Whether this mode was continued by his Successors, I do not learn. William might perhaps reject it as being Saxon, and adopt a plan similar to the French Court, in compliment to his Norman adherents. This routine of waiting, not much unlike the present mode, rendered the service of Alfred's attendants both œconomical, and agreeable to themselves. Sir John Spelman, in his Life of King Alfred, supposes that the Officers who are now called _Quarter-waiters_ are, from their title, a relique of this mode of waiting established by Alfred. But this (with deference to the Gentlemen of that Corps) seems to be going too far, and does not agree with Ingulphus, from whom Sir John takes his account; who says, that the Officers of King Alfred's Household were divided into three classes, and that each class waited alternately monthly, not quarterly; so that no one class waited two consecutive months, and each would, of course, wait _four months_ in the year, with an interval of two months between each wait. It is true, they would renew their waiting once in a quarter of course, from the number of classes, but no part of them attended for a quarter together; and I apprehend the Quarter-waiters received their name because they waited a quarter of a year at a time by turns, as their superiors, the Daily-waiters, waited daily by turns. Alfred's Household most resembled the Gentlemen Pensioners in the mode of attendance, who, to this day, wait in _classes_ quarterly. I shall now give Sir John Spelman's account at large (as I have Ingulphus's), where he gives a supposed, and not improbable, reason for this mode of attendance.