Among the special features of the banquets of this period were the devices for the table called subtleties, made of paste, jelly, or blanc-mange, placed in the middle of the board, with labels describing them; various shapes of animals were frequent; and on a saint's day, angels, prophets, and patriarchs were set upon the table in plenty. Certain dishes were also directed as proper for different degrees of persons; as "conies parboiled, or else rabbits, for they are better for a lord"; and "for a great lord take squirrels, for they are better than conies"; a whole chicken for a lord; and "seven mackerel in a dish, with a dragge of fine sugar," was also a dish for a lord. But the most famous dish was "the peacock enkakyll, which is foremost in the procession to the king's table." Here is the recipe for this royal dish: Take and flay off the skin with the feathers, tail, and the neck and head thereon; then take the skin, and all the feathers, and lay it on the table abroad, and strew thereon ground cinnamon; then take the peacock and roast him, and baste him with raw yolks of eggs; and when he is roasted, take him off, and let him cool awhile, and take him and sew him in his skin, and gild his comb, and so serve him with the last course. CARD-PLAYING WAS FORBIDDEN EXCEPT AT CHRISTMAS, by a statute passed in the reign of Henry VII. A Scotch writer,[34] referring to this prohibition, says: "A universal Christmas custom of the olden time was playing at cards; persons who never touched a card at any other season of the year felt bound to play a few games at Christmas. The practice had even the sanction of the law. A prohibitory statute of Henry VII.'s reign, forbade card-playing save during the Christmas holidays. Of course, this prohibition extended only to persons of humble rank; Henry's daughter, the Princess Margaret, played cards with her suitor, James IV. of Scotland; and James himself kept up the custom, receiving from his treasurer, at Melrose, on Christmas Night, 1496, thirty-five unicorns, eleven French crowns, a ducat, a _ridare_, and a _leu_, in all about equal to L42 of modern money, to use at the card-table." Now, as the Scottish king was not married to the English princess until 1503, it is quite clear that he had learned to play cards long before his courtship with Margaret; for in 1496, when he received so much card-money from his treasurer, the English princess was but seven years of age. James had evidently learned to play at cards with the Scottish barons who frequented his father's Court, and whose lawlessness led to the revolt which ended in the defeat and melancholy fate of James III. (1488), and gave the succession to his son, James IV., at the early age of fifteen years. The no less tragic end of James IV. at Flodden Field, in 1513, is strikingly depicted by Sir Walter Scott, who tells:--