Unlike their father Henry II., Geoffrey, Richard, and John were far from abstemious. According to Giraldus, so dissolute and hot was Geoffrey in his youth, that “he was equally ensnared by allurements, and driven on to action by stimulants;” whilst one of the metrical romances of the period has left a graphic picture of the royal Yuletide revelry at this period, which lasted for twelve days, during which time excess rather than sobriety was the rule. D’Aubigné, quoting from Matthew Paris, declares that John died of drunkenness and fright--a statement endorsed by Sir Walter Scott in his “Ivanhoe,” where he writes: “It is well known that his death was occasioned by a surfeit upon peaches and new ale.” An amusing anecdote tells how, when King John made his last visit to Nottingham, he called at the Mayor’s residence, and at the house of the priest of St. Mary’s. But, finding neither ale in the cellar of the one nor bread in the cupboard of the other, he ordered every publican in the town to contribute sixpenny-worth of ale to the Mayor yearly, and every baker to provide the priest with a halfpenny loaf weekly. Edward I. found little pleasure in the pleasures of the table; but his successor, Edward II., is said to have given way to intemperance, and it has been suggested that “had not the banqueting-room been oftener employed than the council-chamber, opportunities might not have occurred for the rebellion of favourites, for which the festal board was answerable.” The mad dissipation of Henry V. when Prince of Wales has been immortalised by Shakespeare, but, to his credit, the responsibility of the crown made him an altered man, and among his troops at Agincourt drunkenness was counted a disgrace. Indeed, so impressed was Henry with the bane of intemperance that it is said he would gladly have cut down all the vines in France. The last years of Edward IV.’s life were spent in luxurious and intemperate habits, which had most fatal effects on his health; and some idea of the lavish expenditure at this period may be gathered from the Paston Letters, where an account is given of an [Illustration: EDWARD I.] intended _progress_ of his Majesty, wherein Sir John Paston is urged to warn William Gogney and his fellows “to purvey them of wine enough, for every man beareth me in hand that the town shall be drank dry, as York was when the King was there.” And coming down to Henry VIII. again, it appears that he was often intoxicated, and found pleasure in keeping the lowest company. And, as it has been observed, “his right hand, Wolsey, was actually put in the stocks by Sir Amias Powlett, when he was rector of Lymington, for drunkenness at a neighbouring fair.”