“I would wish you to be well trimmed; get a new Jerkin well bordered, and not too short: the King liketh it flowing. Your ruff should be well stiffened and bushy. The King is nicely heedful of such points. Eighteen servants were lately discharged, and many more will be discarded who are not to his liking in these matters.” And again, speaking of a favorite, he says:--“Carr hath changed his tailors, and tiremen many times, and all to please the Prince, who laugheth at the long-grown fashion of our young courtiers, and wisheth for change everie day.” _A London Bride._ One other little bit of high light upon the every-day ways of London living, in the early years of King James, we are tempted to give. It comes out in the private letter of a new-married lady, who was daughter and heiress of that enormously rich merchant, Sir John Spencer, who was Lord Mayor of London; and who, in Elizabeth’s time (as well as James’), lived in Crosby Hall, still standing in the thick of London city, near to where Thread and Needle Street, at its eastern end, abuts upon Bishopsgate. Every voyaging American should go to see this best type of domestic architecture of the fifteenth century now existing in London; and it will quicken his interest in the picturesque old pile to know that Richard III., while Duke of Gloucester, passed some critical days and nights there, and that for some years it was the home of Sir Thomas More. The Spencer heiress, however--of whom we began to make mention--brightened its interior at a later day; there were many suitors for her hand; among them a son of Lord Compton--not looked upon with favor by the rich merchant--and concealing his advances under the disguise of a baker’s boy, through which he came to many stolen interviews, and at last (as tradition tells) was successful enough to trundle away the heiress, covertly, in his baker’s barrow. Through the good offices of Queen Elizabeth, who stood god-mother to the first child, difficulties between father and son-in-law were healed; and when, later, by the death of Sir John Spencer, the bridegroom was assured of the enormous wealth inherited by his bride, he was--poor man--nearly crazed. Among the curative processes for his relief may be reckoned the letter from his wife to which I have made allusion, and which runs thus:-- “My sweet Life, I pray and beseech you to grant me the sum of £2,600 [equivalent to some $30,000 now] quarterly: also, besides, £600 quarterly for charities, of which I will give no account. Also, I would have 3 horses for my own saddle, that none shall dare to lend or borrow. Also; 2 gentlewomen (lest one should be sick)--seeing it is an indecent thing for a gentlewoman to stand mumping alone, when God hath blessed the Lord and Lady with a great Estate: Also, when I ride, a hunting or a hawking, I would have them attend: so, for either of those said women there must be a horse.