"We have run Through ev'ry change, that Fancy, at the loom Exhausted, has had genius to supply; And, studious of mutation still, discard A real elegance, a little us'd, For monstrous novelty and strange disguise." To return to Elizabeth:-- The best known, and most distinguishing characteristic of the costume of her day was the ruff; which was worn of such enormous size that a lady in full dress was obliged to feed herself with a spoon two feet long. In the year 1580, sumptuary laws were published by proclamation, and enforced with great exactness, by which the ruffs were reduced to legal dimensions. Extravagant prices were paid for them, and they were made at first of fine holland, but early in Elizabeth's reign they began to wear lawn and cambric, which were brought to England in very small quantities, and sold charily by the yard or half yard; for there was then hardly one shopkeeper in fifty who dared to speculate in a whole piece of either. So "strange and wonderful was this stuff," says Stowe, speaking of lawn, "that thereupon rose a general scoff or byeword, that shortly they would wear ruffs of a spider's web." And another difficulty arose; for when the Queen had ruffs made of this new and beautiful fabric, there was nobody in England who could starch or stiffen them; but happily Her Grace found a Dutchwoman possessed of that knowledge which England could not supply, and "Guillan's wife was the first starcher the Queen had, as Guillan himself was the first coachman." "Afterward, in 1564, (16th of Elizabeth), one Mistress Dinghen Vauden Plasse, born at Teenen in Flanders, daughter of a worshipful knight of that province, with her husband, came to London, and there professed herself a starcher, wherein she excelled; unto whom her own nation presently repaired and employed her, rewarding her very liberally for her work. Some of the curious ladies of that time, observing the neatness of the Dutch, and the nicety of their linen, made them cambric ruffs, and sent them to Mistress Dinghen to starch; soon after they began to send their daughters and kinswomen to Mistress Dinghen, to learn how to starch; her usual price was, at that time, 4_l._ or 5_l._ to teach them to starch, and 20_s._ to learn them to see the starch. This Mrs. Dinghen was the first that ever taught starching in England."