CHAPTER VI. Ruffs and Bands

RUFFS AND BANDS

“Fashion has brought in deep ruffs and shallow ruffs, thick ruffs and thin ruffs, double ruffs and no ruffs. When the Judge of the quick and the dead shall appear he will not know those who have so defaced the fashion he hath created.”

—Sermon, JOHN KING, Bishop of London, 1590.

“Now up aloft I mount unto the Ruffe Which into foolish Mortals pride doth puffe; Yet Ruffe’s antiquitie is here but small— Within these eighty Tears not one at all For the 8th Henry, as I understand Was the first King that ever wore a Band And but a Falling Band, plaine with a Hem All other people know no use of them.”

—“The Prayse of Clean Linnen,” JOHN TAYLOR, the “Water Poet,” 1640.