The “Groom Porter” has been more than once mentioned in these pages. He was formerly an officer of the Lord Steward’s department of the Royal Household. When the office was first appointed is unknown, but Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, Lord Chamberlain to Henry VIII. from 1526 to 1530, compiled a book containing the duties of the officers, in which is set forth “the roome and service belonging to a groome porter to do.” His business was to see the King’s lodgings furnished with tables, chairs, stools, firing, rushes for strewing the floors, to provide cards, dice, &c., and to decide disputes arising at dice, cards, bowling, &c. The Groom Porter’s is referred to as a place of excessive play in the seventeenth year of the reign of Henry VIII. (1526), when it was directed that the privy chamber shall be “kept honestly,” and that it “be not used by frequent and intemperate play, as the Groom Porter’s house.” Play at Court was lawful, and encouraged, from Christmas to Epiphany, and this was the Groom Porter’s legitimate time. When the King felt disposed, and it was his pleasure to play, it was the etiquette and custom to announce to the company, that “His Majesty was out”; on which intimation all Court ceremony and restraint were set aside, and the sport commenced; and when the Royal Gamester had either lost, or won, to his heart’s content, notice of the Royal pleasure to discontinue the game was, with like formality, announced by intimation that “His Majesty was at home,” whereupon play forthwith ceased, and the etiquette and ceremony of the palace was resumed. The fact of the Christmas gambling is noted in Jonson’s _Alchemist_— “He will win you, By irresistible luck, within this fortnight Enough to buy a barony. This will set him Upmost at the Groom Porter’s all the Christmas.” We saw that Pepys visited the Groom Porter’s at Christmas, so also did Evelyn. “_6 Jan. 1662._ This evening, according to custom, his Majesty opened the revels of that night, by throwing the dice himself in the privy chamber, where was a table set on purpose, and lost his £100. (The year before he won £1500.) The ladies, also, played very deep. I came away when the Duke of Ormond had won about £1000, and left them still at passage, cards, &c. At other tables, both there and at the Groom Porter’s, observing the wicked folly and monstrous excess of passion amongst some losers: sorry am I that such a wretched custom as play to that excess should be countenanced in a Court, which ought to be an example of virtue to the rest of the kingdom.” “_8 Jan. 1668._ I saw deep and prodigious gaming at the Groom Porter’s, vast heaps of gold squandered away in a vain and profuse manner. This I looked on as a horrid vice, and unsuitable to a Christian Court.”