As to the statement that various ranks of society met in the tavern for social converse, those who hold that to be the case might have added that the extension of national liberty was in part due to the opportunities which were afforded for discussion in such places of resort. Nay, although we have said that their continued existence can no longer be justified on the old grounds in our time, yet it is impossible to overlook the fact that there are even now exceptional instances where the “public-house” is the only place which affords sufficient accommodation for meetings of any considerable magnitude. That was, no doubt, much more generally the case in the Middle Ages, when there were no assembly-rooms, no public halls, no schoolhouses, nor any other buildings of a like character. It is a matter of history that at the period of the Reformation the court of England was one of the most dissolute in Europe, and in the reign of Henry VIII. it was held in bad repute even amongst the Germans, drunken as they confess themselves to have been. A quaint story is told, upon what appears to be good authority, how Henry himself managed to make an envoy of the German court, who belonged to one of the orders of temperance, violate his pledge, and how he then assured him that if his master would only visit England, he would not lack boon-companions.[265] Nor was the intoxication confined to men only. It is said that in the time of James I. the revels instituted by the Queen were frequently disgraced by the drunkenness of the court ladies; and one of the guests at an entertainment given by the Earl of Salisbury in honour of the visit of King Christian of Denmark wrote a letter from which the following is an extract:—