"The road from London to Canterbury was covered during one whole week with carts and waggons, mules, horses, and soldiers; and so great was the confusion, that marshals were at length stationed to keep the whole in order, which of course increased the said confusion a hundred fold. So many were the ships passing between Dover and Calais, that the historians affirm they jostled each other on the road like a herd of great black porkers. "The King went from station to station like a shepherd, driving all the better classes of the country before him, and leaving not a single straggler behind." Though we do not implicitly credit every point of this humorous statement, we think a small portion of description from the old chronicler Hall (we will really inflict _only_ a small portion on our readers) will justify a good deal of it; but more especially it will enlighten us as to some of the elaborate conceits of the day, in which, it seems, the needle was as fully occupied as the pen. Indeed, what would the "Field of the Cloth of Gold" have been without the skill of the needlewoman? _Would it have been at all?_ "The Frenche kyng sette hymself on a courser barded, covered with purple sattin, broched with golde, and embraudered with corbyns fethers round and buckeled; the fether was blacke and hached with gold. Corbyn is a rauen, and the firste silable of corbyn is _Cor_, whiche is a harte, a penne in English, is a fether in Frenche, and signifieth pain, and so it stode; this fether round was endles, the buckels wherwith the fethers wer fastened, betokeneth sothfastnes, thus was the devise, _harte fastened in pain endles, or pain in harte fastened endles_. "Wednesdaie the 13 daie of June, the twoo hardie kynges armed at all peces, entered into the feld right nobly appareled, the Frenche kyng and all his parteners of chalenge were arraied in purple sattin, broched with golde and purple velvet, embrodered with litle rolles of white sattin wherein was written _quando_, all bardes and garmentes wer set full of the same, and all the residue where was no rolles, were poudered and set with the letter ell as thus, L, whiche in Frenche is she, which was interpreted to be _quando elle_, when she, and ensuyng the devise of the first daie it signifieth together, _harte fastened in pain endles, when she_.