By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S.A. 145 



Book now on the table, so far at least as regards the provision 

 of food. [Appendix, No. iv.) I have never seen this visit of Henry 

 into Wiltshire mentioned in books, so we may reckon it as a small 

 u fragment recovered from the wreck of time.'" The items of the 

 account are curious enough, but being too long to read now will do 

 very well to print, as a specimen of the formal and careful way in 

 which kitchen expenses were controlled in those days. It would not 

 be amiss if in great modern establishments some such just and 

 proper register were kept for every day. There would be much less 

 waste and robbery, without any diminution of hospitality. The 

 book itself also is a very fair specimen of its class. Our Elizabethan 

 forefathers were very stately in these things. They did not use those 

 insignificant pass books in red leather, stamped with the butcher 

 or baker's name, which supply our ladies with a little exercise in 

 arithmetic every Monday morning, but they kept large substantial 

 and portly volumes, strongly bound, with arms, devices, and some- 

 times groups of sacred subjects stamped on. the cover, The paper 

 (all of foreign manufacture) is as thick, and almost as durable, as 

 parchment. The expenses of every kind, for every meal, with the 

 number of guests and names of visitors, are duly entered ; and in 

 many instances, every page, or at least monthly summary, is formally 

 signed by the master or mistress with as much solemnity as if he or 

 she were executing a will. 



Another of the Earl's account books corroborates the tradition 

 about the old barn having been used for the wedding dance (1536), 

 for when King Henry came down to Wulfhall on the occasion I am 

 now speaking of, in 1539, the old barn, being the largest room they 

 had, was again in requisition. 



" Paid to Cornish the paynter for dyvers colours by him bought, for makyng 

 certeyn fretts & antiques on canves for my lord's Barn and House at Wulf haull 

 agenst the King's coming thether 9th Aug. and for his oost in being sent to 

 London for the same colours." — 31*. Sd. 



It seems, from the next entry, that the Earl of Hertford and L family 

 gave up the house at Wulfhall to make room for the King, and 

 occupied the old barn themselves : — 



" Paid by the hands of Thomas Hethe to oertain painters, joynera, carpenters 

 masons and others, for their wages in preparing and trimming of the Barne at 

 "Wulf hall wherein my lord lay and kept his house during the King's abode 



