264 History of the English Landed Interest. 



trumpeters almost eclipsed the officials of the royal household ; 

 aud the magic of his name overawed majesty itself. 



Sovereigns of the powerful Tudor d3^nasty could ill brook 

 the possibility of a second king-maker, nor could the nobility 

 themselves afford the expenses of such grandeur after that 

 two-thirds of the estates in England had been half ruined by 

 the civil wars and heavily burdened by mortgage and family 

 settlements. But before we touch on the inevitable legislation 

 which put a stop to this practice, it will be well to examine 

 the well-oiled machinery which worked so mighty a system of 

 housekeeping. The descendants of the Norman aristocracy 

 had added two fresh meals to the two which had sufficed in 

 Conquest times. The supper of Eichard Grossteste's days was 

 followed in Tudor times by the livery partaken in bed between 

 the hours of eight and nine. Otherwise there was not much 

 difference in the meals from those of the Angevin era. Break- 

 fast eaten at 7 a.m. was the substantial collation required 

 by people who had been up and about for hours. It consisted 

 of two kinds of bread, fish or flesh, wine and beer. The livery 

 was the same with the exception of the fish and meat. The 

 dinner, probably the supper too, were the public meals, the 

 former of which often lasted three hours. The incidents were 

 very similar to those described in an earlier chapter. The 

 lord sat on the dais, his tenants and guests according to rank 

 above or below the salt. Perhaps the great oak centre table 

 had grown somewhat thicker in order to bear without sagging 

 the more abundant supply of viands required by the grosser 

 appetites of the Tudor aristocracy. Minstrels, tumblers, jest- 

 ers and jugglers beguiled the long hours with their songs and 

 tricks, while the guests constantly emptied the great wooden 

 and pewter mugs, or conve^^ed to their mouths luscious mor- 

 sels with fingers which still continued to serve the purposes of 

 a fork. Somehow, the blending of the Saxon and the Norman 

 blood had bred an aristocracy in which the old traits of the 

 Norman gourmet were lost in those of the Saxon gourmand. 

 Even Church festival days were marked more by the consump- 

 tion of foods and drinks than by the sanctity of their cere- 

 monies ; and the so-called " glutton masses," held five times 



