FONDNESS FOR SWEETS

335

meat, bread, and ale made up, substantially, the bill of fare for at least nine months in the year. "The Northumberland Household Book," for example, shows that in the family of that great earl they had fresh meat for only about three months-from midsummer to Michaelmas, the 29th of September. To enable them to swallow the salt meat, on which they lived for the remainder of the year, one hundred and sixty gallons of mustard were provided.*

One thing in regard to the tastes of the time is very suggestive, and that is the fondness for sweets, which was common to all classes. Sugar was a novelty to these islanders, and, having money for its purchase, they ran to the extravagance of children. The teeth of the women, including the queen, were black from overindulgence in this luxury. The men began to import sweet and other wines from Spain and Portugal, and, to the amazement of foreigners, they always mixed them with sugar.+

As we study this people from various quarters, and apply to them every kind of test, we shall see how consistent is the picture in all its details: the picture of a people with great energy and poetic instincts, brought into contact with an elder civilization, and awakening

*"The Northumberland Household Book " gives the bill of fare for every member of the family, and some of its details are very curious. My lord and lady have for breakfast on fast-days a quart of beer, as much wine, a loaf of bread, two pieces of salt fish, six red herrings, four white ones, or a dish of sprats. On flesh days, half a chine of mutton, or a chine of beef boiled. The young lord has half a loaf of bread, a quart of beer, and two mutton bones. Will Darrell, while in London, in 1589, fared more sumptuously, but lived almost entirely on meats. See his daily bill of fare in Hall, p. 212, etc.

† Hentzner's "Travels."

‡ Drake, p. 409.

to a new life. Look at the appearance of a gallant about the court. His beard will be cut so as to resemble a fan, a spade, or the letter T. He has great gold rings in his ears, set perhaps with pearls or diamonds. About his neck will possibly be a ribbon, on which he will string his other jewels for exhibition. His dress excites astonishment every where. He has no costume of everywhere. his own, and so borrows from all his neighbors. Portia describes him, in speaking of Faulconbridge, the young baron of England: "How oddly he is suited! I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behavior everywhere.” †

Nor was the female attire any less remarkable. Its fashions, too, were borrowed from every quarter, and changed every year; while the unmarried women, copying the example of the queen, who took great pride in her fine figure, decked themselves out in gowns with waists which, from their scantiness, would put to the blush the most hardened attendant of a modern court reception.

*Harrison's "Description of England;" Drake, pp. 390, 397.

"Merchant of Venice," act i. sc. 2. Says a writer of the time: "I read of a painter that would paint every countryman in his accustomed apparel-the Dutch, the Spaniard, the Italian, the Frenchman; but when he came to the Englishman, he painted him naked, and gave him cloth and bade him make it himself, for he changed his fashion so often that he knew not how to make it."-Becon's "Jewell of Joye." See also Froude, v. 121. Harrison, in describing the fantastic attire of the day, says "that except it were a dog in a doublet, you shall not see any one so disguised as are my countrymen in England. I have met with some of these trulles in London, so disguised that it hath passed my skill to discover whether they were men or women."

Goadby's "England of Shakespeare," p. 63. See also Hentzner's description of the dress of Queen Elizabeth.

REVERENCE FOR THE CROWN

337

But although foreign influences led at this time to much that was fantastic in feminine apparel,* they served one useful purpose, since they introduced the general wearing of linen fabrics to supplant the old undergarments made of wool. This came about through the teachings of the Netherland refugees, who were distinguished, among other things, for their personal neatness, and who first taught the Englishwomen how to starch their clothes.†

If foreigners were astonished at the garb of the Englishman, his fondness for sweets, and the appearance of his dwellings, they were no less affected by his reverence for the crown. So abject was Parliament in the time of Henry VIII. that when the king's name was mentioned the whole house stood up and bowed to the vacant throne. But even this exhibition was surpassed

*Meteren, quoted by Motley, "United Netherlands," i. 309.

"It was in the year 1564 that Mrs. Dinghen van den Plasse, who was born at Teenen, in Flanders, and was the daughter of a knight of that province, came to London with her husband for safety; she was the first who taught starching in those days of impurity. Our historians go further, and condescend to inform us that her price was about five pounds to teach how to starch, and twenty pounds how to seethe starch; and that in a little time she got an estate, being greatly encouraged by gentlemen and ladies." Burn's "Foreign Protestant Refugees," p. 189, quoting "an old writer.”

Stow, in his “Annals,” adds: “Some very few of the best and most curious wives of that time, observing the neatness and delicacy of the Dutch for whiteness and fine wearing of linen, made them cambric ruffs and sent them to Mrs. Dinghen to starch, and after a while they made them ruffs of lawn, which was at that time a stuff most strange and wonderful, and thereupon rose a general scoff or byword that shortly they would make ruffs of a spider's web, and then they began to send their daughters and neatest kinswomen to Mrs. Dinghen to learn how to starch."

Green's" Short History," p. 355.

during the reign of Elizabeth. When Hentzner was at Greenwich Palace, he noticed that whoever spoke to the queen fell upon his knees, and that when she walked through the presence chamber, all the lords and ladies, as she looked in their direction, did the same. This was surprising enough, but much more was to come afterwards. He witnessed the setting of her dinner-table, and there saw this sight: "A gentleman entered the room bearing a rod, and along with him another who had a table-cloth, which, after they had both kneeled three times with the utmost veneration, he spread upon the table, and after kneeling again they both retired. Then came two others, one with the rod again, the other with a salt-cellar, a plate, and bread; when they had kneeled as the others had done, and placed what was brought upon the table, they too retired with the same ceremonies performed by the first. At last came an unmarried lady-we were told she was a countess—and along with her a married one, bearing a tasting-knife; the former was dressed in white silk, who, when she had prostrated herself three times in the most graceful manner, approached the table and rubbed the plates with bread and salt, with as much awe as if the queen had been present." After this ceremony the dishes were brought in, tasted, and then carried to the private dining-room of her majesty.*

Such genuflections before a table-cloth and salt-cellar betoken a remarkable condition of society. If these acts of reverence, which men usually reserve for their Creator, were thus performed before a scrap of linen and a piece of silver, because the queen was about to

* Hentzner's "Travels." The tasting was to detect poison, and was not uncommon in other countries.

ELIZABETH AS A GODDESS

339

use them, what must have been the awe with which the people looked upon the queen herself! Giordano Bruno, the famous Italian philosopher, throws some light upon this question. He visited England in 1583, and remained two years. Subsequently, returning to Rome, he was accused of heresy and burned at the stake. One of the charges brought against him by the Inquisition was that he had described the heretical Elizabeth as a goddess. In reply, he said that in his book he praised the Queen of England, calling her a goddess, not in religion, but as an epithet given by the ancients to princes; and in England, where he wrote the book, it is their habit to give the title of goddess to the queen.* This goddess, as she appears to us in history, seems a strange divinity to worship; but, after all, she was only a type of her people, and in her we can read their character.†

The servility which characterized the time of Elizabeth was not confined to the royal court. Erasmus, when in England, wrote to a friend saying that he would

"Life of Bruno," by Frith, p. 110. The courtiers around Elizabeth had not studied the classics for nothing. When she is sixty, Raleigh thus speaks of her in a letter intended for her perusal: "I, that was wont to see her riding like Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair about her pure checks like a nymph, sometimes sitting in the shade like a goddess, sometimes singing like an angel, sometimes playing like Orpheus; behold the sorrow of this world: once amiss hath bereaved me of all."

+ James I. dispensed with the genuflections of his courtiers; but, still, he compared himself with the Saviour, "Christ had his John, and I have my George," referring to Buckingham. Abbot's "Bacon," p. 280. In a public proclamation issued in 1610, he speaks of kings and princes as "gods on earth." Taswell-Langmead's "Const. Hist. of England," p. 508.