Truly I herd Robert Ireliffe say, Clerk of the Green Cloth, that to the household Came every daye, for moost partie alwaye, Ten thousand folke by his messe is told, That followed the hous, aye, as thei would; And in the kechin three hundred servitours, And in eche office many occupiours. And ladies faire, with their gentilwomen, Chamberers also and lavenders, Three hundred of them were occupied there: Ther was greate pride among the officers, And of all menne far passing their compeers, Of riche arraye, and muche more costious Than was before or sith, and more precious. The ten thousand do not include the women and children. We have ceased to desire a Court magnificent with outward splendor and lavish expenditure. There has been, in fact, no such Court among us since that of Charles II.; and the splendor of his Court was but a poor thing compared with the splendor of the Third Edward, who was magnificent--or of Richard II., who was profuse. Let us remember that in our time we cannot make any show, or festival, or pageant--we have lost the art of pageantry--which can compare with the shows which our forefathers saw daily: the shows of magnificent trains, queens and princesses in such raiment as the greatest lady of these times would be afraid to put on, lords and knights and gentlemen of the livery, streets with their gabled houses hung with crimson and scarlet cloth; minstrels and music everywhere; mysteries and pageants and allegories, with fair maidens and giants, angels and devils; lavish feasts at which conduits ran with wine for long hours and all the world could get drunk if it pleased. And there was never anything more splendid than Richard II. himself. The time of great shows vanished, like the spirit of Chivalry, during the Wars of the Roses. What kind of quarters were given to the king’s courtiers and his army and his servants? This is a question to which one can give no satisfactory answer. We hear of many rooms and buildings, but there does not exist any description or plan of the palace as it was. It must certainly have contained a vast number of buildings for the accommodation of so many thousands. The fact that these buildings existed was proved after the fire of 1834, when a most extensive range of cellars and vaults was found to exist under the burned buildings round St. Stephen’s. The old buildings had long before been destroyed and modern houses had taken their places; but the vaults and cellars remained, showing by their strength and solidity the importance of the halls and chambers that had been built upon them.