Wulfhall and, the Seymours. 



there, and also for the ridding cleansing and garnishing of the Manor of Wulf- 

 hrtll wherein the King lay, and also to Penham Lodge,* where my Lord's mother 

 and children Jay.— £68 10«. lOcf ." 



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 offish. 1 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 2 — whatever they were. 



* Perhaps an error for Tottenham Lodge, which is sometimes miscalled in these old papers , 

 Topenham. 



1 Abstinence from flesh on those two days was ordered by a Royal Proclamation, 

 not only for health and discipline, but " for the benefit of the commonwealth and 

 profit of the Jlshing 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 at a 

 feast, temp. Hen. VII. (Leland's Collect, iv., 227) in company with " fesaunt" 

 and u 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 hruyant" 

 and a black cock, " coq de bruyere." 



