Part 37

When he was lying hid in Spring Coppice, the goodwife Yates brought to his most sacred majesty “a mess of milk, some butter, and eggs,”--better fare than the parched peas which were found, in after days, in the pocket of the fugitive Monmouth. The women provided for him as tenderly in his hour of hunger and trial, as their ebony sisters did for Mungo Park in his African solitude. When Charles arrived at the house at Boscobel, he “ate bread and cheese heartily,” and (as an extraordinary), “William Penderell’s wife made his majesty a posset of fine milk and small beer, and got ready some warm water to wash his feet, not only extremely dirty, but much galled with travel.” The king, in return, called the lady “my dame Joan,” and the condescension quickened her hospitality; for shortly after, she “provided some chickens for his majesty’s supper, a dainty he had not lately been acquainted with.” But the king and his followers not only longed for more substantial fare, but were not very scrupulous as to the means of obtaining it. Colonel Carlis, for instance, went into the sheepcot of a farmer residing near Boscobel, and like an impudent as well as a hungry thief “he chose one of the best sheep, sticks him with his dagger, then sends William for the mutton, who brings him home on his back.” The next morning was a Sunday morning, and Charles, having muttered his prayers, went eagerly to the parlour to look after the stolen mutton. It was hardly cold, but Will Penderell “brought a leg of it into the parlour; his majesty called for a knife and a trencher, and cut some of it into collops, and pricked them with the knife-point, then called for a frying-pan and butter, and fried the collops himself, of which he ate heartily.” Colonel Carlis, the while, being but under-cook (and that, honour enough too), made the fire, and turned the collops in the pan. “When the colonel,” adds the faithful Blount, who records this table trait, “afterwards attended his majesty in France, his majesty, calling to remembrance this passage among others, was pleased merely to propose it, as a problematical question, whether himself or the colonel were the master-cook at Boscobel, and the supremacy was of right adjudged to his majesty.” Circumstances which made of the royal adventurer a king were the spoiling of an excellent cook. When he was secretly sojourning at Trent, his meat was, for the most part, to prevent the danger of discovery, dressed in his own chamber; “the cookery whereof served him for some divertisement of the time.” The king better understood cookery as a science than the machinery of it. When he stood in the kitchen of Mr. Tombs’s house at Longmarston, disguised as “Will Jackson,” the busy cook-maid bade him wind up the jack. “Will Jackson” was obedient and attempted it, but hit not the right way, which made the maid in some passion ask, “What countryman are you, that you know not how to wind up a jack?” Will Jackson answered very satisfactorily, “I am a poor tenant’s son of Colonel Lane, in Staffordshire. We seldom have roast meat, but when we have, we don’t make use of a jack;” which in some measure assuaged the maid’s indignation. Never had the sacredness of majesty been in such peril since the period when Alfred marred instead of made the cakes of the neatherd’s angry wife. But Charles escaped to his rather hungry exile in France;--and see, how sweet are the uses of adversity! When this charming prince was restored to the throne, he brought with him two gifts of which the nation had heard little for some years;--one was the Church Liturgy, and the other, “God d--n ye,”--a fashionable phrase which has tumbled from the court to the alley.

It can hardly be said that Charles, when king, fulfilled the requirement which Lord Chesterfield subsequently laid down, when he insisted that a man should be gentleman-like even in his vices. When William of Orange came to England as the suitor of the king’s niece, the Princess Mary, Charles took an unclean delight in making the Dutchman drunk. Evelyn says:--“One night, at a supper given by the Duke of Buckingham, the king made him (William) drink very hard; the heavy Dutchman was naturally averse to it, but being once entered, was the most frolicsome of the company; and now the mind took him to break the windows of the chambers of the maids of honour; and he had got into their apartments had they not been timely rescued. His mistress, I suppose,” adds Evelyn, and it is a strange comment for so sensible a man, “did not like him the worse for such a notable indication of his vigour.” The monarch who made his _paulo-post_ successor drunk had little difficulty to bring the lord mayor of London into the same condition; and the city potentate and his “cousin the king” had that terrible “other bottle” together, in which men’s reason ordinarily makes shipwreck, with their dignity. But his majesty, of blessed memory, was a trifle devout after his drink, and on the “next morning” he heard anthems in his chapel, and, by way of devotion, would lean over his own pew and play with the curls of Lady Castlemaine, who occupied the next seat to that of “our most religious and gracious king.” When he was pouring the public money into the lap of that precious lady, he was leaving his own servants unpaid; and, on one occasion, when these could not obtain their salaries, they carried off their royal master’s linen, and left him without a clean shirt or a table-cloth!

The priests with whom Louis XIV. and Louis XV. used to transact their religion were wont to excuse all the conjugal infidelities of those anointed reprobates by remarking that they ever treated their consorts with the very greatest politeness. The poets of Charles’s days went further, and extolled his marital affection. Waller, for instance, congratulates the poor queen, that if she were ill, Charles was by to tend and weep over her:--

“But, that which may relieve our care Is, that you have a help so near For all the evil you can prove; The kindness of your Royal Love. He that was never known to mourn So many kingdoms from him torn, His tears reserved for you; more dear, More prized, than all those kingdoms were! For when no healing art prevail’d, When cordials and elixirs fail’d, On your pale cheek he dropt the shower, Revived you like a dying flower.”

The illness referred to was a spotted fever; and here is Pepys’ plain prose on the subject:--“20th October, 1663. This evening, at my lord’s lodgings, Mrs. Sarah, talking with my wife and I, how the queen do, and how the king tends her, being so ill. She tells us that the queen’s sickness is the spotted fever; that she was as full of the spots as a leopard, which is very strange that it should be no more known; but perhaps it is not so; and that the king do seem to take it much to heart, for that he hath wept before her; but for all that he hath not missed one night since she was sick, of supping with my lady Castlemaine; which I believe is true; for she says that her husband hath dressed the suppers every night; and I confess I saw him myself coming through the street, dressing up a great supper to-night, which Sarah also says is for the king and her, which is a very strange thing.” Oh, depth of royal grief, that required light suppers and light ladies for its solace!

The _Spectator_ has preserved for us a pleasant story illustrative both of royal and citizen good-fellowship, in the reign of Charles II., and in the person of the king and that of his jolly lord mayor, Sir Robert Viner. The merry monarch had been dining with the chief magistrate and the municipality, at Guildhall, where he had not drunk so deeply himself but he was aware that the jollity of his entertainers was beginning to render them rather oblivious of the respect due to their royal guest. He accordingly, with a curt farewell, slipped away down to his coach, which was awaiting him in Guildhall-yard. But the lord mayor forthwith pursued the runaway, and overtaking him in the yard, seized him by the skirts of his coat, and swore roundly that he should not go till they “had drank t’other bottle!” “The airy monarch,” says the narrator in the _Spectator_, “looked kindly at him over his shoulder, and with a smile and graceful air (for I saw him at the time, and do now), repeated this line of the old song:--

“‘And the man that is drunk is as great as a king!’

“and immediately turned back, and complied with his landlord.” This anecdote, however, though it be given on the authority of an alleged eye-witness, is probably over-coloured with regard to the conduct of his worship the mayor. Mr. Peter Cunningham quotes (in his story of Nell Gwyn) from Henry Sidney’s Diary, a letter addressed to Sidney by his sister the Countess Dowager of Sutherland, and which refers to the incident of the visit of Charles to Guildhall. The letter in question was written five years after the mayoralty of Sir Robert Viner. “The king had supped with the lord mayor, and the aldermen on the occasion had drunk the king’s health, over and over, upon their knees, wishing every one hanged and damned that would not serve him with their lives and fortunes. But this was not all. As his guards were drunk, or said to be so, they would not trust his majesty with so insecure an escort, but attended him themselves to Whitehall, and, as the lady-writer observes, ‘all went merry out of the king’s cellar.’ So much was this accessibility of manner in the king acceptable to his people, that the mayor and his brethren waited next day at Whitehall, to return thanks to the king and duke for the honour they had done them, and the mayor, confirmed by this reception, was changed from an ill to a well-affected subject.”

But as this merry mourner lived, so may he almost be said to have died. It will be remembered with what disgust Evelyn records the scene at Whitehall, a week before the king’s decease:--“I can never forget,” he says, “the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming and all dissoluteness, and as it were total neglectfulness of God, it being Sunday evening, which this day sennight I was witness of, the king sitting and toying with his concubines, Portsmouth, Cleveland, Mazarine, &c.; a French boy singing love-songs in that glorious gallery; whilst about twenty of the great courtiers and other dissolute persons were at basset, round a large table, a bank of at least two thousand pounds in gold before them, upon which two gentlemen who were with me made reflections in astonishment. Six days after, all was in the dust.”

There was more meanness, but not more decency, under James II., but his queen more deeply resented, and that in public, at dinner, the insults levelled at her. When Mrs. Sedly, in 1686, was created Countess of Dorchester, the day on which the nomination passed the Great Seal, and indeed on a subsequent occasion, the queen showed how she was touched by the honours paid to a brazen concubine. “The queen,” says Evelyn, “took it very grievously, so as for two dinners, standing near her, I observed she hardly ate one morsel, nor spake one word to the king, or to any about her; though at other times she used to be extremely pleasant, full of discourse and good-humour.” Such is one of the table traits of the time of James II.

There is little to be said of William III., save that he kept a well-regulated table, and was excessively angry if he detected any faults in the service. He is described as being kind, cordial, open, even convivial and jocose. He would sit at table many hours, and would bear his full share in festive conversation. Burnet, I think, somewhere intimates, but I cannot recollect the precise words, that he was something more than moderately given to Hollands. As much, indeed, has been said of Queen Anne. But Anne _was_ inclined to indulge in good living, and her doctor, Lister, had as many gastronomic propensities as herself. Lister entered into the minutiæ of the kitchen with the exactness of an apothecary weighing poison. On the subject of larks, he says, for the benefit of the queen, and all who love such dainty food, that if twelve larks do not weigh twelve ounces, they are scarcely eatable; they are just tolerable if they reach that weight; but that if they weigh thirteen ounces, they are fat and excellent! On such table matters did royal physicians write, when Anne was queen.

The table of George, Prince Regent, was splendidly served. The court language was French, as though the days of the Normans were come again. But the son of George III., whether as prince or as king, and despite his character of being the first gentleman in Europe, was _not_ naturally refined. He loved to have around him men like Humboldt, who, when his guest, amused him with stories as broad as they were long. He himself would tell similar stories, even in the presence of his mother and sisters, and in spite of a sharp “Fie, George!” and an indignant working of her fan on the part of Queen Charlotte. When king, the female society which he assembled at the Pavilion was very _décolleté_ indeed, both as regarded person and principles, and the appearance of these brilliant looking and light dressed individuals in the day-time gave to Brighton an aspect that put Rowland Hill into fits. There were joyous evenings then at Virginia Water, on “tea and marrow bones,” and there was everything there but refinement. Refinement, indeed, was not the characteristic of any one prince of the house. The Duke of Cumberland revelled in coarse jests, and was delighted when they embarrassed the modesty that could not even comprehend them. The Duke of Cambridge was perhaps the least offensive of the family. He was the professional diner-out of the house; and in his day very few public dinners took place without having the advantage of his presence as president. He was, on such occasions, punctuality itself, and could not tolerate being kept waiting. In such cases, he sometimes wiled away the time by trying over music with the musical gentlemen whose harmony was to relieve the toasts and tedium of the evening, but his impatience sometimes got the better of his politeness and of his reverence for serious things, and we shall not soon forget the effect he produced at a “religious public dinner,” by exclaiming aloud, “Where is the chaplain? d--n him! Why doesn’t he say grace?” Before passing to the next reign, we may take notice of a fact that is not generally known, but which nevertheless cannot be disputed. The coronation banquet of George IV. was one of the most splendid upon record. But there was a world of “leather and prunella” about it, in spite of its reputed splendour. Thus, for instance, the king’s table was one gorgeous display of gold plate, but the plates and dishes at all the other tables, one only, I believe, excepted, were composed of nothing more costly than good, honest pewter. The metal was indeed so splendidly burnished that to the eye no silver highly polished could have been more dazzling; but the truth remains that the peerage that day dined off pewter. But the occasion gave value to the material, and the dishes, in their character of relics of the glory of the last coronation banquet in Westminster Hall, are as highly prized, and as reverently preserved, as though they were composed of materials less strange to Potosi than tin, antimony, and a trifle of copper.

Court life, in the reign of William IV., was but of a very sombre aspect. The good old king used to indulge in giving toasts after dinner, and he made long and somewhat prosy speeches. Of the latter he was particularly fond, and he made the then young Prince George of Cambridge his pupil, by giving the health of his father, the Duke, and inducing the son to rise and return thanks for the honour conferred. It was no bad discipline for one who intended to become a public man. The young prince became a very fair speaker under the old king’s instructions. William detested politics, and he invariably fell asleep during the dessert. It would have violated etiquette to have awoke him; and the queen and her ladies never thought of rising until the royal eye-lids began again to give symptoms of returning wakefulness. He was fond of talking, over the wine, of military details, and was proud of two achievements connected therewith; first, that he had made Colonel Needham shave off his cherished whiskers, according to the new regulations; and that he had succeeded in having all the Waterloo medals worn with the king’s head outwards. He frequently fell asleep during these conversations; and then the guests quietly passed the wine from one to the other, and, as they drank off their glasses, bowed to or smiled at the sleeping sovereign the while. In the evening, there generally was music, during which the Queen Adelaide was as generally engaged in worsted work. The king usually honoured some one with an invitation to sit by his side on the sofa. He then fell asleep again, and the unlucky, honoured individual, did not dare leave his “coign of ’vantage” until the king awoke and gave the signal. William was a very moderate joker, and he loved a joke from others. It is reported that, when heir presumptive, he once said to a Secretary of the Admiralty who was at the same dinner-table, “C----, when I am king, you shall not be Admiralty Secretary! Eh, what do you say to that?” “All that I have to say to that, in such a case, is,” said C----, “God save the king!” I have heard it further said, that William never laughed so loudly as when he was told of a certain _parvenu_ lady, who, dining at Sir John Copley’s, ventured to express her surprise that there was “no _pilfered_ water on the table.”

The dining-tables of deceased monarchs belong to history; and, consequently, the limit of this imperfect record is to be found here. One further illustration, however, of “household” matters may here be not inaptly introduced. A few months ago a gentleman, who had been in his early years the personal friend of the Duke of Kent, was desirous of sending from Sicily a testimonial of his respect to the late Duke’s daughter, our sovereign lady the Queen. His grateful remembrance took the shape of some very rare and choice Sicilian wine, the proper transmission of which was entrusted to the good offices of a friend of the donor. This honorary agent proceeded to the proper office for instructions, and there he was somewhat surprised at being informed that, as soon as the duty had been paid upon the wine, the latter would be forwarded to the “household.” At this strange intimation, the friendly agent wrote to his principal for fresh instructions, and the principal, who had not the slightest intention of showing his respect for the memory of a sire by presenting wine to the “household” of that sire’s royal daughter, at once directed the luscious tribute to be divided among friends who had households of their own, and who could appreciate the present. The rule, with regard to offerings like these, was not in former times so ungraciously severe. When Mrs. Coutts used to send her pleasant tributary haunches of venison to the Pavilion, she was not informed that the “household” would condescend to dine upon the venison: on the contrary, a graceful autograph note from the royal recipient not only made cheerful acknowledgment of the gift, but also gave hearty promise that it would be thoroughly enjoyed. There is more independence, perhaps, in the present system, which discourages all tributes, whatever may be their nature; but there is something very ungracious in the method of its application.

Enough, however, of this matter, or we shall have little time to discuss, even briefly, two other subjects, touching which I would say something, before we are finally called to “supper.” The first of these comes under the head of “Strange Banquets.”

STRANGE BANQUETS.

Under this title I was half inclined to include the records of the achievements of those gastronomic heroes, whose spirit was something like that of the boy’s who ate with two spoons, and cried because he could not swallow faster. But, from Milo and his entire bull for dinner, down to Dando and his peck of oysters for supper, there is a sameness of very gross detail, and perhaps not very great truth, in all. The rustic who was victor at an eating match, “by a pig and an apple pie,” was on a level with the ancient kings, who were wont to boast that they could carry more beneath their belts with impunity than any other men. So the ardour of the two villages contemplating their respective champions--gluttons employed for the honour of their several birth-places--and the exultation of one party at finding its favourite ahead “by two turkeys and a pound of sausages,” gave proof of as much dignity of humanity as was given in _their_ case by those nations of old who weighed their kings annually, and had a general illumination when they found their monarchs growing fatter.

These illustrations of table manners, if indeed they deserve to be so called, we leave to the perusal of those whose devotion is of that cast that they would have reckoned Baal as a god, for no other reason than the sufficient one given of old, namely, that he ate much meat. In more modern times, we have had defunct kings who have been supposed capable of consuming as much as Baal himself, or any of his lively followers; for an illustration of which fact we must pass over, for a short time, to the once kingdom of France.

The last banquet prepared by the culinary officers of Francis I. for that royal personage, was one at which my readers would not have cared to sit in fellowship with the king, nor was it one which that monarch himself could be said to have perfectly enjoyed. He made, indeed, no remark or complaint, but _that_ was for the natural reason that he was dead when he presided at it! How this came to pass I will proceed to relate.

On the 1st day of March, 1546, Francis I. died in the Château de Rambouillet. The whole of the following day his body was in the hands of the surgeon-embalmers, who vainly exercised their office to render that sweet when dead which had by no means been so when living. During six weeks the corpse was deposited at the neighbouring Abbey of Haute-Bruyère. It was then transported to the house of the Archbishop of Paris at St. Cloud, where there was a duplicate “lying in state.” The dead king, extended on a couch of richly embroidered crimson satin, was surrounded by a thickly-wedged mass of priests, who, night and day, offered up prayers for the repose of his soul. In the adjacent chamber was the “counterfeit presentment,” or effigy of the monarch, made “after nature,” reclining on a bed of the most gorgeous description, on and about which was displayed all that could lend additional solemn glory to the scene. The waxen effigy, with hands joined, was decked in a crimson silk shirt, covered by a light blue tunic powdered with _fleurs de lis_. The royal mantle, of a deep violet, lay across the feet; and near it were the orders, chains, and other “bravery” worn by Francis in his lifetime. On the head was a violet velvet scull-cap, and above that the crown. The legs were thrust into boots of cloth of gold, with crimson satin soles,--but then they were not made for walking in. In the room, and particularly near the bed, there was a blaze of gold and jewellery, such as dazzled the sight only to look at it. The upper portion of the bed was fashioned like a tent. Sentinels guarded it from without, and priests kept watch with much prayer within. They were of all grades, from cardinals and princes of the Church down to bare-footed friars, who would have been more thankful for a scarlet hat than for a pair of the newest sandals. These were the guests at a banquet where the king was the highly honoured host.