Students from distant parts of England probably resided continuously in College from the time they entered it until they took their degrees. The statutes of King Henry VIII. contemplate a period of some relaxation at Christmas; providing that each Fellow in turn should be "Lord" at Christmas, and prepare dialogues and plays to be acted by members of the College between Epiphany and Lent. The brazier in the Hall seems to have been kept burning in the evening about Christmas time; of this practice a curious relic survived until comparatively lately, it being the custom to leave a few gas-jets burning in the Hall until midnight from St. John's Day (December 27) until Twelfth Night. There were three classes of students. The Fellow Commoners, sons of noblemen or wealthy land-owners, who sat at the High Table, or, as it was phrased, were in Fellows' commons. Some came in considerable state. In 1624 the Earl of Arundel and Surrey sent his two sons, Lord Maltravers and Mr. William Howard, to the College. The Earl's chaplain, or secretary, in making arrangements for their coming, wrote to request that they should have one chamber in the College, with a "pallett for the gromes of their chamber"; the rest of "his lordships company, being two gentlemen, a grome of his stable and a footman, may be lodged in the towne near the College." At this period the Second Court had been built, and the accommodation for residence thus somewhat greater than in Elizabethan times. The Fellow Commoner wore a gown ornamented with gold lace, and a cap with a gold tassel. The last Fellow Commoner at St. John's to wear this dress was the present Admiral Sir Wilmot Hawksworth Fawkes. The next class in order of status were the Pensioners--men who paid their expenses without assistance from the College, sons of middle-class parents. In times of which we have any definite record this was the most numerous class in College. Lastly, we have the sizars. A sizar was definitely attached to a Fellow or Fellow Commoner; he was not exactly a servant, but made himself generally useful. For example, those members of the College who absented themselves from the University sermon were in the eighteenth century fined sixpence, and the sizars were expected to mark the absentees. The sizar at Cambridge had, however, always a better status than the servitor at Oxford, and in the days when scholarships were strictly limited as to locality, a sizarship was something of the nature of what at the present day we should describe as an entrance scholarship or exhibition, the assistance given consisting in a reduction of expenses rather than in actual direct emolument. At the present time there is no difference in status among members of the College; the foundation scholars, however, having special seats in Chapel and a separate table in Hall if they choose to make use of it.