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. [Illustration: THE INFANTA ISABELLA CLARA EUGENIA. _Engraved by Jan Muller._] "They became," says Stow, "intolerably large," and were known in London as the "French fashion," in Paris as the "English monster." The greatest gallant was he who possessed the longest rapier and the deepest ruff. It became necessary to apply one of the usual remedies against these and other extravagances of dress--a proclamation, or an Act of Parliament; in this instance a proclamation. Citizens were compelled to reduce their rapiers to a yard in length and their ruffs to "a nail of a yard" in depth. The unfinished engraving of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, Archduchess of Austria,[18] will serve to give a very good idea of the dimensions and general appearance of these articles of attire. Thus friend Philip Stubbes:--"They have now newly found out a more monstrous kind of ruff, of twelve, yea, sixteen lengths apiece, set three or four times double, and it is of some, fitly called, 'three steps and an half to the gallows.'" The "divells cartwheele" attained its greatest circumference in 1582, when that love of change, inherent in the feminine breast, or possibly the grave and reverend appearance of the ruff, occasioned a revolt amongst the younger women, who were disinclined to hide the beauties of their swan-like necks and throats. The ruff was therefore opened in front and elevated behind. This was the gorget or whisk, which was used both plain and laced. A curious advertisement appears in the _Mercurius Publicus_, of May 8, 1662:-- "A cambric whisk, with Flanders lace, about a quarter of a yard broad, and a lace turning up about an inch broad, with a stock in the neck and strap hangers down before, was lost between New Palace and Whitehall. Reward, twenty shillings." These whisks appear to have had a special proclivity for getting lost. Planché ("Cyclopedia of Costume") gives a similar advertisement:--