The bolder hauing cleered the table, cardes and dice are served up to the boord; they that are full of coyne draw; they that haue little stand by and give ayme; the shuffle and cut on one side, the bones rattle on the other; long have they not plaide, but oathes fly up and downe the roome like haile-shot; if the poore dumb dice be but a little out of the square line of white, the pox and a thousand plagues breake their neckes out at a window.” (_Antiquary_, vol. xv.) The following is contemporary evidence. It is taken from the _Antiquarian Repertory_ (vol. iv. p. 512), 1558:— “The people of London consume great quantities of beer, double and single [strong and small], and do not drink it out of glasses, but from earthen pots with silver handles and covers, and this even in houses of persons of middling fortunes; for as to the poor, the covers of their pots are only pewter, and in some places, such as villages, their pots for beer are made only of wood. They eat much whiter bread than that commonly made in France, altho’ it was in my time as cheap as it is sold there. With their beer they have a custom of eating very soft saffron cakes, in which there are likewise raisins, which give a relish to the beer, of which there was formerly at Rye some as good as I ever drank. The houses of the people of this country are as well furnished as any in the world. Likewise, in this country you will scarcely find any nobleman, some of whose relations have not been beheaded.” A few more notes on food. They drank brewis, that is, the pot liquor with bread in it; they were fond of pigs’ faces washed and dressed by the housewife; they bought tripe in Eastcheap, and poultry in Gracechurch Street; they drank wines with strange names: Pedro Ximenes, Charnico, Eleatica. The clerks took their dinner at the cooks’ shops by messes of so many; the portion of the whole mess was served in a dish and one divided the food, after which they helped themselves by seniority; a yeoman’s fare was bread, beef, and beer. The poor man was served from the basket which stood in the hall and received broken meats. The Sheriffs sent such baskets and other food to the prisons. The citizens’ proverbial Sunday dinner was neck of beef. CHAPTER III DRESS—WEDDINGS In the Elizabethan age, the poet, satirists, and preachers are so full of the subject of feminine fashions that it becomes of great importance. The increase of wealth and the growing power of the middle class give a greater prominence to women’s dress, while the improvement in the streets and the roads, the introduction of coaches and the development of outdoor amusements, theatres, shows, masques, gardens, and water-parties bring the wives and daughters of London more into the open. [Illustration: Farthingale. Lady Runsdon. From Planché’s _Cyclopædia of Costume_.]