected]>, [email protected] writes
In Aileen Ribiero's book about 17th century fashion, and in other books
there is reference to one Ann Turner who went to her hanging in yellow
starched
lace.
As I emailed Devon last night, I remembered quoting the passage
referring to yellow starched lace from JR Planché's "History of British
Costume" (pub. Charles Knight, 1836) some time ago. The following quotes
from this book may be of some use - it would appear that the portrait
painters who painted so much in white did little justice to the
colourful costumes of the times!
From Chapter XV111. Reign of James I., 1603-1625:-
Page 274
"The ruff was occasionally exchanged for a wide stiff collar, standing
out horizontally and squarely, made of the same stuff, and starched and
wired as usual, but plain instead of plaited or pinched, and sometimes
edged like the ruff with lace. These collars were called bands (1).
"(1) Both the band and the ruff were in this reign stiffened with yellow
starch, in preference to other colours. This fashion is said to have
been introduced from France by a Mrs. Turner, who was afterwards
executed for poisoning Sir Thomas Overbury. Vide page 292. In the play
of Albumazzar, published A.D. 1614, Armelina asks Tincalo, "What price
bears wheat and saffron, that your band is so stiff and yellow?" Bulwer
speaks of the "Cobweb-lawn yellow starched ruffs." Pedigree of the
English Gallant, p. 536."
Page 281:-
"The ruffs and bands or collars worn at this time by the ladies were
generally stiffened with yellow starch like those of the gentlemen."
On page 292, in the chapter "Charles I and Commonwealth":-
"And at this time accordingly we find a change in the female costume,
which renders it equally elegant with that of the other sex. The hood
and vardingale disappear, and with them the yellow starched ruffs and
bands. In Killegrew's Parson's Wedding, published in the next reign, he
alludes to the time when "yellow starch and wheel vardingales were cried
down (4)." The wearing of yellow starched ruffs had indeed declined from
the time that Mrs. Turner, a physician's widow, who had a principal hand
in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, was executed (5) : she went to
the gallows with a yellow ruff round her neck, and it consequently
became unfashionable. Bulwer says, "it is well that the fashion died at
the gallows with her that was the supposed inventrix of it." But she was
not the inventrix : it originated in France. Mrs Turner is said to have
introduced it into England. The habit of a lady of the close of Charles'
reign is given on the facing page, from a print after Hollar ; it is
distinguished by it rich full sleeves and elegant falling collar edged
with lace. The hair too is dressed after the fashion revived in our
days, and the approach to the costume of Charles II.'s reign generally
indicated. The mask was much worn in this reign.
"(4) A.D. 1615. But in a play, printed as late as 1661, called 'The
Blind Lady,' a serving-man says to a chamber-maid, "You had once better
opinions of me, though now you wash every day your best handkerchief in
yellow starch."
"(5) Howel's Letters."
The engraving on the following page is captioned "English lady of
quality, A.D. 1640, from Hollar's 'Ornatus Muliebris'."
Devon, my confusion with the yellow starch coming from Holland is
because I recalled the earlier passage in the book about starching ruffs
- the following passage on page 257 (chapter on Elizabeth's reign - no
"number" because the book was written 90 years before our present Queen
Elizabeth was born):-
"The perfection of this costume is familiar to us, as we have before
noticed, in the portrait of Elizabeth taken in the dress in which she
went to St. Paul's to return thanks for the defeat of the Spanish
armada, A.D. 1588, engraved by Crispin de Passe, from a drawing by Isaac
Oliver.
"In addition to the ruff, she wears a long mantle of some delicate
stuff, with a high-standing collar edged with lace, and expanding like
wings on each side of the head. This was probably made of fine lawn or
cambric.
"In the second year of her reign began the wearing of lawn and cambric
ruffs, they having before that time, says Stow, been made of holland,
and now, when the queen had them of this new material, no one could
starch or stiffen them ; she therefore sent for some Dutch women, and
the wife of her coachman Guillan became her majesty's first starcher.
" In 1564 Mistress Dingham Vander Plasse, a Fleming, came to London with
her husband, and followed the profession of a starcher of ruffs, in
which she greatly excelled. She met with much encouragement amongst the
nobility and gentry of this country, and was the first who publicly
taught the art of starching, her price being four or five pounds for
each scholar, and twenty shillings in addition for teaching them how to
seeth or make the starch.
"Stubbs falls foul of this "liquid matter which they call starch,"
wherein he says "the devil hath learned them to wash and dive their
ruffs, which being dry will then stand stiff and inflexible about their
necks." It was made, he tells us, of wheat flour, bran, or other grains,
sometimes of roots and other things, and of all colours and hues, as
white, red, blue, purple, and the like."
Planché then goes on to describe the ruffs, which were "clogged with
gold, silver or silk lace of stately price, wrought all over with
needlework, speckled and sparkled here and there with the sun, the moon,
the stars, and many other antiques strange to behold : some are wrought
with open work down to the midst of the ruff and further ; some with
close work ; some with purlid lace and other gewgaws, so clogged, so
pestered that the ruff is the least part of itself."
(Purlid, possibly refers to "perled" - which according to Planché meant
studded or spangled).
--
Jane Partridge
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