146 Wulfhall and the Seymours. 
there, and also for the ridding cleansing and garnishing of the Manor of Wulf- 
hall wherein the King lay, and also to Penham Lodge,* where my Lord’s mother 
and childrenjlay.— £68 10s. 10d.” 
The King, with his whole household and nobility, arrived at 
Wulfhall, Saturday, 9th August, 1539. They remained Sunday, 
Monday and Tuesday following. How or where so many were lodged 
does not appear; but “ covers” as we should call them,“ messes ” as 
the book calls them, were laid for 200 the first day. There are only 
two meals a day accounted for: and as it appears all through the 
book, that on Saturdays as well as Fridays, no meat was eaten, 
the King’s supper, on his arrival, consisted only of fish.! Country 
places in Wiltshire must have been better supplied with that article 
than they are now; for the bill of fare presents (for 200, observe) 
pikes, salmon, gils, tenches, lobsters, bream, plaice, trouts, congers, 
carps, roach, eels, potted sea-fish, and salmon pasties,a sack of oysters, 
salt “haberdine” (codfish salted at Aberdeen), soles and whitings. 
The next day being Sunday, there were messes for 400, and the 
provision amounted to 6 oxen, 24 muttons, 12 veals, 5 cygnets, 21 
great capons, 7 good capons, 11 Kentish capons, 3 doz. and 6 coarse 
capons, 70 pullets, 91 chicken, 38 quails, 9 mews, 6 egrets, 2 shields 
of brawn, 7 swans, 2 cranes, 2 storks, only 3 pheasants, 40 partridges, 
4 peachicks, 21 snipe, besides larks and brewes*—whatever they were. 

* Perhaps an error for Tottenham Lodge, which is sometimes miscalled in these old papers, 
Topenham. 
1 Abstinence from flesh on those éwo days wasordered by a Royal Proclamation, 
not only for health and discipline, but ‘‘ for the benefit of the commonwealth and 
profit of the fishing trade.’ This view of the matter is also (somewhat 
curiously) taken up in one of our old Homilies (‘‘ On Fasting, Part 2.,,) where 
the eating of fish (as a variety of abstinence) is recommended ‘‘ upon policy, not 
respecting any religion at all in the same: as whereby the increase of victuals 
on the land may the better be cherished, to the reducing of the price to the 
poor, and also fisher-towns bordering on the sea be maintained for the increase 
of fishermen, of whom do spring mariners, to the furniture of the navy and 
defence of the realme.” 
2 This fowl is mentioned as a dish on King Richard the Second’s table (Antiq. 
Repertory i., 78), where a commentator suggests ‘‘ perhaps grouse.” Also ata 
feast, temp. Hen. VII. (Leland’s Collect. iv., 227) in company with ‘ fesaunt” 
and ‘partricche:” but in this instance the word is spelled ‘‘ browes.” Not 
finding it in any dictionary at hand, the only conjecture I can offer is that it 
was some kind of moor-fowl: a ‘‘moor- cock” in French being ‘“‘ coq bruyant,” 
and a black cock, ‘‘ coq de bruyére.” 
