manship, with stuff and other provisions bought and made of new this year, for the furniture of the Lord of Misrule.'

same

The tournaments and street pageants were also under the direction of Sir Thomas; but we must not allow ourselves to enter into any particulars concerning them. We can only afford space for a few items taken from the list of the 'properties' in the charge of the Master of the Revels, such as six cow bells, forty-eight antique heads set on the knees, shoulders, backs, and breasts of the men-at-arms; eight long heads for women, made of paste gilded with party gold and silver, costing £2 38. 3d.; eight pair of legs made with rods, costing 10s.; eight breasts, 4d. a-piece; and eight monsters. There are also a collection of costumes proper for Turks, Allemaynes, Italians, Moors, and Egyptians; with garments for frows,' and dresses for friars. Rich towels also of moresco work, and pocket handkerchiefs wrought in the sumptuous fashion; pieces of cloth of gold, costly laces, silks, and cambrics. Some of the more curious costumes are the dresses for hermits; thus we find John Hutchinson charging 128. for nine felts for hermits; Green, coffer maker, providing eight lanthorns for them, at a cost of 68. 8d.; and Anthony Truner (or Turner), furnishing for the same purpose nine great bead stones, nine little bowls, and eight palmers' staves. John Holte, a yeoman, also supplies a dozen candles, whipcord, and paste for the hermits' ears; pins and straw to stuff the wallets, tassels, and buttons for their hats. In another place, £6 8s. is paid to tailors for sewing upon garments by day and night. Then there are the accounts connected with the stables of the Lord of Misrule, which contained thirteen hobby horses, the one he rode having three heads; he also possessed a pillory and pair of stocks, a prison and a place of execution, a gibbet, heading block, and little ease.

Lastly, there are sundry accounts for the making of masks; such as covering six counterfeit apes of paste cement with grey coney skins, which were made to serve for a maske of bagpipes to sit upon the

top of them like minstrels as though they did play; also charges for furring or covering six great tails of wicker, made for a mask of cats, all covered over with cats' tails, taking fifty dozen of cats' tails for the workmanship. And as a finis, there is a charge for candles and links, and rushes to strew the office in which the workmen sate. Here, then, are the prototypes of our present Christmas pantomimes; in both we see the same want of taste, the same absence of beauty, and the same love of the grotesque. If there be any difference between the masques and pageants in which our ancestors delighted, and those which are provided for our entertainment, it apparently consists in the sense of the ludicrous being more appealed to now than it was then; our ancestors were content to be half frightened and wholly astonished where we demand material for laughter also.

It appears that Sir Thomas Cawarden sometimes lent the properties in the royal wardrobe, judging from the following lugubrious letter, in which Mr. Copley begs the loan of one of the masks in his custody:

Right Worshipful,-After my duty remembered (as from one whom your courtesy and friendship hath emboldened at every need to presume on the same), this may be to require you (if conveniently you may), otherwise I will not require it, that it might please you secretly to lend me the use of one of your masks for one night against my marriage, which (in an ill hour for me) is like to be solemnized on Sunday next at Nonesuch. Where my hope is I shall see you, and so I do most heartily require you I may do. My hope is there shall come no harm of it. My Lady also I would be very glad to see there, if it may stand with her commodity; but if for respect it seem otherwise, then do I beseech you that I may see her here at Gatton the Wednesday after, at which day I think we shall come home, and her Ladyship shall find here none but her friends. I would myself have waited upon you this day, but that I am not able to ride, nor shall be, I fear, this three or four days, by reason of a strain which I have unhappily met with. I beseech you, sir, that my duty may be also humbly remembered to my good lady. So expecting your present answer (if you shall so think meet), I wish unto you quietness, with as fortunate success

1856.]

Besides being Master of the Revels, Sir Thomas held the office of the Keeper of the Standing Guarderobe, at the Palace of Nonesuch;' and amongst the accounts which he kept of the household furniture belonging to the mansion, we notice a description of a bedstead of dark crimson velvet, embroidered with flowers of gold, and a woman in the midst, with a crown on her head, and a pair of wings.' bed was no less than fourteen feet three inches in length, by twelve feet wide. It was furnished with a velvet counterpane, embroidered with two horses, and a man riding upon one of them.

This

Before concluding our account of the Cawarden MSS., it may be mentioned that Sir Thomas seems to have been strongly attached to the Reformed religion. At the suppression of monasteries, a grant was made to him of the church of the Black Friars, a noble building, of large dimensions. This church was demolished by Sir Thomas, who being afterwards forced, during the reign of Queen Mary, to provide a church for the parishioners, allowed them an upper chamber, and thus only imperfectly obeyed the queen's mandate. In the same reign, he was five times indicted for heresy; and being suspected of taking part in Wyatt's rebellion, Lord William Howard commanded the sheriff to seize all the artillery, weapons, and munitions of war in Sir Thomas's armoury at Bletchingly. His military stores were certainly formidable, and, to all appearance, more than was required for his personal protection or for the service of the queen. After the death of Mary, however, he petitioned Elizabeth for redress of the injuries he had sustained from her predecessor; we do not know with what result, but it is certain that Elizabeth regarded him with favour, and that she had employed him about her affairs during the reign of Henry VIII. On her accession, he was appointed to the charge of the Tower of London, jointly with the Earl of Bedford; and

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amongst his MSS. is a letter from Elizabeth, discharging him, with many thanks, from the performance of the office. He died in 1559, and was buried in the church of Bletchingly.

As proofs of the state of transition in religious matters during this period, we may point to the churchwardens' accounts for the parish church of Bletchingly, in which we meet with charges, first for setting up and then for taking down the Rood loft; for watching the Holy Sepulchre at Easter, and for 'plucking' down the altars; for painting the Paschal post, and for providing three long forms and a table for the communion to be ministered upon. In the accounts of the church of Bermondesey, with which Sir Thomas was also connected, being one of the Commissioners appointed to receive the church ornaments and vestments, in which it was remarkably rich, we find various entries testifying to the same tale, such as 'Item, there was solde to Fabian Wythers a censer and a pyx of silver, a crysmatory and a pax of silver;' then, Bought of Fabian Wythers two communioncups of silver gilt;' also, Paid for painting the Scripture against the Rood loft and over the altar, and for books to serve the choir and the church, £1 14s. 4d.;' while we also find the churchwardens selling their Latin books of parchment-doubtless the splendid illuminated missals -for the paltry sum of 108.

6

We also see an evidence of the feeling with which the Romish religion was regarded, in the plot of a play dating somewhere in the reign of Edward VI., in which the Pope is personated by Pride,' a bishop by Wrath,' a friar by Envy,' a sole priest by Gluttony,' a monk by Lechery,' and a hermit by 'Sloth.' In the Losely MSS. we find an account, in a letter from the Lord Deputy of Ireland to Mr. More, of the first marked demonstration which Queen Elizabeth gave of her determination to carry out the reform begun by her father. On Christmas-day, her Majesty repaired to her great closet with her nobles and ladies, as was her custom on such high feasts. But she, perceiving a bishop preparing himself to mass all in the old form,

tarried there until the Gospel was done; and when all the people looked for her to have offered according to the old fashion, she, with her nobles, returned again from the closet and the mass on to her privy chamber,' which, adds Sir William Fitzwilliam, 'was strange unto divers (persons), &c., blessed be God for all his gifts!' Other MSS. show the policy of Elizabeth in maintaining the principles of the Reformation after it had been once established, and treating with severity both Romanists and Puritans. Thus, in 1570, eleven years after her accession, she signifies her pleasure that the Earl of Southampton, having given her cause for displeasure on religious grounds, should be committed to the care of the Sheriff of London. A month later, the Earl not being in good health, and the plague raging in London, she orders him to be transferred to the custody of Mr. More, of Losely. In the October following, Mr. More receives a letter from the Council, desiring to be informed, by a private letter, whether the Earl of Southampton 'do come to common prayer or not;' and in case he has not done so, Mr. More is required, as of himself, to move and persuade him thereunto;' in which attempt he is successful.

A month afterwards Viscount Montague informs Mr. More of his daughter's resolve to sue for her husband's liberation. Some two years elapse, and then Mr. More applies in an all-powerful quarter, interceding with the Earl of Leicester on his prisoner's behalf. That he is partly successful in his suit appears from the answer which the Council sent, empowering him to set the earl at more liberty, and desiring him to permit his wife and friends to have access to him, allowing him also to go abroad to take the air, so that it be in Mr. More's company. On the 13th of July, 1553, he is permitted to go to his father-in-law's house, there to remain under certain restrictions; and from thence he writes a letter to Mr. More, with which the correspondence closes, informing him of the comfort God had sent him after all his long troubles, his wife having been delivered that morning of a goodly boy-God

bless him!' who afterwards became the patron of Shakspeare.

Eight years after the Earl of Southampton's incarceration, the Lords of the Council address Sir William More, as one of the Justices of Surrey, to the effect that the Queen's Majesty has been informed that in that county, as well as in other parts of England, 'certain lewd and evil-disposed persons' are remaining obscurely in secret places, or else very secretly going from place to place, disguised in apparel after the manner of servingmen or of artificers, 'whereas they are in reality Popish and massing priests, who, in a whispering manner, hold and maintain sundry of her Majesty's subjects in superstition and error;' a kind of people and a manner of practice over long used, and in no wise any more to be suffered.' Diligent search is therefore to be made for all such recreants, suspected houses are to be examined, and the offenders, together with those who harbour them, to be apprehended. Fines are also to be levied on all who do not attend their parish church; and one of the Losely MSS. is a document by which Thomas Fryer, M.D., dwelling within the city of London, is required to attend before the Clerk of the Peace at Dorking, touching his not coming to church.

Some light is thrown upon the condition of the Protestant clergy by a letter from John Cowper, Esq., of Capel, in Surrey, to Sir W. More, requesting his assent, as a Justice of the Peace, to the petition of the bearer, who is the minister of Mr. Cowper's parish, and desirous of marrying a maid of the same parish. 'The man,' Mr. Cowper states, ‘is honest and of good conversation; and the woman is of good years, towards thirty, and a very sober maid and honest, and so reported of by the substantialest men of the parish where she hath dwelled almost seven years.' Further, the parson has the good will of her motherher father being dead-and of her master with whom she last dwelled, and of her friends, and of the parish where he serves.' Mr. Cowper therefore hopes Sir William's consent will not be wanting to make the couple happy.

1856.]

In another of these documents we find Archbishop Parker writing to Sir William respecting the Rev. W. Newman, Vicar of Chertsey, who had been put into the stocks

openlie for refusing to appear before Mr. Cowper, a lately-made Justice, and probably the person alluded to above. The Archbishop states that, not knowing the demerits of the plaintiff, he can say but little in the matter, but, having given a promise that he would write to Sir William about it, he begs that he will inquire into the case and see justice done.

We will now turn to such of the Losely MSS. as contain curious illustrations of the social manners and habits of our ancestors.

For example, there is a letter from Mistress Ursula Worseley (who afterwards married the famous Sir Francis Walsingham), to a friend of hers in Wales, in which she desires him to acquaint Mr. More and Mr. Cresswell, whom she had invited to visit her at Appuldercombe, with certain conditions which she would wish them to observe. First, it must be understood that while they are in her house she is to have her own chamber free to herself,' and also that they are to contribute to the expenses of the household, and of the whole family from the death of her late husband; she also expects them to pay part of the servants' wages due on Michaelmasday; and lastly, she is to have a gelding for her own separate use. Like a discreet woman, she seems to have thought it best to name these things beforehand, that her guests might have plenty of time for consideration, and at their coming 'may be the less troubled and the better quieted and contented with what order soever they shall take in the premises.' That visitors were accustomed in those days to make this kind of pecuniary compensation to their hosts is evident from another letter, in which Mr. Astley, writing from Court, proposes to pay a visit to Mr. More. begins his letter by telling him that having had plenty of time to consider the proposal he had made, he begs a speedy answer, since the season of the year in which provisions are cheapest is fast passing away (his

He

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letter is dated the 25th of August). He then acquaints Mr. More with the number of persons who will accompany him. First, there will be his wife, with her two children, the eldest five years of age, a manservant and a maid-servant; then Mr. Astley must have for his own use three horses and two servants.

All this (he goes on to say) you must consider of like a friend, and so rate the price according to your good conscience, as there be no doubt that we shall very well agree, for with you I would spend and live more liberally than in many places; in any wise refer nothing to me, but conclude in your letter your price

and determination.

The letter ends by Mr. Astley saying that he has heard that Mr. More

has room sufficient besides his new building, and that if his host will, he will furnish a chamber wholly for himself, and another for the nursemaid and children, with beds, hangings, &c.

The large country houses seemed, therefore, at this period to have served as hotels, where the various guests were accommodated at charges settled beforehand between them and their hosts. Such were the customs of nearly three centuries ago! Of such kind are the matters, insignificant, perhaps, in themselves, but of value as enabling us to realize the difference between our ancestors and ourselves. How much light, for instance, is thrown on the childish superstitions prevalent amongst learned men of the day by the following letter from an eminent physician, who writes in 1581 to Sir George More, respecting a professional visit he had been requested to make to Losely :

Lewes.

Mr. George More,-I am heartily sorry for the suspected mischance happened at Losely, but I hope there is more fear than hurt; and yet in these causes good to mistrust the worst. As for my coming to you upon Wednesday next, verily my promise being passed to an old patient of mine, a very good gentlewoman, one Mrs. Clerk, which now lieth in great extremity, I cannot possibly be with you till Thursday. On Friday and Saturday the sign will be in the heart; on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday in the stomach; during which time it will be no good dealing with your ordinary physic until Wednesday