38 GOLD AND SILVER FURNITURE. CHAP. XVI. 



encroaching on those repositories, there remained 

 quite enough for the service of the tables." 



If credit were to be given to this description 

 of the plate of the cardinal, without any precise 

 statement of its amount, we should be ready to 

 estimate it at a rate more proportioned to the 

 store of plate in noble families of the present day, 

 than to the real paucity of such furniture in that age. 



We should perhaps estimate it to be equal in 

 value to what is reported of the Dukes of Marl- 

 borough, Devonshire, Northumberland, and Wel- 

 lington, at much more than one hundred thousand 

 pounds. We are enabled to correct this judgment 

 by a catalogue of the prelate's effects as preserved 

 in the Fcedera (p. 375) when they were seized 

 and inventoried. The silver plate is stated to be 

 nine thousand five hundred and sixty-five ounces, 

 valued in money of that day at 3s. Sd. per ounce, 

 and consequently in money of this time at 5s. per 

 ounce, worth near 2400/. 



The household book of the Duke of Northum- 

 berland of the same age gives a picture of the fur- 

 niture of that nobleman, which shows how scarce 

 the most common accommodations of the present 

 time must have then been. Though he had three 

 houses in Yorkshire which he inhabited in turn, 

 he had furniture but for one, and carried every 

 thing from one to the other at each removal. 

 Beds, tables, chairs, kitchen utensils, all of which 



