FOOTNOTES:

In certaine townes where dronken Bacchus beares swaie, against Christmas and Easter, Whitsondaie or some other tyme, the churchwardens of every parishe, with the consent of the whole parishe, provide halfe a score, or twentie quarters of mault, whereof some they buy of the churche stocke, and some is given them of the parishioners themselves, every one conferring somewhat, according to his abilitie; whiche maulte being made into very strong ale or bere, is sette to sale, either in the churche or some other place assigned to that purpose. Then when this is set abroche, well is he that can gete the soonest to it, and spend the most at it. In this kinde of practice they continue sixe weekes, a quarter of a yeare, yea, halfe a yeare together. That money, they say, is to repaire their churches and chappels with, to buy bookes for service, cuppes for the celebration of the sacrament, surplesses for Sir John, and such other necessaries, and they maintaine other extraordinarie charges in their parish besides.

That these ales were eminently productive, the churchwardens’ accounts of many parishes attest. Thus in Kingston-upon-Thames, the proceeds of the church-ale in 1526 are entered as 7l.15s., not much short of 100l.as money goes now.

We find them satirised inPierce Plowmanthus:—

I am occupied everie daye, holye daye, and other,With idle tales at the ale, and other while in churches.

In churches.Though they were not usually, if ever, held there, but in a place called thechurch-house. Thus Carew (Survey of Cornwall) says: ‘Whitsontide, upon which holidays the neighbours meet at the church-house, and there merily feed on their owne victuals, contributing some petty portion to the stock, which, by many smells, growth to a meetly greatness.’

In process of time of course they degenerated. The pulpits of the sixteenth century freely denounced them. A typical sermon on the abuses of the day is that of William Kethe, preached at Blandford in 1570, at which time ales must have been kept in his neighbourhood on Sunday, ‘which holy day the multitude call their revelyng day, which day is spent in bul-beatings, beare-beatings, bowlings, dicyng, cardyng, daunsynges, drunkenness, and whoredome.’ And when we remember that it is recorded of an old song, that

It hath been sung at festivals,On ember eves andholy ales,

we shall the better appreciate the nature of the fall. ‘Desinit in piscem mulier formosa supernè.’

Efforts were made in this reign of Henry VI. for the better observance of Sunday; and, here and there, there are indications that efforts were made locally to bring about ‘Sunday closing.’ Mr. Bridgett has adduced a few examples. In 1428 the corporation of Hull made an order for the observance of the Sunday. No market was to be kept, under penalty of 6s.8d.for sellers, and 3s.4d.for buyers; no butchers wereto expose meat for sale, nor cooks to dress or sell except to strangers, and to them only before seven o’clock; no tradesmen to keep shops open; no vintners nor ale-house keepers to deliver or sell ale, under the same penalties. London made an attempt to suppress Sunday trading, but it was ineffectual. In the year 1444 ‘an Act was made, by authority of the Common Council of London, that upon the Sunday should no manner of thing, within the franchise of the city, be bought or sold, neither victual nor other things; nor none artificer should bring his ware to any man to be worn or occupied that day, as tailor’s garments or cordwainer’s shoes; and so likewise of all other occupations; the which ordinance held but a while.’

There was very little legislation upon these matters in Henry VI.’s reign. The planting ofhopswas prohibited. They were used by the brewers in the Netherlands early in the fourteenth century; and the use of them in beer was brought into England from Artois. But there will be more occasion to speak of them later on, when we shall find that privileges were granted tohop-grounds. In this reign the Brewery Company was incorporated, and we can readily believe that its brew was duly appreciated by John Lydgate, the monk of Bury.

Beer had risen immensely in price from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. When the Archbishop of Canterbury visited his land at Tarring, in Sussex, in 1277, four gallons of the best beer were to be charged only 1d.; whereas a tariff of 1464 shows an extraordinary advance.

A century later it had again risen fifty per cent.

In the archives of Ely Cathedral we have the following account of the produce of a vineyard:—

In an ordinance for the household of George, Duke of Clarence (Dec. 9, 1469), the sum of 20l.is allowed for the purveying of ‘Malvesie, Romenay, Osey, Bastard, Muscadelle, and other sweete wynes.’ This Romenay or Rumney has nothing to do with Rome or the Romagna, but was probably made from Greek vines, as Henderson suggests, derived from Rum-ili, a name given by the Saracens to Greece. TheOseyabove mentioned, or Auxois, was in old time a name for Alsace. It was richly and highly flavoured.

The mention of the Duke of Clarence brings up the spectre of his untimely end. A shroud of mystery veils its entire circumstances. He was charged with high treason and condemned to death. Ten days afterwards it was announced that he had died in the Tower. Was he first murdered and then drowned, as Shakespeare thought,[82]or is the old story to be believed, that he was drowned in a butt of malmsey? Since the death of his dearly loved wife, Isabel of Warwick, he had abandoned himself to intemperance, to drown his grief. Withsuch a habit contracted, with vexed conscience, in the despair of condemnation, and with a butt of his favourite drink by his side, what more natural than to suppose him to have been a miserable suicide? However, the weight of testimony leans to the other theory—that he was stabbed by Richard’s order, and the body thrown into the malmsey to make believe that he had unwittingly drowned himself under the influence of drink.

Mr. Martin Leake gives the origin of the termMalmsey: Monemvasia, now an island connected with the coast of Laconia by a bridge. This name, derived from its position (μόνε ἐμβασία,single entrance), was corrupted by the Italians to Malvasia; this place, celebrated for its fine wines, had its name changed to Malvoisie in French, and Malmsey in English, and came to be applied to many of the rich wines of Greece, the Archipelago, &c.[83]

The consumption of strong drink at public entertainments was something prodigious in the fifteenth century. At the banquet upon the occasion of the installation of George Neville, Archbishop of York, in 1464, no less than 300 tuns of ale and 100 tuns of wine were consumed. In the household of Archbishop Booth, his predecessor, it is stated that about 80 tuns of claret were consumed annually.

The usages ofassaywere at this time remarkable. Every cup of drink served to the great man of the house was assayed twice, once in the buttery and again in the hall. In the buttery the butler was required to drink, under the marshal’s eye, some of every vessel of liquor sent to the high table; and at the same time the marshal covered with its lid every cup, before committing it to thelord’s cupbearer. It was treason for a cupbearer to raise the lid of a vessel thus confided to him, on his way from the buttery to the table; but he sipped it before his lord took a draught. On serving his master the cupbearer knelt, removed the lid, and poured some of the drink into the inverted cover. When he had drunk this, the servant handed the cup to his master, who, when he saw the liquor assayed before his eyes, accepted it as a liquor ofcredencewhich he might drink trustfully.[84]

But here we must stay for a while and inquire what action the Church had been taking for the past century to check intemperance. In the year 1359, Archbishop Islep, in his Constitution, informs Michael de Northburg, Bishop of London, that though it is provided by sanctions of law and canon that all Lord’s days be venerably observed from eve to eve, so that neither markets, negotiations, nor courts be kept, nor any country work done, that so every faithful man may go to his parish church to worship and pray, yet ‘we are, to our great heart’s grief, informed that a detestable, nay damnable, perverseness has prevailed, insomuch that in many places, markets, unlawful meetings of men who neglect their churches, various tumults and other occasions of evil are committed, revels and drunkenness, and many other dishonest doings are practised, ... wherefore we strictly command you that ye without delay canonically admonish, and effectually persuade in virtue of obedience, those of your subjects whom ye find culpable, that they do wholly abstain from markets, courts, and the other unlawful practices for the future,’ &c.

In a constitution held three years later, the sameArchbishop Islep lays intemperance to the charge of some of the priests, and imposes strenuous penalties in default of amendment.[85]In 1363 Archbishop Thoresby complains that it had become common for persons to meet in churches on the vigils of saints, and offend against God by their practices; that in the exequies of the dead, some turned the house of mourning and prayer into the house of laughter and excess to the great peril of their own souls. These were strictly forbidden to continue such practices.

In the year 1468 the Prior of Canterbury and the commissaries made a visitation (the see being then vacant); and it was ordered that potations made in the churches, commonly calledgive-alesorbride-ales, should be discontinued, under penalty of excommunication.[86]

Bride-ale

was so called from the bride’s selling ale on the wedding day, and friends contributing what they liked in payment of it. Brand imagines that the expense was defrayed by the friends of the married pair when circumstances were such as to need help. It was also calledbride-stake,bride-wain, andbride-bush; the bush sufficiently signifying the nature of the gathering, inasmuch as it was the ancient badge of a country ale-house. Before the festivities proper began on the return from the bridal ceremony, it appears that a curious drinking custom prevailed in the church. Wine, with sops immersed, was there drunk, and bowls were kept in the church forthis purpose. Thus, in an inventory of goods belonging to Wilsdon church in the sixteenth century, occurs the item, ‘two masers (mazers) that were appointed to remayne in the church for to drink in at bride-ales.’ Shakespeare alludes to this custom in hisTaming of the Shrew, where Petruchio

Calls for wine:—‘A health,’ quoth he ...... Quaff’d off the muscadel,And threw thesopsall in the sexton’s face.

The practice continued in force for a long time, for we find allusion to the same custom in the year 1720 in theCompleat Vintner:—

What priest can join two lovers’ hands,But wine must seal the marriage-bands?As if celestial wine was thoughtEssential to the sacred knot,And that each bridegroom and his brideBeliev’d they were not firmly ty’dTill Bacchus with his bleeding tvn,Had finished what the priest begun.

The wine thus drunk is called by Ben Jonson a ‘knitting cup.’ After the ceremony they retired to a tavern or went home, and then the orgies begun. In the words of an old writer, ‘When they come home from the church, then beginneth excess of eatyng and drynking, and as much is waisted in one daye as were sufficient for the two newe-maried folkes halfe a year to lyve on.’

But these customs are not peculiar to England only. The Scotch have their ‘penny bride-ale’ to help those who cannot pay the expense of the wedding feast. In Germany, when a window was put in or altered, was thefenster-bier(window-beer). At the churchings of women was thekark-bier(church-beer). At funerals was thegrab-bier(grave-beer), beer forming an essential part of all such observances.

Edward IV. died in 1488, the victim of mortified ambition. His habits of life were licentious and intemperate. He died under a violent fever aggravated by excess. We can only hope that he died, as it is reported, a penitent. An account is given in the Paston Letters (cccxliv.) of an intendedprogressof the king, probably to facilitate his benevolences. In this, Sir John Paston is urged to warn William Gogney and his fellows ‘to purvey them of wine enough, for every man beareth me in hand that the town shall be drank dry, as York was when the king was there.’

In this reign the Earls of Warenne and Surrey possessed the privilege of licensing ale-houses. Mention has already been made of the ‘Crown,’ in Cheapside. In 1467 this house was kept by one Walter Walters, who in harmless pleasantry gave it out that he would make his son ‘heir to the “Crown.”’ This so displeased his Majesty Edward IV. that he ordered the man to be put to death for high treason.

One piece of legislation remains to be told before closing the period. In the first year of Richard III. (c. 13), it was enacted that malmsey should in future be imported only in butts of 126 gallons. This measure was for the prevention of frauds on the revenue. It was repealed by an Act of George IV.

FOOTNOTES:[77]Massinger:A New Way to Pay Old Debts.[78]Allen,History of Lambeth.[79]Roberts:Social History of the Southern Counties.[80]Dodsworth’s MSS., Bibl. Bod., vol. 148, p. 97.[81]Speechly:Treatise on Culture of Wine, 2nd ed. p. 270.[82]Richard III., act i. scene 4.[83]Researches in Greece, p. 197.[84]Jeaffreson:A Book about the Table.[85]For a terrible account of theglutton-massesof the secular clergy, see Henry,Hist. Great Britain, book v. ch. 7.[86]Warton (Hist. Poetry, iii. 414) cites the above from Archbishop Tanner’s manuscriptAdditions to Cowell’s Law Glossary.

[77]Massinger:A New Way to Pay Old Debts.

[78]Allen,History of Lambeth.

[79]Roberts:Social History of the Southern Counties.

[80]Dodsworth’s MSS., Bibl. Bod., vol. 148, p. 97.

[81]Speechly:Treatise on Culture of Wine, 2nd ed. p. 270.

[82]Richard III., act i. scene 4.

[83]Researches in Greece, p. 197.

[84]Jeaffreson:A Book about the Table.

[85]For a terrible account of theglutton-massesof the secular clergy, see Henry,Hist. Great Britain, book v. ch. 7.

[86]Warton (Hist. Poetry, iii. 414) cites the above from Archbishop Tanner’s manuscriptAdditions to Cowell’s Law Glossary.

TUDOR PERIOD.

The legislative enactments of the reign of Henry VII. demand minute attention. With a certain modification, it is true that the direct legislative sanction of the liquor traffic dates from this reign. The revival of the trade of England was a great object with this monarch. The greater part of the foreign trade of England had hitherto been carried on by foreigners in foreign vessels of burden. Henry was sensible that this prevented the increase of English ships and sailors; so, to remedy this in part, he got a law passed in his first Parliament, that no Gascony or Guienne wines should be imported into any part of his dominions, except in English, Irish, or Welsh ships, navigated by English, Irish, or Welsh sailors, which obliged them to build ships and go to sea, or to lack their favourite liquor. This law was enforced and enlarged by an Act made in his third Parliament (1487), when it was enacted that no wines of Gascony or Guienne, or woads of Tholouse, should be imported into England, except in ships belonging to the king or some of his subjects; and that all such wines and woads imported in foreign bottoms should be forfeited.

By 7 Henry VII., c. 7, it was enacted (in order to counteract the duty of four ducats a tun lately imposed by the Venetians) that ‘every merchant stranger (except Englishmen born) bringing malmseys into this realm, should pay 18s.custom for each butt, over and above the custom aforetime used to be paid.’ The price of the butt was fixed at 4l.

Of far more importance was the Act of 1496, passed ‘against vacabonds and beggars.’ This empowers two justices of the peace ‘to rejecte and put away comen ale-selling in townes and places where they shall think convenyent, and to take suertie of the keepers of ale-houses of their gode behavyng, by the discrecion of the seid justices, and in the same to be avysed and aggreed at the time of their sessions.’

Leland gives in hisCollectaneaa wine list which indicates the comparative prices of wines at this time:—

We get a good notion of the daily routine of court living in this reign from the ordinances of the royal household. There is nothing whatever in them indicative of excess, but they are interesting as matters of history, and records of etiquette. ‘When the king cometh from evensong into his great chamber on the even of the day of estate, the chamberlain must warn the usher before evensong that the king will take spice and wine in his great chamber.... Then shall the gentleman usher bring thither the esquire, and especially the king’s server (officer who set, removed, tasted, &c.) to bring the king’s spice plate.... And when the usher cometh to the cellar door, charge a squire for the body with the king’s own cup.’ This is simply a specimen of pages of like directions.

Entries in the Household Book of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, furnish details of a nobleman’s style of living at the beginning of the sixteenth century. On the Feast of the Nativity 290 persons dined and supped at Thornbury Castle, on which occasion were consumed eleven pottles and three quarts of Gascony wine, and 171 flagons of ale. This was not excessive for the times, the vices of which are admirably pictured in William Dunbar’s remarkable poem,The Dance. He describes a procession of the seven deadly sins in the lower regions. Gluttony brings up the rear:—

Then the foul monster Gluttony,Of wame [belly] insatiable and gredy,To dance he did him dress:Him followed mony foul dronkart,With can and collop, cup and quart,In surfett and excess.Fully many a wasteful wally-drag [outcast],With wames [bellies] unwieldable did forth wag,In creische [fat] that did incress:Drink, aye, they cried, with mony a gape,The fiends gave them hait leid to lap [hot lead to lap]Their levery [reward] was no less.

The Household Book of the Earl of Northumberland is another capital illustration of the table life of the higher nobles. In reading the estimates, it must be taken into account that the household consisted of 166 persons. The allowance of grain per month gave 250 quarters of malt at 4s., two hogsheads to the quarter. This allowance may be thought to speak more for the temperance of the retainers than for the liberality of the lord. The wine was dispensed more liberally. An annual consumption showed ten tuns and two hogsheads of Gascony. A breakfast bill of fare appears thus: ‘Breakfastis for my lorde and my ladye. Furst a loofof brede in trenchers, two manchets, one quart of bere, a quart of wine, half a chyne of muton, ells a chyne of beif boyled.’

A searching visiting of monasteries, indeed of all ecclesiastics within the dominion, was entrusted by Henry VII. to his vicar-general and vice-gerent, Thomas Cromwell. The scrutiny was intended mainly for the monasteries. The eighty-six articles of instruction compass a large field of minute inquiry. The commissioners were doubtless much indebted to monastic factions and animosities for some of the information which they gained. The scrutiny revealed terrible irregularities in some cases, prominent among which were the vices of gluttony and drunkenness. The result of this official investigation was the dissolution of the smaller monasteries. And thus good was effected; for, however much we discount the charges alleged, for the reasons above suggested, the lives of the inmates had become a far and wide scandal. Innocent VIII. sent a bull to Archbishop Morton in 1490, in which he informs him that he had heard with great grief from persons worthy of credit, that the monks of all the different orders in England had grievously degenerated, that giving themselves up to a reprobate sense they led dissolute lives. But the archbishop was fully aware of the evil, for in 1487 he had convened a synod of the prelates and clergy of his province, for the reformation of the manners of the clergy. In this convocation many of the London clergy were accused of spending their whole time in taverns. But there is no disguising the fact that profuseness of living was countenanced in the highest places of the Church; which, if it does not excuse, at any rate explains the excesses of the ‘inferior clergy.’ As late as 1504, when William Warham was enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury, a feast was given for which was procured—fifty-four quarters of wheat, six pipes of red wine, four of claret, one of choice white, one of white for the kitchen, one butt of Malmsey, one pipe of wine of Osey, two tierces of Rhenish wine, four tuns of London ale, six of Kentish ale, and twenty of English beer.

It is curious how many of our tavern signs originated from incidents in the history of our sovereigns. The ‘Red Dragon’ was in compliment to Henry VII., who adopted this device for his standard at Bosworth Field. It was in old times the ensign of the famous Cadwaller, the last of the British kings, from whom the Tudors descended. The field of Bosworth furnished matter for another sign. The hawthorn-bush crowned was adopted by Henry VII. in allusion to the crown of his predecessor which was found hidden in a hawthorn-bush after the battle. But the seventh Henry escaped the honour (?) conferred upon his successor and perpetuated, of being immortalised by his portrait as Bluff Harry on scores of tavern signboards. It is stated in theHistory of Signboardsthat at Hever, in Kent, one of these rude portraits of Henry VIII. may be seen. Near this village the Bolleyn, or Bullen, family held possessions, and old people in the district still show where Henry used to meet Anne Bolleyn. Anyhow, years after the sad death of Anne, the village ale-house had for its sign, ‘Bullen Butchered.’ When the place changed hands, the name of the house was altered to the ‘Bull and Butcher,’ which sign existed till recently, but was altered at the request of the clergyman of the parish, who suggested the ‘King’s Head,’ and the village painter was commissioned to make the alteration. The bluff features of the monarch were drawn; and in his hands was placed an axe, and so the sign remains at present.

In the collection of ordinances for the Royal Household we have an account of the ceremony ofwasselling, as was practised at Court on Twelfth Night in the reign of Henry VII. The ancient custom of pledging each other out of the same cup had given place to the use of different cups. Moreover, ‘when the steward came in at the doore with the wassel, he was to crye three tymes, “Wassel,wassel,wassel,” and then the chappell (chaplain) was to answere with a songe.’ The custom of ‘toasting’ was in full force. Shakespeare’sKing Henry VIII.contains several such allusions. Thus in act i., scene 4, the king exclaims—

Let’s be merry.Good my lord cardinal, I have a half a dozen healthsTo drink to these fair ladies.

Malmsey (pronounced by Shakespeare to be ‘fulsom’) competed with sack to be the favourite drink of the period; it was the only sweet wine specified in the ordinances of the household of Henry VIII. Malmsey was a strangely generic term for sweet wines from almost every vine-growing district. Candia, Chios, Lesbos, Tenedos, Tyre, Italy, Greece, Spain, all yielding theMalmsey, which we found to have proved so fatal to

Maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.

Some believe it to have been first made at Napoli de Malvasia, in the Morea. Certainly the principal part of that which was so extensively imported in the middle ages came from the Archipelago. When subject to Venetian rule Candia and Cyprus suppliedEurope with their finest wines, the former island alone being said to have exported 200,000 casks of Malmsey annually.

Sack is another generic term for sweet wine,[87]and is not of necessity, as Nares describes it, ‘the same wine which is now named sherry;’ a statement which the rest of his own remarks contradict. Thus we find not only sherry-sack, but canary-sack, Malaga-sack, rumney-sack, palm-sack, &c.[88]The derivation of the word is much disputed; the townXique, and the Spanishsaco, a bag, have been suggested; butsack, also writtenseck, is undoubtedly the Frenchsec, the Latinsiccus, dry. It continued a popular wine for another two centuries, as we find from Tom D’Urfey’s ballad on the ‘Virtues of sack’ (1719). Redding states that the term ‘sack’ was applied to sweet and dry wines of canary, Xeres, or Malaga. Vines are said to have been first planted in the Canary Islands in the reign of Charles V., imported thither from the Rhine. Canary was much drunk formerly; the bibbers of it were dubbed ‘canary-birds,’ and the wine ‘canary-sacke.’[89]An old writer growls, ‘sacke is their chosen nectar; they love it better than their own souls; they will never leave off sacke, until they have sackt out all their silver; nay, nor then neither, for they will pawn their crouds for more sacke.’

The following receipt for beer, taken from Arnold’sChronicle, published in 1521, reminds that by this time hops were in use, ‘ten quarters of malt, 2 of wheat, 2 of oats, with 11lbs. of hops for making 11 barrels of single beer.’ This is the first I can find with hops as an ingredient. The old distich, of which there are two versions,

Hops, reformation, bays, and beer,Came into England all in one year,

and

Hops and turkeys, carp and beer,Came into England all in a year,[90]

would fix the introduction of hops to the time of Henry VIII. But there is a difficulty here, inasmuch as the use of this plant in brewing was known long before, and Henry VIII., who interfered in everything from religion to beer-barrels, forbade his subjects to put hops in their ale.

Spirits were beginning to acquire a reputation in England. Numbers of Irish settled in Pembrokeshire in this reign, and employed themselves in the distillation of their national beverage, usquebaugh, which had a large sale in this country.

But, to pass from the drinks to the drinkers, the habits of Henry VIII. are well known. He was constantly intoxicated, and kept the lowest company. His right hand, Wolsey, was actually put in the stocks by Sir Amias Powlett, when he was Rector of Lymington, for drunkenness at a neighbouring fair. Why should not such punishments be revived as either the stocks or the ‘drunkard’s cloak’? In this latter, drunkards were paraded through the town, wearing a tub instead of a cloak, a hole being made for the head to pass through, and two small ones in the sides, through which the hands were drawn.

Experience is a good master. No one could look after the monks better than Wolsey. It appears that a system ofmisericordshad found place in monasteries. These misericords were exoneration from duties granted by the Abbots to the monks. This privilege in course of time they abused. The Augustinian canons absented themselves from the choir and cloister, sometimes for whole weeks; whereupon Wolsey ordered that these canons should recreate themselves not singly, but in a number together, supervised by the superior, and accompanied; that they should repair not to the towns, villages, and taverns, but to sunny places near their houses; that they should not go to houses of laymen to eat and drink without leave, but carry their provisions with them.

One of the most magnificent pageants on record welcomed Anne Boleyn to the city of London in 1533. At Gracechurch Corner was erected ‘the Mount Parnassus, with the fountain of Helicon.’ It was formed of white marble. Four streams rose an ell high and met in a cup above the fountain which ran copiously till night with Rhenish wine. At the great Conduit in Cheap, a fountain ran continuously, at one end white wine, at the other claret, all the afternoon. Anne had been maid of honour at court. The household books of the kings describe the allowance and rules of the table of the ladies of the household. A marvellous picture of the times! A chine of beef, a manchet, and a chet loaf was a breakfast for the three. To these was added agallon of ale.

Gascon wine was now in favour for court consumption. The Losely MSS. supply the items of Sir Thomas Carden’s purchases for Anne of Cleves’ cellar.[91]Among these were 3 hogsheads of Gascoigne wine at 3l.each; 10 gallons of Malmsey at 20d.a gallon; 11 gallons of Muscadel at 2s.2d.a gallon; and 10 gallons of sack at 16d.a gallon. A pipe of Gascon wine was also the bribe which Lady Lisle sent to the Countess of Rutland, to secure her good offices in obtaining the post of maid of honour for her daughter, Miss Basset.

We are able to form a rough estimate of the quantity of liquor kept in stock at this time, from a return which was made by order, on the occasion of the visit of the Emperor Charles V. to the king. The city authorities appear to have been afraid of being drunk dry by the swarming Flemings in the emperor’s train. To avoid such a calamity, a return was made of all the wine to be found at the eleven wine merchants and the twenty-eight principal taverns then in London; the sum total of which was 809 pipes.[92]

The corruptions of court life were fearlessly exposed by a contemporary, John Skelton, in hisBowge of Court. Bowge (bouche, mouth) denoted the courtier’s right of eating at the king’s expense. The Bowge of Court was an allegorical ship with court vices on board. Ecclesiastics in high places were mercilessly satirised in hisColin Clout,e.g.(a) their hurry from the house of God to get drink—

But when they have once caughtDominus vobiscumby the head,Then run they in every stead (place),God wot, with drunken nolls (heads),Yet take they cure of souls.

(b) Their unconcern at the tragedy of the Saviour’s passion—

Christ by crueltyWas nailed upon a tree;He paid a bitter pensionFor manne’s redemption,He drank eysell and gallTo redeem us withal.But sweet hippocras ye drink,With ‘Let the cat wink!’

They make interpretationOf an awkward fashion,And of the prescienceOf Divine essence,And what hypostasisOf Christe’s manhood is.Such logic men will chop,And in their fury hopWhen the good ale-sopDoth dance in their foretop.

If Sir T. Elyot (1534) was correct in speaking of temperance as a new word, the virtue was old enough, even though the practice was rare. In the most corrupt times virtue has ever had its witnesses, even as the epoch of the dissolute Henry had its Sir David Lindsay, and its Earl of Surrey. The latter, amongstthe means to attain a happy life, could name

The mean diet, no delicate fare;True wisdom joined with simpleness;The night discharged of all care;Where wine the wit may not oppress.

The legislation of this reign did little more than affect details. The repeal of a certain law is worthy of note. From a remarkable clause in a statute of Henry III. it might be supposed that England was much fallen from the flourishing condition of preceding times. It had been enacted in the time of Edward II. that no magistrate, in town or borough, who by his office ought to keep assize, should during the continuance of his magistracy sell, either in wholesale or retail, any wine or victuals. This law seemed equitable in order to prevent fraud in fixing the assize. It was in this reign repealed. The following piece of legislation affected the price of wines: By 23 Henry VIII., c. 7, the wines of Gascony and Guienne were forbidden to be sold above eightpence the gallon, and the retail price of ‘Malmeseis, romeneis, sakkes, and other swete wynes,’ was fixed at 12d.the gallon, 6d.the pottle, 3d.the quart, and directions were given to the authorities ‘to set the prices of all kynde of wines in grosse.’ The merchants, however, evaded or neglected the law and raised the price; this aroused the vintners, who presented a remonstrance, in answer to which it was enacted that the commissioners appointed previously should have the discretionary power of increasing or diminishing the prices of wines sold in gross or by retail, as occasion should require.

By an Act of 1531, every brewer was forbidden to take more than such prices and rates as should be thought sufficient, at the discretion of Justices of Peace within every shire, or by the mayor and sheriffs in a city.

An effort, only partly successful, was made at this time to reduce holidays, which had degenerated into occasions of excess. Complaint was made that the number of such days was excessively increased, to thedetriment of civil government and secular affairs; and that the great irregularities and licentiousness which had crept into these festivals by degrees, especially in the churches, chapels, and churchyards, were found injurious to piety, virtue, and good manners, therefore both statutes and canons were made to regulate and restrain them, and by an act of convocation, passed in 1536, their number was reduced.[93]

Perhaps nothing strikes one so much in connection with intemperance in pre-reformation time as the abuses that gathered about religious ceremonies. Everything of the kind was made a public occasion of excess. At weddings especially was this notorious. Writing upon the subject, a 16th century author observes, ‘Early in the morning the wedding people begynne to excead in superfluous eatyng and drinkyng, and when they come to the preachynge they are halfe droncke, some all together.’[94]

It is not to be wondered at. The court was rotten, and its influence filtered then, as always, to the masses. Even the pledge of temperance introduced on the continent about this time was no safeguard. It is told how Henry himself contrived to make an envoy of the German court, who was an associate of a temperate order, break his pledge, assuring him that if his master would only visit England he would not lack boon companions.

Foreigners visited England. They came, they saw, they reported. A certain Master Stephen Perlin, a French physician who was in England just after Henry’s death, records for the benefit of his countrymen: ‘The English, one with the other are joyous, and are very fond of music; they are also great drinkers. Now remember if you please that in this country they generally use vessels of silver when they drink wine; and they willsay to you usually at table, “Goude chere,” and they will also say to you more than one hundred times, “Drind oui,” and you will reply to them in their language, “I plaigui” (I pledge you).’

One of our own writers, Philip Stubbes, who was ridiculed by Nash for ‘pretending to anatomize abuses and stubbe up sin by the rootes,’ asserts that the public-houses were crowded in London from morning to night with inveterate drunkards, whose only care appears to have been as to where they could obtain the best ale, so totally oblivious to all other things had they become.[95]

And what a flood of light is thrown not only on the universal drinking, but upon the respectability of the same, in the fact that a bishop, Bishop Still, a Bishop of Bath and Wells, and previously Master of St. John’s College, Cambridge, and Master also of Trinity, whose portrait still hangs in the College hall of the latter, should be the author of the following drinking song, which Warton calls the first Chanson à Boireof any meritin our language, and apologises for introducing a ballad convivial andungodlie.

I cannot eate but lytle meate,My stomacke is not good,But sure I thinke that I can drinkeWith him that wears a hood.Though I go bare, take ye no care,I nothing am a colde,I stuff my skyn so full within,Of joly good ale and olde.Chorus.Backe and syde go bare, go bare,Booth foote and hand go colde,But belly, God send thee good ale ynoughe,Whether it be new or olde.I have no rost, but a nut brawne toste,And a crab laid in the fyre;A little breade shall do me steade,Much breade I not desyre.No frost nor snow, nor winde, I trowe,Can hurt mee, if I wolde,I am so wrapt and throwly laptOf joly good ale and olde.Chorus.Backe and syde go bare, go bare, etc.And Tyb my wife, that, as her lyfe,Loveth well good ale to seeke,Full oft drynkes shee, tyll ye may seeThe teares run downe her cheeke.Then doth she trowle to me the bowle,Even as a mault-worme sholde,And sayth, sweete harte, I took my parteOf this joly good ale and olde.Chorus.Backe and syde go bare, go bare, etc.Now let them drynke, tyll they nod and winke,Even as goode fellowes sholde doe,They shall not mysse to have the blisseGood ale doth bring men to;And all poore soules that have scowred bowles,Or have them lustily trolde,God save the lives of them and their wives,Whether they be yonge or olde.Chorus.Backe and syde go bare, go bare, etc.[96]

Is there any wonder that his ‘stomacke was not good’? Imagine some of his successors in that See having composed it! Fancy the author of ‘Glory to Thee, my God, this night’ (Bishop Ken), having written it! Mark, too, the insinuation of the fourth line as to the clergy of the period! The authorship is vouched for by Thomas Park. The song begins the second act of ‘Gammer Gurton’s Needle,’ a comedy written in 1551,and acted at Christ’s College, Cambridge. Warton mentions that in the title of the old edition it is said to have been written ‘by Mr. S., Master of Artes.’ Which, being interpreted is, Still;afterwardsBishop of Bath and Wells.

It was about this time that that pernicious habit arose oftransacting businessover drink. We find constant allusions in the Tudor period to the principal men of the boroughs in this manner concluding a bargain. Thus we find an entry of Mr. William Tudbold, Mayor of Lyme, 1551, to this effect:—’Item, paid at Robert Davey‘s when we new agreed with Whytte the mason, vi d.’

These taverns were some of them kept by the clergy. Bishop Burnet states that so pillaged were the ecclesiastics of their property, that many clergymen were obliged for a subsistence to turn carpenters or tailors, and some kept ale-houses.

Hitherto there had been no civil legislation whatever against drunkenness. The crime is not mentioned in the Statute Book till the fifth year of Edward VI. From this time we shall find a number of statutes framed for the purpose of its prevention or punishment.

The Act, 5th and 6th Edward, c. 25, is entitled, ‘An Acte for Keepers of Ale-houses to be bounde by Recognizances.’ The following is a brief epitome of the Act:—Forasmuch as intolerable hurts and troubles to the commonwealth do daily grow and increase through such abuses and disorders as are had and used in common ale-houses and other houses called tippling-houses, it is enacted that Justices of Peace can abolish ale-houses at their discretion, and that no tippling-house can be opened without a licence. That these houses be supervised by the taking surety for the maintenance of goodorder and rule, and for the suppression of gaming. Moreover, special scrutiny was made into the forfeiting of such recognisances. Breaches of the Act were punished with imprisonment and fine.

Two years later, an Act was passed to avoid the great price and excess of wine. ‘For the avoiding of many inconveniences much evil rule and common resort of mis-ruled persons used and frequented in many taverns, of late newly set up in very great numbers in back lanes, corners, and suspicious places within the city of London, and in divers other towns and villages within this realm,’ it was enacted, subject to certain exceptions of rank and income, that none should be allowed to keep any vessel of Gascony, Guienne, or Rochelle wine for the use of his family exceeding 10 gallons under forfeiture of 10l.; none could be retailed without a licence, and only two taverns could be licensed in a borough, with the following exceptions, forty in London, three in Westminster, six in Bristol, four in Canterbury, Cambridge, Chester, Exeter, Gloucester, Hull, Newcastle, and Norwich; three in Colchester, Hereford, Ipswich, Lincoln, Oxford, Salisbury, Shrewsbury, Southampton, Winchester, and Worcester. The retail price was fixed, and none could retail wines to be drunk within their respective houses.

Vastly important was this legislation; its consequences were manifest, and would have been much more so, had not so much of it been permitted to become a dead letter. At any rate it paved the way for the very important Act of Philip and Mary in the Irish Parliament which renders obligatory a licence for the manufacture of Aqua Vitæ, and which brought about so great a reduction in the use of ardent spirits in that country.

The consort of Queen Mary soon found out the favourite English drink. Philip courted popularity. He gave it out that he was come to England to live like an Englishman, and in proof thereof drank some ale for the first time at a public dinner, gravely commending it as the wine of the country. Queen Mary at the time of her coronation was single, so Philip missed the usual pageant, the running of the conduits at Cornhill and Cheapside with wine, and the oration at St. Paul’s School, of Heywood, the Queen’s favourite poet, who ‘sat under a vine.’ It is to be hoped that Heywood made himself more intelligible than in some of his enigmatical epigrams, of which that on ‘Measure’ is a specimen.

Measure is a merry meane,Which filde with noppy drinke,When merry drinkers, drinke off clene.Then merrily they winke.Measure is a merry meane,But I meane measures gret,Where lippes to litely pitchers weane,Those lippes they scantly wet.

The pastoral visit of Bishop Ridley to Queen Mary reminds us of a curious feature of old English hospitality, that of drinking before leaving. Persons of quality were either taken into the cellar for a draught of ale or wine fresh from the cask, as was the Duke of Buckingham into Wolsey’s cellar, or it was brought to them last thing as they mounted their horses, and was called from this the stirrup-cup.

Boy, lead our horses on when we get up,Wee’l have with you a merrystirrup cupp.

Ridley was introduced to the cellar by Sir Thomas Wharton, the steward of the household. When he had drunk, he said he had done wrong to drink under a roof where God’s Word was rejected.

The opinions that have been ventured upon the relative sobriety of the Elizabethan period are as conflicting as they are various. The most reliable contemporary who can be cited in favour of the sobriety of the period is William Harrison, whose opinion may be gathered from two passages of his work. He says, ‘I might here talke somewhat of the great silence that is used at the tables of the honourable and wiser sort generallie over all the realme, likewise the moderate eating and drinking that is daily seene, and finallie of the regard that such one hath to keepe himselfe from note of surfetting and drunkennesse (for which cause salt meat, except beefe, bacon, and porke, are not anie whit esteemed, and yet these three may be much powdered). But as in the rehearsall thereof I should commend the nobleman, merchant, and frugall artificer, so I could not cleare the meaner sort of husbandmen of verie much bobbling (except it be here and there some od yeoman), with whom he is thought to be the meriest that talketh of most ribaldraie, or the wisest man that speakest fastest among them, and now and then surfeiting and drunkennesse, which they rather fall into for want of heed-taking, than wilfullie following or delighting in those errours of set mind and purpose. It may be that divers of them living at home with hard and pinching diet, small drinks, and some of them having scarce enough of that, are soonest overtaken when they come unto such banquets, howbeit they take it generallie as no small disgrace if they happen to be cup-shotten, so that is a grefe unto them, though nowsans remédiesith the thing is done and past.’ The passage that follows certainly suggests that in some respects our ancestors were wiser than their descendants:—

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