notwithstanding that the King's domestic affairs were managed by "a good number of honourable, virtuous, wise, expert, and discreet persons of his Council." The preserved bills of fare show that the Court diet was liberal generally, but especially sumptuous at the grand entertainments of Christmas. And the Royal Household Accounts also show increased expenditure for the diversions, as well as for the banquetings, of the festival. For instance, the payments to the Lord of Misrule, which in Henry the Seventh's time never exceeded L6 13s. 4d., were raised by Henry the Eighth in his first year to L8 6s. 8d., and subsequently to L15 6s. 8d. In the first year is a payment to "Rob Amadas upon his bill for certain plate of gold stuf bought of him for the disguisings," L451 12s. 2d.; and another to "Willm. Buttry upon his bill for certen sylks bought of him for the disguisings," L133 7s. 5d. In the sixth year are charges "To Leonard Friscobald for diverse velvets, and other sylks, for the disguising," L247 12s. 7d.; and "To Richard Gybson for certen apparell, &c., for the disguysing at the fest of Cristemes last," L137 14s. 1/2d. Considerable payments are made to the same Gybson in after years for the same purpose, particularly in the eleventh, for revels, called a Maskelyn. In the tenth year large rewards were given to the gentlemen and children of the King's Chapel; the former having L13 6s. 8d. "for their good attendance in Xtemas"; and "Mr. Cornisse for playing affore the King opon newyeres day at nyght with the children," L6 13s. 4d. Hall, in his Chronicle, Henry VIII. folio 15b, 16a, gives the following account of a ROYAL MASQUERADE AT GREENWICH, where the King was keeping his Christmas in 1512: "On the daie of the Epiphanie, at night, the King with XI others, wer disguised after the maner of Italie, called a maske, a thing not seen afore in England; thei were appareled in garments long and brode, wrought all with gold, with visers and cappes of gold; and after the banket doen, these maskers came in with six gentlemen disguised in silke, bearing staffe torches, and desired the ladies to daunce: some were content, and some that new the fashion of it refused, because it was a thing not commonly seen. And after thei daunced and communed together, as the fashion of the maske is, thei tooke their leave and departed, and so did the quene and all the ladies." In 1521 the King kept his Christmas at Greenwich "with great nobleness and open court," and again in 1525. In 1527, he received the French Embassy here, and also kept his Christmas "with revels, masks, disguisings, and banquets royal;" as he did again in 1533, in 1537, and in 1543; the last-mentioned year "he entertained twenty-one of the Scottish nobility whom he had taken prisoners at Salom Moss, and gave them their liberty without ransom."[38]