THE HISTORY OF ALCOHOL. 381 



said, with his bride and some attendants had pushed off from the 

 ship in a boat, but he insisted on returning to try to save his 

 sister, when the boat was upset, and all perished together. 



All during the middle ages, in the chronicles of Froissart, 

 Holinshed, and others, we find records of the fact that our Eng- 



GEORGE IV AS PRINCE REGENT. (Gillray.) 



lish ancestors, then as now, " liked a glass of good beer," and of 

 wine too. Sir John Fortescue naively says, " They drink no 

 water, except when they abstain from drinks, by way of penance 

 and from principles of devotion." In 1498 the Spanish ambassa- 

 dor at the English court wrote to Ferdinand and Isabella to ask 

 that Princess Catharine of Aragon, betrothed to Prince Henry, 

 afterward Henry VIII, should learn to drink wine. This was a 



