the mayor received as his fee a gold cup enamelled with the royal arms, and a gold 'water-spout-pot,' or ewer, ornamented with enamel and two Scottish pearls. At the same feast the Earl of Lancaster as steward secured four silver chargers stamped with the arms of Harclay, and four others bearing the badge of the Countess of Hereford, ten silver skewers, and eight sauce-boats, each marked with the royal leopard, and the chamberlain carried off two basins parcel gilt and enamelled with the arms of England and Scotland. The lord of Addington supplied a dish of gruel and the lord of Liston in Essex wafers; other persons brought water and held basins and towels, and the head of the family of Dymoke of Scrivelsby rode into the hall in full armour, with his punning crest of a moke's ears on his helm, and offered to fight any one who would deny the king's sovereignty. [Illustration: '_Dymoke of Scrivelsby._'] But after all the main thing at a feast is the food. And that was plentiful--even at the banquet of Edward II., where the waiting was disgraceful. For his coronation feast Edward I. sent out orders to the sheriffs of the different counties to provide 27,800 chickens, 540 oxen, about a thousand pigs and 250 sheep, besides instructing the prelates to send up as many swans, peacocks, cranes, rabbits, and kids as possible, and also giving large orders for salmon, pike, eels, and lampreys. It is not surprising that his cook, Hugh of Malvern, required six oaks and six beeches to be made into tables for the kitchen. This suggests a certain grossness of feeding which a study of the actual menu might dissipate; certainly the banquets of later sovereigns were sufficiently elaborate and varied. When Henry VI. was crowned in 1429, at the early age of nine, he was served with three 'courses.' The first of these included not only boiled beef and mutton, capons, herons, and cygnets, but 'Frument with venyson; viand royall plantyd losynges of golde; Bore hedes in castellys of golde and enarmed; a rede leche with lyons coruyn therin'--in other words, a pink jelly or mould ornamented with lions--and, as a crowning glory, 'Custarde royall with a lyoparde of golde syttynge therein and holdynge a floure de lyce.' The second course, besides chickens, partridges, cranes, peacock 'enhakyll' (with its feathers), and rabbits, contained 'pygge endoryd'--gilded sucking-pig--'a frytour garnysshed with a leopardes hede and two estryche feders; Gely party wryten and notyd with Te Deum Laudamus,' and, as a masterpiece, 'A whyte leche (or blancmange) plantyd with a rede antelop, a crowne aboute his necke with a chayne of golde; flampayne powderyd with leopardes and flower delyce of golde.' After this the third course, with no creation more wonderful than 'A bake mete lyke a shylde, quarteryd red and whyte, sette with losenges gylte and floures of borage,' falls rather flat. With each course was presented a 'sotyltie,' or elaborate device made, presumably, of sugar and pastry,