Chapter IX: Tudor Period (1)

The legislative enactments of the reign of Henry VII. demand minute attention. With a certain modification, it is true that the direct legislative sanction of the liquor traffic dates from this reign. The revival of the trade of England was a great object with this monarch. The greater part of the foreign trade of England had hitherto been carried on by foreigners in foreign vessels of burden. Henry was sensible that this prevented the increase of English ships and sailors; so, to remedy this in part, he got a law passed in his first Parliament, that no Gascony or Guienne wines should be imported into any part of his dominions, except in English, Irish, or Welsh ships, navigated by English, Irish, or Welsh sailors, which obliged them to build ships and go to sea, or to lack their favourite liquor. This law was enforced and enlarged by an Act made in his third Parliament (1487), when it was enacted that no wines of Gascony or Guienne, or woads of Tholouse, should be imported into England, except in ships belonging to the king or some of his subjects; and that all such wines and woads imported in foreign bottoms should be forfeited.

By 7 Henry VII., c. 7, it was enacted (in order to counteract the duty of four ducats a tun lately imposed by the Venetians) that ‘every merchant stranger (except Englishmen born) bringing malmseys into this realm, should pay 18_s._ custom for each butt, over and above the custom aforetime used to be paid.’ The price of the butt was fixed at 4_l._

Of far more importance was the Act of 1496, passed ‘against vacabonds and beggars.’ This empowers two justices of the peace ‘to rejecte and put away comen ale-selling in townes and places where they shall think convenyent, and to take suertie of the keepers of ale-houses of their gode behavyng, by the discrecion of the seid justices, and in the same to be avysed and aggreed at the time of their sessions.’

Leland gives in his _Collectanea_ a wine list which indicates the comparative prices of wines at this time:--

De Vino rubeo, VI dolia, prec. dol. 4_l_ 24 li
De Vino claret, IV dol. prec. dol. 7¾ 14 li 13 8
De Vino alb. elect. unum dol 3 li 6 8
De Vino alb. pro coquina i. dol 3 li
De Malvesey, i but 4 li
De Ossey, i pipe 3 li
De Vino de Reane, ii almes 26s 8

We get a good notion of the daily routine of court living in this reign from the ordinances of the royal household. There is nothing whatever in them indicative of excess, but they are interesting as matters of history, and records of etiquette. ‘When the king cometh from evensong into his great chamber on the even of the day of estate, the chamberlain must warn the usher before evensong that the king will take spice and wine in his great chamber.... Then shall the gentleman usher bring thither the esquire, and especially the king’s server (officer who set, removed, tasted, &c.) to bring the king’s spice plate.... And when the usher cometh to the cellar door, charge a squire for the body with the king’s own cup.’ This is simply a specimen of pages of like directions.

Entries in the Household Book of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, furnish details of a nobleman’s style of living at the beginning of the sixteenth century. On the Feast of the Nativity 290 persons dined and supped at Thornbury Castle, on which occasion were consumed eleven pottles and three quarts of Gascony wine, and 171 flagons of ale. This was not excessive for the times, the vices of which are admirably pictured in William Dunbar’s remarkable poem, _The Dance_. He describes a procession of the seven deadly sins in the lower regions. Gluttony brings up the rear:--

Then the foul monster Gluttony,
Of wame [belly] insatiable and gredy,
To dance he did him dress:
Him followed mony foul dronkart,
With can and collop, cup and quart,
In surfett and excess.
Fully many a wasteful wally-drag [outcast],
With wames [bellies] unwieldable did forth wag,
In creische [fat] that did incress:
Drink, aye, they cried, with mony a gape,
The fiends gave them hait leid to lap [hot lead to lap]
Their levery [reward] was no less.

The Household Book of the Earl of Northumberland is another capital illustration of the table life of the higher nobles. In reading the estimates, it must be taken into account that the household consisted of 166 persons. The allowance of grain per month gave 250 quarters of malt at 4_s._, two hogsheads to the quarter. This allowance may be thought to speak more for the temperance of the retainers than for the liberality of the lord. The wine was dispensed more liberally. An annual consumption showed ten tuns and two hogsheads of Gascony. A breakfast bill of fare appears thus: ‘Breakfastis for my lorde and my ladye. Furst a loof of brede in trenchers, two manchets, one quart of bere, a quart of wine, half a chyne of muton, ells a chyne of beif boyled.’

A searching visiting of monasteries, indeed of all ecclesiastics within the dominion, was entrusted by Henry VII. to his vicar-general and vice-gerent, Thomas Cromwell. The scrutiny was intended mainly for the monasteries. The eighty-six articles of instruction compass a large field of minute inquiry. The commissioners were doubtless much indebted to monastic factions and animosities for some of the information which they gained. The scrutiny revealed terrible irregularities in some cases, prominent among which were the vices of gluttony and drunkenness. The result of this official investigation was the dissolution of the smaller monasteries. And thus good was effected; for, however much we discount the charges alleged, for the reasons above suggested, the lives of the inmates had become a far and wide scandal. Innocent VIII. sent a bull to Archbishop Morton in 1490, in which he informs him that he had heard with great grief from persons worthy of credit, that the monks of all the different orders in England had grievously degenerated, that giving themselves up to a reprobate sense they led dissolute lives. But the archbishop was fully aware of the evil, for in 1487 he had convened a synod of the prelates and clergy of his province, for the reformation of the manners of the clergy. In this convocation many of the London clergy were accused of spending their whole time in taverns. But there is no disguising the fact that profuseness of living was countenanced in the highest places of the Church; which, if it does not excuse, at any rate explains the excesses of the ‘inferior clergy.’ As late as 1504, when William Warham was enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury, a feast was given for which was procured--fifty-four quarters of wheat, six pipes of red wine, four of claret, one of choice white, one of white for the kitchen, one butt of Malmsey, one pipe of wine of Osey, two tierces of Rhenish wine, four tuns of London ale, six of Kentish ale, and twenty of English beer.

It is curious how many of our tavern signs originated from incidents in the history of our sovereigns. The ‘Red Dragon’ was in compliment to Henry VII., who adopted this device for his standard at Bosworth Field. It was in old times the ensign of the famous Cadwaller, the last of the British kings, from whom the Tudors descended. The field of Bosworth furnished matter for another sign. The hawthorn-bush crowned was adopted by Henry VII. in allusion to the crown of his predecessor which was found hidden in a hawthorn-bush after the battle. But the seventh Henry escaped the honour (?) conferred upon his successor and perpetuated, of being immortalised by his portrait as Bluff Harry on scores of tavern signboards. It is stated in the _History of Signboards_ that at Hever, in Kent, one of these rude portraits of Henry VIII. may be seen. Near this village the Bolleyn, or Bullen, family held possessions, and old people in the district still show where Henry used to meet Anne Bolleyn. Anyhow, years after the sad death of Anne, the village ale-house had for its sign, ‘Bullen Butchered.’ When the place changed hands, the name of the house was altered to the ‘Bull and Butcher,’ which sign existed till recently, but was altered at the request of the clergyman of the parish, who suggested the ‘King’s Head,’ and the village painter was commissioned to make the alteration. The bluff features of the monarch were drawn; and in his hands was placed an axe, and so the sign remains at present.

In the collection of ordinances for the Royal Household we have an account of the ceremony of _wasselling_, as was practised at Court on Twelfth Night in the reign of Henry VII. The ancient custom of pledging each other out of the same cup had given place to the use of different cups. Moreover, ‘when the steward came in at the doore with the wassel, he was to crye three tymes, “_Wassel_, _wassel_, _wassel_,” and then the chappell (chaplain) was to answere with a songe.’ The custom of ‘toasting’ was in full force. Shakespeare’s _King Henry VIII._ contains several such allusions. Thus in act i., scene 4, the king exclaims--

Let’s be merry.
Good my lord cardinal, I have a half a dozen healths
To drink to these fair ladies.

Malmsey (pronounced by Shakespeare to be ‘fulsom’) competed with sack to be the favourite drink of the period; it was the only sweet wine specified in the ordinances of the household of Henry VIII. Malmsey was a strangely generic term for sweet wines from almost every vine-growing district. Candia, Chios, Lesbos, Tenedos, Tyre, Italy, Greece, Spain, all yielding the _Malmsey_, which we found to have proved so fatal to

Maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.

Some believe it to have been first made at Napoli de Malvasia, in the Morea. Certainly the principal part of that which was so extensively imported in the middle ages came from the Archipelago. When subject to Venetian rule Candia and Cyprus supplied Europe with their finest wines, the former island alone being said to have exported 200,000 casks of Malmsey annually.

Sack is another generic term for sweet wine,[87] and is not of necessity, as Nares describes it, ‘the same wine which is now named sherry;’ a statement which the rest of his own remarks contradict. Thus we find not only sherry-sack, but canary-sack, Malaga-sack, rumney-sack, palm-sack, &c.[88] The derivation of the word is much disputed; the town _Xique_, and the Spanish _saco_, a bag, have been suggested; but _sack_, also written _seck_, is undoubtedly the French _sec_, the Latin _siccus_, dry. It continued a popular wine for another two centuries, as we find from Tom D’Urfey’s ballad on the ‘Virtues of sack’ (1719). Redding states that the term ‘sack’ was applied to sweet and dry wines of canary, Xeres, or Malaga. Vines are said to have been first planted in the Canary Islands in the reign of Charles V., imported thither from the Rhine. Canary was much drunk formerly; the bibbers of it were dubbed ‘canary-birds,’ and the wine ‘canary-sacke.’[89] An old writer growls, ‘sacke is their chosen nectar; they love it better than their own souls; they will never leave off sacke, until they have sackt out all their silver; nay, nor then neither, for they will pawn their crouds for more sacke.’

The following receipt for beer, taken from Arnold’s Chronicle, published in 1521, reminds that by this time hops were in use, ‘ten quarters of malt, 2 of wheat, 2 of oats, with 11lbs. of hops for making 11 barrels of single beer.’ This is the first I can find with hops as an ingredient. The old distich, of which there are two versions,

Hops, reformation, bays, and beer,
Came into England all in one year,

and

Hops and turkeys, carp and beer,
Came into England all in a year,[90]

would fix the introduction of hops to the time of Henry VIII. But there is a difficulty here, inasmuch as the use of this plant in brewing was known long before, and Henry VIII., who interfered in everything from religion to beer-barrels, forbade his subjects to put hops in their ale.

Spirits were beginning to acquire a reputation in England. Numbers of Irish settled in Pembrokeshire in this reign, and employed themselves in the distillation of their national beverage, usquebaugh, which had a large sale in this country.

But, to pass from the drinks to the drinkers, the habits of Henry VIII. are well known. He was constantly intoxicated, and kept the lowest company. His right hand, Wolsey, was actually put in the stocks by Sir Amias Powlett, when he was Rector of Lymington, for drunkenness at a neighbouring fair. Why should not such punishments be revived as either the stocks or the ‘drunkard’s cloak’? In this latter, drunkards were paraded through the town, wearing a tub instead of a cloak, a hole being made for the head to pass through, and two small ones in the sides, through which the hands were drawn.

Experience is a good master. No one could look after the monks better than Wolsey. It appears that a system of _misericords_ had found place in monasteries. These misericords were exoneration from duties granted by the Abbots to the monks. This privilege in course of time they abused. The Augustinian canons absented themselves from the choir and cloister, sometimes for whole weeks; whereupon Wolsey ordered that these canons should recreate themselves not singly, but in a number together, supervised by the superior, and accompanied; that they should repair not to the towns, villages, and taverns, but to sunny places near their houses; that they should not go to houses of laymen to eat and drink without leave, but carry their provisions with them.

One of the most magnificent pageants on record welcomed Anne Boleyn to the city of London in 1533. At Gracechurch Corner was erected ‘the Mount Parnassus, with the fountain of Helicon.’ It was formed of white marble. Four streams rose an ell high and met in a cup above the fountain which ran copiously till night with Rhenish wine. At the great Conduit in Cheap, a fountain ran continuously, at one end white wine, at the other claret, all the afternoon. Anne had been maid of honour at court. The household books of the kings describe the allowance and rules of the table of the ladies of the household. A marvellous picture of the times! A chine of beef, a manchet, and a chet loaf was a breakfast for the three. To these was added a _gallon of ale_.

* * * * *

Gascon wine was now in favour for court consumption. The Losely MSS. supply the items of Sir Thomas Carden’s purchases for Anne of Cleves’ cellar.[91] Among these were 3 hogsheads of Gascoigne wine at 3_l._ each; 10 gallons of Malmsey at 20_d._ a gallon; 11 gallons of Muscadel at 2_s._ 2_d._ a gallon; and 10 gallons of sack at 16_d._ a gallon. A pipe of Gascon wine was also the bribe which Lady Lisle sent to the Countess of Rutland, to secure her good offices in obtaining the post of maid of honour for her daughter, Miss Basset.

We are able to form a rough estimate of the quantity of liquor kept in stock at this time, from a return which was made by order, on the occasion of the visit of the Emperor Charles V. to the king. The city authorities appear to have been afraid of being drunk dry by the swarming Flemings in the emperor’s train. To avoid such a calamity, a return was made of all the wine to be found at the eleven wine merchants and the twenty-eight principal taverns then in London; the sum total of which was 809 pipes.[92]

The corruptions of court life were fearlessly exposed by a contemporary, John Skelton, in his _Bowge of Court_. Bowge (_bouche_, mouth) denoted the courtier’s right of eating at the king’s expense. The Bowge of Court was an allegorical ship with court vices on board. Ecclesiastics in high places were mercilessly satirised in his _Colin Clout_, _e.g._ (_a_) their hurry from the house of God to get drink--

But when they have once caught
_Dominus vobiscum_ by the head,
Then run they in every stead (place),
God wot, with drunken nolls (heads),
Yet take they cure of souls.

(_b_) Their unconcern at the tragedy of the Saviour’s passion--

Christ by cruelty
Was nailed upon a tree;
He paid a bitter pension
For manne’s redemption,
He drank eysell and gall
To redeem us withal.
But sweet hippocras ye drink,
With ‘Let the cat wink!’

(_c_) Their logomachies under the excitement of drink--

They make interpretation
Of an awkward fashion,
And of the prescience
Of Divine essence,
And what hypostasis
Of Christe’s manhood is.
Such logic men will chop,
And in their fury hop
When the good ale-sop
Doth dance in their foretop.

If Sir T. Elyot (1534) was correct in speaking of temperance as a new word, the virtue was old enough, even though the practice was rare. In the most corrupt times virtue has ever had its witnesses, even as the epoch of the dissolute Henry had its Sir David Lindsay, and its Earl of Surrey. The latter, amongst _the means to attain a happy life_, could name

The mean diet, no delicate fare;
True wisdom joined with simpleness;
The night discharged of all care;
Where wine the wit may not oppress.

The legislation of this reign did little more than affect details. The repeal of a certain law is worthy of note. From a remarkable clause in a statute of Henry III. it might be supposed that England was much fallen from the flourishing condition of preceding times. It had been enacted in the time of Edward II. that no magistrate, in town or borough, who by his office ought to keep assize, should during the continuance of his magistracy sell, either in wholesale or retail, any wine or victuals. This law seemed equitable in order to prevent fraud in fixing the assize. It was in this reign repealed. The following piece of legislation affected the price of wines: By 23 Henry VIII., c. 7, the wines of Gascony and Guienne were forbidden to be sold above eightpence the gallon, and the retail price of ‘Malmeseis, romeneis, sakkes, and other swete wynes,’ was fixed at 12_d._ the gallon, 6_d._ the pottle, 3_d._ the quart, and directions were given to the authorities ‘to set the prices of all kynde of wines in grosse.’ The merchants, however, evaded or neglected the law and raised the price; this aroused the vintners, who presented a remonstrance, in answer to which it was enacted that the commissioners appointed previously should have the discretionary power of increasing or diminishing the prices of wines sold in gross or by retail, as occasion should require.

By an Act of 1531, every brewer was forbidden to take more than such prices and rates as should be thought sufficient, at the discretion of Justices of Peace within every shire, or by the mayor and sheriffs in a city.

An effort, only partly successful, was made at this time to reduce holidays, which had degenerated into occasions of excess. Complaint was made that the number of such days was excessively increased, to the detriment of civil government and secular affairs; and that the great irregularities and licentiousness which had crept into these festivals by degrees, especially in the churches, chapels, and churchyards, were found injurious to piety, virtue, and good manners, therefore both statutes and canons were made to regulate and restrain them, and by an act of convocation, passed in 1536, their number was reduced.[93]

Perhaps nothing strikes one so much in connection with intemperance in pre-reformation time as the abuses that gathered about religious ceremonies. Everything of the kind was made a public occasion of excess. At weddings especially was this notorious. Writing upon the subject, a 16th century author observes, ‘Early in the morning the wedding people begynne to excead in superfluous eatyng and drinkyng, and when they come to the preachynge they are halfe droncke, some all together.’[94]

It is not to be wondered at. The court was rotten, and its influence filtered then, as always, to the masses. Even the pledge of temperance introduced on the continent about this time was no safeguard. It is told how Henry himself contrived to make an envoy of the German court, who was an associate of a temperate order, break his pledge, assuring him that if his master would only visit England he would not lack boon companions.

Foreigners visited England. They came, they saw, they reported. A certain Master Stephen Perlin, a French physician who was in England just after Henry’s death, records for the benefit of his countrymen: ‘The English, one with the other are joyous, and are very fond of music; they are also great drinkers. Now remember if you please that in this country they generally use vessels of silver when they drink wine; and they will say to you usually at table, “Goude chere,” and they will also say to you more than one hundred times, “Drind oui,” and you will reply to them in their language, “I plaigui” (I pledge you).’

One of our own writers, Philip Stubbes, who was ridiculed by Nash for ‘pretending to anatomize abuses and stubbe up sin by the rootes,’ asserts that the public-houses were crowded in London from morning to night with inveterate drunkards, whose only care appears to have been as to where they could obtain the best ale, so totally oblivious to all other things had they become.[95]

And what a flood of light is thrown not only on the universal drinking, but upon the respectability of the same, in the fact that a bishop, Bishop Still, a Bishop of Bath and Wells, and previously Master of St. John’s College, Cambridge, and Master also of Trinity, whose portrait still hangs in the College hall of the latter, should be the author of the following drinking song, which Warton calls the first Chanson à Boire _of any merit_ in our language, and apologises for introducing a ballad convivial and _ungodlie_.

I cannot eate but lytle meate,
My stomacke is not good,
But sure I thinke that I can drinke
With him that wears a hood.
Though I go bare, take ye no care,
I nothing am a colde,
I stuff my skyn so full within,
Of joly good ale and olde.

_Chorus._ Backe and syde go bare, go bare,
Booth foote and hand go colde,
But belly, God send thee good ale ynoughe,
Whether it be new or olde.

I have no rost, but a nut brawne toste,
And a crab laid in the fyre;
A little breade shall do me steade,
Much breade I not desyre.
No frost nor snow, nor winde, I trowe,
Can hurt mee, if I wolde,
I am so wrapt and throwly lapt
Of joly good ale and olde.
_Chorus._ Backe and syde go bare, go bare, etc.

And Tyb my wife, that, as her lyfe,
Loveth well good ale to seeke,
Full oft drynkes shee, tyll ye may see
The teares run downe her cheeke.
Then doth she trowle to me the bowle,
Even as a mault-worme sholde,
And sayth, sweete harte, I took my parte
Of this joly good ale and olde.
_Chorus._ Backe and syde go bare, go bare, etc.

Now let them drynke, tyll they nod and winke,
Even as goode fellowes sholde doe,
They shall not mysse to have the blisse
Good ale doth bring men to;
And all poore soules that have scowred bowles,
Or have them lustily trolde,
God save the lives of them and their wives,
Whether they be yonge or olde.
_Chorus._ Backe and syde go bare, go bare, etc.[96]

Is there any wonder that his ‘stomacke was not good’? Imagine some of his successors in that See having composed it! Fancy the author of ‘Glory to Thee, my God, this night’ (Bishop Ken), having written it! Mark, too, the insinuation of the fourth line as to the clergy of the period! The authorship is vouched for by Thomas Park. The song begins the second act of ‘Gammer Gurton’s Needle,’ a comedy written in 1551, and acted at Christ’s College, Cambridge. Warton mentions that in the title of the old edition it is said to have been written ‘by Mr. S., Master of Artes.’ Which, being interpreted is, Still; _afterwards_ Bishop of Bath and Wells.

It was about this time that that pernicious habit arose of _transacting business_ over drink. We find constant allusions in the Tudor period to the principal men of the boroughs in this manner concluding a bargain. Thus we find an entry of Mr. William Tudbold, Mayor of Lyme, 1551, to this effect:--‘_Item_, paid at Robert Davey’s when we new agreed with Whytte the mason, vi d.’

These taverns were some of them kept by the clergy. Bishop Burnet states that so pillaged were the ecclesiastics of their property, that many clergymen were obliged for a subsistence to turn carpenters or tailors, and some kept ale-houses.

Hitherto there had been no civil legislation whatever against drunkenness. The crime is not mentioned in the Statute Book till the fifth year of Edward VI. From this time we shall find a number of statutes framed for the purpose of its prevention or punishment.

The Act, 5th and 6th Edward, c. 25, is entitled, ‘An Acte for Keepers of Ale-houses to be bounde by Recognizances.’ The following is a brief epitome of the Act:--Forasmuch as intolerable hurts and troubles to the commonwealth do daily grow and increase through such abuses and disorders as are had and used in common ale-houses and other houses called tippling-houses, it is enacted that Justices of Peace can abolish ale-houses at their discretion, and that no tippling-house can be opened without a licence. That these houses be supervised by the taking surety for the maintenance of good order and rule, and for the suppression of gaming. Moreover, special scrutiny was made into the forfeiting of such recognisances. Breaches of the Act were punished with imprisonment and fine.

Two years later, an Act was passed to avoid the great price and excess of wine. ‘For the avoiding of many inconveniences much evil rule and common resort of mis-ruled persons used and frequented in many taverns, of late newly set up in very great numbers in back lanes, corners, and suspicious places within the city of London, and in divers other towns and villages within this realm,’ it was enacted, subject to certain exceptions of rank and income, that none should be allowed to keep any vessel of Gascony, Guienne, or Rochelle wine for the use of his family exceeding 10 gallons under forfeiture of 10_l._; none could be retailed without a licence, and only two taverns could be licensed in a borough, with the following exceptions, forty in London, three in Westminster, six in Bristol, four in Canterbury, Cambridge, Chester, Exeter, Gloucester, Hull, Newcastle, and Norwich; three in Colchester, Hereford, Ipswich, Lincoln, Oxford, Salisbury, Shrewsbury, Southampton, Winchester, and Worcester. The retail price was fixed, and none could retail wines to be drunk within their respective houses.

Vastly important was this legislation; its consequences were manifest, and would have been much more so, had not so much of it been permitted to become a dead letter. At any rate it paved the way for the very important Act of Philip and Mary in the Irish Parliament which renders obligatory a licence for the manufacture of Aqua Vitæ, and which brought about so great a reduction in the use of ardent spirits in that country.

* * * * *

The consort of Queen Mary soon found out the favourite English drink. Philip courted popularity. He gave it out that he was come to England to live like an Englishman, and in proof thereof drank some ale for the first time at a public dinner, gravely commending it as the wine of the country. Queen Mary at the time of her coronation was single, so Philip missed the usual pageant, the running of the conduits at Cornhill and Cheapside with wine, and the oration at St. Paul’s School, of Heywood, the Queen’s favourite poet, who ‘sat under a vine.’ It is to be hoped that Heywood made himself more intelligible than in some of his enigmatical epigrams, of which that on ‘Measure’ is a specimen.

Measure is a merry meane,
Which filde with noppy drinke,
When merry drinkers, drinke off clene.
Then merrily they winke.

Measure is a merry meane,
But I meane measures gret,
Where lippes to litely pitchers weane,
Those lippes they scantly wet.

The pastoral visit of Bishop Ridley to Queen Mary reminds us of a curious feature of old English hospitality, that of drinking before leaving. Persons of quality were either taken into the cellar for a draught of ale or wine fresh from the cask, as was the Duke of Buckingham into Wolsey’s cellar, or it was brought to them last thing as they mounted their horses, and was called from this the stirrup-cup.

Boy, lead our horses on when we get up,
Wee’l have with you a merry _stirrup cupp_.

Ridley was introduced to the cellar by Sir Thomas Wharton, the steward of the household. When he had drunk, he said he had done wrong to drink under a roof where God’s Word was rejected.

The opinions that have been ventured upon the relative sobriety of the Elizabethan period are as conflicting as they are various. The most reliable contemporary who can be cited in favour of the sobriety of the period is William Harrison, whose opinion may be gathered from two passages of his work. He says, ‘I might here talke somewhat of the great silence that is used at the tables of the honourable and wiser sort generallie over all the realme, likewise the moderate eating and drinking that is daily seene, and finallie of the regard that such one hath to keepe himselfe from note of surfetting and drunkennesse (for which cause salt meat, except beefe, bacon, and porke, are not anie whit esteemed, and yet these three may be much powdered). But as in the rehearsall thereof I should commend the nobleman, merchant, and frugall artificer, so I could not cleare the meaner sort of husbandmen of verie much bobbling (except it be here and there some od yeoman), with whom he is thought to be the meriest that talketh of most ribaldraie, or the wisest man that speakest fastest among them, and now and then surfeiting and drunkennesse, which they rather fall into for want of heed-taking, than wilfullie following or delighting in those errours of set mind and purpose. It may be that divers of them living at home with hard and pinching diet, small drinks, and some of them having scarce enough of that, are soonest overtaken when they come unto such banquets, howbeit they take it generallie as no small disgrace if they happen to be cup-shotten, so that is a grefe unto them, though now _sans remédie_ sith the thing is done and past.’ The passage that follows certainly suggests that in some respects our ancestors were wiser than their descendants:--

Drink is usually filled in goblets, jugs, bols of silver, in
noblemen’s houses, all of which notwithstanding are seldom set
upon the table, but each one, as necessitie urgeth, calleth for
a cup of such drinke as him listeth to drinke: so that, when he
have tasted of it, he delyvereth the cup againe to some of the
standers bye, who, making it cleane by pouring out the drinke that
remayneth, restoreth it to the cupboard from whence he fetched the
same. By this device much idle tippling is cut off; for if the full
pots shall continuallie stand at the elbowe or near the trencher,
divers will alwaies be dealing with them, whereas they now drinke
seldome, and onelie when necessitie urgeth, and so avoid the note
of grete-drynkinge or often troubling the servitors with filling
their bolls.

But there is a vast mass of evidence on the other side that must be examined before the conflicting judgments can be put into the scale. And first, the preambles to the Acts of Parliament testify that the national taste was intensifying. Thus the preamble to Act 1 Eliz. c. ii. states that of late years much greater quantity of sweet wines had been imported into the kingdom than had been usual in former times. Again, in 1597, an Act was passed to restrain the excessive use of malt. The preamble asserts that greater quantity of malt is daily made than either in times past or now is needful. It must be remembered, however, that during the time of Elizabeth the _export_ of beer had become a valuable branch of commerce. The queen herself, in her right of purveyance, a prerogative then inherent in the crown, caused quantities of beer so obtained to be sold on the Continent for her own emolument. Further than this, honest efforts were made in some directions to keep down the home consumption. For instance, it is stated the Lord Keeper Egerton, in his charge to the judges when going on circuit in 1602, bade them ascertain, for the queen’s information, how many ale-houses the justices of the peace had pulled down, so that the good justices might be rewarded and the evil removed.

One more Act of this reign must be noticed, the exact or full purport of which might be mistaken. It was nominally against the danger of fire, but in reality it was intended to prevent tipplers from having the means of conducting furtive brewings. The Act bears the date of 1590. By 22 Eliz. it was enacted ‘that no innkeeper, common brewer, or typler shall keep in their houses any fewel, as straw or verne, which shall not be thought requisite, and being warned of the constable to rid the same within one day, _subpœna_, xx_s_.’

In the next place we must take into account the extraordinary _variety_ of wines now drunk. Holinshed observes, ‘As all estates doo exceed herin, I meane for number of costlie dishes, so these forget not to use the like excesse in wine, insomuch as there is no kind to be had, whereof at great meetings there is not some store to be had’ (Holinshed, _Chronicles_). The writer further speaks of the importation of 20,000 or 30,000 tuns a year, notwithstanding the constant restraints put upon it. After detailing about fifty-six sorts of ‘small wines,’ such as claret, &c., he speaks of ‘the thirtie kinds of Italian, Grecian, Spanish, Canarian, &c., whereof vernage (a sweet Italian wine, so called from the thick-skinned grape or _vernaccia_ used in its manufacture), cate, piment (vin cuit), raspis, muscadell, romnie, bastard, tire (Italian, from the grape _tirio_), oseie, caprike, clarcie, and malmeseie, are not least of all accompted of because of their strength and valure.’

The monasteries were noted for having the best wine and ale, the latter of which they specially brewed for themselves. The author just quoted mentions that the best wine was called _theologicum_, because it was had ‘from the cleargie and religious men, unto whose houses manie of the laitie would often send for bottels filled with the same, being sure that they would neither drinke nor be served of the worst, or such as was anie waies mingled or brued by the vintner. Naie, the merchant would have thought that his soule should have gone streight waie to the devill, if he should have served them with other than the best.’

Besides all these kinds of wines, of which the strongest were most in request, distilled liquors were manufactured in England, the principal of which were rosa solis and aqua vitæ. Ale and beer were also in request. There was single beer, or small ale, and double beer, also double-double beer, dagger ale, and bracket. But the favourite drink was a kind of ale called huf-cap, which was highly intoxicating; thus in Harrison’s _England_ we read, ‘These men hale at huf-cap till they be red as cockes, and little wiser than their combs.’ And again, the _Water Poet_,--

There’s one thing more I had almost forgot,
And this is it, of ale-houses and innes,
Wine marchants, vintners, brewers, who much wins
By others losing, I say more or lesse,
Who sale of _huf-cap_ liquor doe professe.

This drink (huf-cap) was also called mad-dog, angels’ food, and dragon’s milk. The gentry brewed for their own consumption a generous ale which they did not bring to table till it was two years old. This was called _March Ale_, from the month in which it was brewed. Ale was often richly compounded with various dainties. Often it was warmed, and mixed with sugar and spices; sometimes with a toast; sometimes with a roasted crab or apple, making the beverage known as _Lamb’s wool_.

Sometimes lurk I in a gossip’s bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither’d dew-lap pour the ale.[97]

Now crowne the bowle
With gentle _lambs-wooll_,
Add sugar, and nutmegs, and ginger.[98]

The strength of the ale as commonly sold transpires from many incidental notices in the history of the time. Thus Leicester writes to Burleigh that at a certain place in her Majesty’s travels ‘there was not one drop of good drink for her.... We were fain to send forthwith to London, and to Kenilworth, and divers other places where ale was; her own here was so strong as there was no man able to drink it.’

The sobriety of this queen has never been called in question, although one author, in commenting on the Kenilworth pageant, remarks that many such entertainments were accepted by this queen, who professed to restrain luxury and extravagance, and issued sumptuary edicts, but did not ennoble precept by example. This is ill-natured. It is incidental to high position to accept a profusion of hospitality, for which it can scarcely be held responsible. And unquestionably on this occasion the hospitality was profuse. It is stated that no less than 365 hogsheads of beer were drunk at it, in addition to the daily complement of 16 hogsheads of wine. The entertainment lasted nineteen days. Notwithstanding such exceptional receptions, there is no doubt that the queen did bring influence to bear in refining the manners of her court; and among the many changes effected, none were more apparent than in the festive entertainments of the time. Harrison draws particular attention to the fact that the swarms of jesters, tumblers, and harpers, that formerly had been indispensable to the banquet-room, were now discarded. He further mentions another valuable change of custom. The wine and other liquors were not placed upon the tables with the dishes, but on a sideboard, and each person called as occasion required for a flagon of the wine he wanted, by which means ‘much idle tippling was avoided.’ When the company had done feeding, what remained was sent to the servants, and when these were satisfied the fragments were distributed among the poor who waited without the gate.

To the minstrel these innovations were practically ruin. He who had been in past times the soul of the tournament, and a welcome guest at every banquet, was now a street ballad-singer, or ale-house fiddler, chanting forth from benches and barrel-heads to an audience consisting of a few gaping rustics, or a parcel of idle boys; and, as if the degradation of these despised and unhoused favourites of former days had not been enough, the stern justice of the law made them doubly vile, obliging them to skulk into corners, and perform their merry offices in fear and trembling. Minstrels were now classed in the statute with rogues and vagabonds, and made liable to the same pains and penalties. Already it might be said,

No longer courted and caress’d,
High placed in hall, a welcome guest,
He pour’d, to lord and lady gay,
The unpremeditated lay:
Old times were changed, old manners gone.[99]

What has just been observed of the queen, applies to more than one of her renowned courtiers. Burleigh was a man given to hospitality, occasionally to conviviality, if there is any truth in the lines known as _The Islington Garland_, which thus describes him and his friend,--

Here gallant gay Essex, and burly Lord Burleigh,
Sate late at their revels, and came to them early,

alluding to the inn at Islington. But rather than read the man in an ephemeral lampoon we would turn to his sole literary production, and find the impress of his mind in his work addressed to his son Robert Cecil, entitled _Precepts or Directions for the Well Ordering and Carriage of a Man’s Life_, in which he offers the following advice:--

Touching the guiding of thy house, let thy hospitality be moderate,
and, according to the means of thy estate, rather plentiful than
sparing, but not costly. For I never knew any man grow poor by
keeping an orderly table. But some consume themselves through
secret vices, and their hospitality bears the blame. But banish
swinish drunkards out of thine house, which is a vice impairing
health, consuming much and makes no show. I never heard praise
ascribed to the drunkard, but for the well-bearing of his drink,
which is a better commendation for a brewer’s horse or a drayman,
than for either a gentleman or a serving-man.

A more striking lay homily than even this upon the evils of drink is to be found in the writings of another notable of the period, Sir Walter Raleigh. His words are letters of gold.

Take especial care that thou delight not in wine, for there was
not any man that came to honour or preferment that loved it; for
it transformeth a man into a beast, decayeth health, poisoneth
the breath, destroyeth natural heat, brings a man’s stomach to an
artificial heat, deformeth the face, rotteth the teeth, and, to
conclude, maketh a man contemptible, soon old, and despised of
all wise and worthy men; hated in thy servants, in thyself, and
companions; for it is a bewitching and infectious vice. A drunkard
will never shake off the delight of beastliness; for the longer
it possesses a man, the more he will delight in it; and the older
he groweth, the more he will be subject to it; for it dulleth the
spirits, and destroyeth the body, as ivy doth the old tree; or
as the worm that engendereth in the kernel of a nut. Take heed,
therefore, that such a cureless canker pass not thy youth, nor such
a beastly infection thy old age; for then shall all thy life be but
as the life of a beast, and after thy death thou shalt only leave
a shameful infamy to thy posterity, who shall study to forget that
such a one was their father.

Such is the language of the man who founded the ‘Mermaid’ in Bread Street, the first of the long succession of clubs started in London,[100] and connected with which were such as Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont, and Fletcher. And, coming from such a man, it is convincing that the vitiation of the national taste had forced itself upon common observation, and, of course, engraved itself upon the pages of history. Thus Camden, speaking of the year 1581 (though the earlier part of his observation displays imperfect acquaintance with previous history), remarks, ‘The English, who had hitherto, of all the Northern nations, shown themselves the least addicted to immoderate drinking, and been commended for their sobriety, first learned in these wars with the Netherlands to swallow a large quantity of intoxicating liquor, and to destroy their own health by drinking that of others.’ And as a confirmation of the _latter_ part of his assertion, it may be noticed that the barbarous terms formerly used in drinking matches are of Dutch, German, or Danish origin.[101]

To the same effect the chronicler Baker observes that during the Dutch war the English learnt to be drunkards, and brought the vice so far to overspread the kingdom that laws were fain to be enacted for repressing it. The satirist Tom Nash, who lived at this time, describes, as only he could, the various _classes of drunkards_ as they presented themselves to his observation:--‘The first is _ape-drunk_, and he leaps and sings and hollows and danceth for the heavens; the second is _lyon-drunk_, and he flings the pot about the house, breaks the glass windows with his dagger, and is apt to quarrel.... The third is _swine-drunk_, heavy, lumpish, and sleepy, and cries for a little more drink and a few more clothes; the fourth is _sheep-drunk_, wise in his own conceit when he cannot bring forth a right word; the fifth is _maudlen-drunk_, when a fellow will weep for kindness in the midst of his drink.... The sixth is _martin-drunk_, when a man is drunk, and drinks himself sober ere he stir. The seventh is _goat-drunk_, when in his drunkenness he hath no mind but on lechery. The eighth is _fox-drunk_, as many of the Dutchmen be, which will never bargain but when they are drunk. All these species, and more, I have seen _practised_ in one company and at one sitting.’

The various methods of raising money for the Church and poor have already been examined under the heading of _Ales_. It will be necessary in forming the estimate of manners at this time to trace how the system developed, The use and abuse will be both apparent. For the use we turn to the _Survey of Cornwall_,[102] where we read that:--

For the church ale two young men of the parish are yearely chosen
by their last pregoers to be wardens, who, dividing the task, make
collections among the parishioners of what provision it pleaseth
them voluntarily to bestow. This they employ in brewing, baking,
and other achates against Whitsuntide, upon which holy dayes the
neighbours meet at the church-house, and there meetly feed on
theire owne victuals, contributing some petty portion to the stock
which by many smalls groweth to a meetly greatness, for there is
entertained a kinde of emulation between the wardens, who by his
graciousness in gathering, and good husbandry in expending, can
best advance the churches profit. Besides, the neighbour parishes
at those times lovingly visit one another, and this way frankly
spend their money together. When the feast is ended the wardens
yield in their account to the parishioners, and such money as
exceedeth the disbursements is layd up in store to defray any
extraordinary charges arising in the parish or imposed on them for
the good of the country, or the prince’s service.

The next author to be cited gives both use and abuse; thus Philip Stubs (or Stubbes), who has been already quoted, after speaking of the contributions of malt by parishioners for church-ales, goes on to say:--

When this nippitatum (strong liquor), this huffe-cap as they call
it, this nectar of life, is set abroach, well is he that can get
the soonest to it, and spends the most at it, for he is counted the
godliest man of all the rest, and most in God’s favour, because it
is spent upon his church forsooth. If all be true which they say,
they bestow that money which is got thereby for the repaire of
their churches and chappels; they buy bookes for the service, cupps
for the celebration of the sacrament, &c.

Speaking of the manner of keeping wakes, he says they were the sources of ‘gluttonie and drunkenness,’ and that many spend more at one of these than in all the year besides.

For the unqualified abuse of such a system we turn to a sermon preached in the same reign (1570) at Blandford by William Kethe, from which it appears that these church-ales were kept on the Sunday, ‘which holy day,’ says he, ‘the multitudes call their revelyng day, which day is spent in bul-beatings, beare-beatings, bowlings, dicyng, cardyng, daunsynges, drunkenness, and whoredome.’[103]

Even this picture is utterly eclipsed by the ghastly description of the excesses at a church dedication festival, as given by the contemporary Naogeorgus:--

The dedication of the church is yerely had in minde,
With worship passing catholicke, and in a wond’rous kinde;
* * * * *
Then sundrie pastimes do begin, and filthy daunces oft;
When drunkards they do lead the daunce with fray and bloody fight,
That handes and eares and head and face are torne in wofull plight.
The streames of bloud runne downe the armes, and oftentimes is seene
The carkasse of some ruffian slaine is left upon the greene.
Here many for their lovers sweete some dainty thing do true,
And many to the taverne goe and drinke for companie,
Whereat they foolish songs do sing, and noyses great do make;
Some in the meanewhile play at cardes, and some the dice do shake.
Their custome also is the priest into the house to pull,
Whom, when they have, they thinke their game accomplished at full;
He farre in noyse exceedes them all, and eke in drinking drye
The cuppes, a prince he is.[104]

Such a description is of itself an ample justification of the censure of the clergy in the injunctions of Elizabeth, among which we find: ‘The clergy shall not haunt ale-houses or taverns, or spend their time idly at dice, cards, tables, or any other unlawful game.’

But amidst all these dissipated distractions, influences of a qualifying character were also at work. The powerful pen of Bacon was writing, ‘All the crimes on the earth do not destroy so many of the human race, nor alienate so much property, as drunkenness.’ George Gascoigne was holding up an honest old-fashioned mirror, true as steel, to the faults and vices of his countrymen.[105] In his curious treatise, the full title of which is ‘_A Delicate Diet for Daintie Mouthde Droonkards; wherein the fowle abuse of common carousing and quaffing with heartie draughtes, is honestly admonished_,’ he vigorously inveighs against the popular drinks: ‘We must have March Beere, dooble-dooble Beere, Dagger-Ale, Bragget, Renish wine, White-wine, French wine, Gascoyne wine, Sack, Hollocke, Canaria wine, Vino Greco, Vinum amabile, and al the wines that may be gotten. Yea, wine of itselfe is not sufficient; but Sugar, Limons, and sundry sortes of spices must be drowned therein.’ Spenser was teaching the virtues of temperance in that marvellous production in which chivalry and religion are so matchlessly blended, his _Faery Queen_. The second book contains the legend of Sir Guyon, or of Temperance. The knight is sent upon an adventure by the Fairy Queen, to bring captive to her court an enchantress named Acrasia, in whom is imaged the vice of Intemperance. The various adventures which he meets with by the way are such as show the virtues and happy effects of temperance, or the ill consequences of intemperance. But before claiming for the sons of Rechab a patron in Spenser, it must be told that the same author in his _Epithalamion_ harps on other strings. There we read:--

Pour out the wine without restraint or stay,
Pour not by cups but by the bellyful.
Pour out to all that wull,
And sprinkle all the posts and walls with wine,
That they may sweat and drunken be withal.

These are dissimilar strains to those of the good Sir Guyon,

In whom great rule of Temperance goodly doth appear.

And shall we here stop short? Certainly not. The Bard of Avon, William Shakespeare, offers many a caution to the falling and fallen. To attempt to quote him fully would be beside the present purpose. It must suffice to gather from his works five or six prominent reflections.[106]

I. The constant use of strong drink impairs its _remedial_ effect.

Thus in the _Tempest_, act ii. scene 3, Stephano is made to say, ‘He shall taste of my bottle; if he have never drank wine afore, it will go near to remove his fit.’

II. That strict temperance is a source of health.

Thus in _As You Like It_, act ii. scene 3, Adam declares--

Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood,
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility;
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly.

III. That the Danes had an established character for deep drinking. Thus _Hamlet_, act i. scene 4:--

_Hamlet._ The king doth awake to-night and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassel, and the swaggering upspring reels;
And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.

_Hor._ Is it a custom?

_Ham._ Ay, marry, is’t;
But to my mind--though I am native here
And to the manner born--it is a custom
More honour’d in the breach than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel, east and west,
Makes us traduced and taxed of other nations:
They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
From our achievements, though perform’d at height,
The pith and marrow of our attribute.

‘They clepe us drunkards.’ And well our Englishmen might, for in Queen Elizabeth’s time there was a _Dane_ in London, of whom the following mention is made in a collection of characters, entitled _Looke to it, for Ile stab ye_ (no date):--