During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the custom of presenting New Year’s gifts to the sovereign was carried to an extravagant height. Indeed, Dr. Drake is of opinion that the wardrobe and jewelry of Queen Elizabeth were principally supported by these annual contributions on New Year’s Day. He cites lists of New Year’s gifts presented to her from the original rolls published in her “progresses” by Mr. Nichols; and from these it appears that the presents were made by the great officers of state, peers and peeresses, bishops, knights and their ladies, gentlemen and gentlewomen, physicians and apothecaries, and others of lower grade, down to her Majesty’s dustman. The presents consisted of sums of money, costly articles of ornament for the queen’s person or apartments, caskets studded with precious stones, valuable necklaces, bracelets, gowns, embroidered mantles, smocks, petticoats, looking-glasses, fans, silk stockings, and a great variety of other articles. The largest sum given by any of the temporal lords was 20_l._; but the Archbishop of Canterbury gave 40_l._, the Archbishop of York 30_l._, and the other spiritual lords, 20_l._ and 10_l._ Dr. Drake says, that although Elizabeth made returns to the New Year’s gifts, in plate and other articles, yet she nevertheless took sufficient care that the balance should be in her own favour. In the reign of James I. the money gifts seem to have been continued for some time, but the ornamental articles presented seem to have been few and of small value. No rolls, nor, indeed, any notices of New Year’s gifts presented to Charles I. seem to have been preserved, though probably there were such. The custom, no doubt, ceased entirely during the Commonwealth, and was never afterwards revived, at least, to any extent worthy of notice. Mr. Nichols mentions that the last remains of the custom at court consisted in placing a crown-piece under the plate of each of the chaplains in waiting on New Year’s Day, and that this custom had ceased early in the nineteenth century. The New Year’s gifts, says Chambers (_Book of Days_, vol. i. p. 31), presented by individuals to each other were suited to sex, rank, situation, and circumstances. From Bishop Hall’s _Satires_ (1598), it appears that the usual gift of tenantry in the country to their landlords was a capon; and Cowley, addressing the same class of society says: “Ye used in the former days to fall Prostrate to your landlord in his hall, When with low legs, and in an humble guise, Ye offer’d up a capon sacrifice Unto his worship, at a New Year’s tide.”