THE REIGNS OF HENRY VIII., EDWARD VI., AND MARY I.
In the following articles we propose to treat of home life in bygone
days.
That being the case, our net will be spread wide enough to catch a very
miscellaneous collection of facts. Nothing will come amiss to us that
in any way illustrates the domestic existence of our ancestors, and
every reader, whatever her turn of mind, will be sure to find something
worth taking note of.
It will be a different sort of narrative from the history of great men,
or a tale of battles, sieges, and such-like imposing circumstances.
We shall speak of houses and furniture, food and clothing, etiquette
and good manners, wages and prices, education and superstition,
household industries and household amusements, old recipes and domestic
medicines, the ways of the poor and the ways of the rich. We shall make
as much of needles and pins as ordinary history-books do of swords and
guns, and a girl singing an old song will have more attention than they
give to an ambassador negotiating a foreign treaty.
The worst of it is that the subject is long, whilst our space is of
necessity short. We shall try, however, to change that disadvantage
into an advantage, by giving only those facts that appear most
interesting. There is a pleasure, too, when reading about a subject,
to know that the half has not been told, and that to all who care to
pursue it on their own account a rich harvest remains yet unreaped.
We are not going to begin with the time “when wild in woods the noble
savage ran,” and homes were in caves and under the shade of green
trees; our starting-point is to be the reign of Henry VIII., and our
first article will embrace that reign and the reigns of Edward VI. and
Queen Mary—in other words, from 1509 to 1558.
In those far-back days many things were different from what they
are now. There has been a great advance in material comfort. Our
forefathers, no doubt, had just as much wit and wisdom as we have;
but we can boast an advantage over them in possessing more of the
conveniences of life. In that respect, at least, we are lucky to have
been born so late.
Let us not imagine, however, that they had a bad time of it, or
were discontented or miserable because they had not everything just
like us. People do not sigh after what they have never either seen
or heard of. We really find happiness in our affections—not in our
material surroundings, which are of secondary importance; and it is not
unreasonable to conclude that, as human nature is always the same,
these ancestors of ours enjoyed life in their way quite as much as we
do.
We start with the subject of houses and furniture. When Henry VIII.
began to reign, well-to-do people in towns lived, as a rule, in houses
built principally of timber, the fronts being often ornamented with
rich carvings of fanciful and grotesque objects. The upper storeys
projected; so much so, indeed, that in a street people in the attics on
either side could almost shake hands. There was a reason for building
in this way. As the houses were of perishable material, each storey
gave protection from the weather to the storey beneath it.
Such a quantity of timber being used, there was a great danger of fire,
and the warning of the bellmen who proclaimed the hours of the night
in London was certainly needed, when, to their instructions to “be
charitable to the poor, and pray for the dead,” they added, “Take care
of your fire and candle.”
The labouring people in the country lived in houses constructed of the
first things that came to hand—often nothing but wattle and mud or
clay. When the mud or clay cracked, under the influence of summer’s
heat or winter’s frost, it was a simple matter with the same material
to “stop a hole to keep the wind away.” Ventilation was very defective,
and Erasmus attributes the frequent sicknesses with which England
was then visited in a great measure to the want of fresh air in the
dwelling-houses.
The ideas that regulated the furnishing and decoration of the houses
of the upper classes form a marked contrast to those prevailing
nowadays. The furniture was more massive, and there was less of it. The
bedchamber of Henry VIII. contained only a couple of joint cupboards, a
joint stool, two hand-irons, a fire-fork, a pair of tongs, a fire-pan,
and a steel mirror covered with yellow velvet.
Carpets came into use before the reign of Henry VIII. was far advanced,
though in the reign of Queen Mary rushes still strewed the floor of the
presence-chamber. Feather beds were used in Henry VIII.’s reign by the
upper classes. When they went travelling, they were no longer content
with the floor or a hard bench at halting-places, but generally carried
portable beds (packed in leather cases) with them on horseback. In the
lower ranks of life straw pallets, or rough mats with a round log for a
pillow, formed the ordinary provision for sleeping.
Ladies’ dresses amongst the nobility in Henry VIII.’s reign had a
certain formality, but in many points were elegant and becoming. Early
in the sixteenth century they were made low and cut square about the
neck: the sleeves were tight at the shoulder, but suddenly became very
large and open, showing the puffed sleeves of the under-dress. The
long skirts were worn open in front to the waist, showing the kirtle
or petticoat. Sometimes, however, dresses were worn high, with short
waists and a small falling collar.
At a little later date the sleeves of dresses were puffed at the
shoulders, and when the dress was made open above the girdle, what
was called a “partlet”—a kind of habit-shirt—was worn beneath it, and
carried up to the throat.
Sleeves were one of the strong points of the ladies of those times.
They were independent articles of clothing, and were attached at
pleasure to the rest of the costume. “Much splendour,” says Mr. J.
R. Planché, “was lavished on this part of the dress, and its various
fashions were singularly quaint and elegant.” Amongst the inventories
of Henry VIII.’s reign we find “three pair of purple satin sleeves for
women; one pair of linen sleeves, paned with gold over the arm, quilted
with black silk, and wrought with flowers between the panes and at the
hands; one pair of sleeves of purple gold tissue damask wire, each
sleeve tied with aglets of gold; one pair of crimson satin sleeves,
four buttons of gold being set on each sleeve, and in every button nine
pearls.”
Necklaces and other ornaments of jewellery were much worn. No dress was
complete without a girdle, and from the girdle was suspended by means
of chains such articles as tablets, knives and purses. Sometimes, in
place of the chains, the girdles themselves had a long pendant, which
was elaborately decorated.
We get a glimpse of the style of dress amongst commoner folk, in the
history of a famous clothier known as “Jack of Newbury.” When Jack
was married, the bride, in her wedding costume, must have cut quite
a picturesque figure. “The bride,” we read, “being dressed in a gown
of sheep’s russet and a kirtle of fine worsted, her head attired in
a _billiment_ (habiliment) of gold, and her hair, as yellow as gold,
hanging down behind her, which was curiously combed and plaited,
according to the manner of those days, was led to church by two boys
with bride laces, and rosemary tied about their silken sleeves.”
Mrs. Jack became a widow, and after she had laid aside her weeds she is
described as coming one day out of the kitchen “in a fair train gown
stuck full of silver pins, having a white cap on her head, with cuts of
curious needlework under the same, and an apron before her as white as
driven snow.”
The ordinary costume for men of the upper ranks in the time of Henry
VIII. was a full-skirted jacket or doublet, with large sleeves to the
wrists, over which was hung a short cloak or coat, with loose hanging
sleeves and a broad, rolling collar of fur. To these articles of dress
was added a brimmed cap, jewelled and bordered with ostrich feathers;
stockings and square-toed shoes.
A sumptuary law was passed in 1533, limiting the use of certain
expensive stuffs and valuable personal ornaments to certain classes.
Common people and serving men, for example, were confined to the use of
cloth of a fixed price, and lamb’s fur only, and they were forbidden
to wear any ornaments or even buttons of gold, silver, or gilt work,
excepting the badge of their lord or master.
The apprentices of London wore blue cloaks in summer, and in winter
gowns of the same colour. Blue cloaks or gowns were a mark of servitude.
Fourteen years before the beginning of Henry VIII.’s reign wages were
settled by Act of Parliament. A free mason, master carpenter, rough
mason, bricklayer, master tiler, plumber, glazier, carver or joiner,
was allowed from Easter to Michaelmas to take 6d. a day, without meat
or drink. Suppose he had meat and drink, he could only charge 4d. A
master having under him six men was allowed a penny a day extra. From
Michaelmas to Easter a penny a day was taken off these prices. Wages,
however, gradually rose all through the sixteenth century.
In 1511, in the household of the Earl of Northumberland, the principal
priest of the chapel had £5 a year; a chaplain graduate £3 6s. 8d.; a
chaplain not a graduate, £2; a minstrel, £4; a serving boy, 13s. 4d.
These payments were over and above food and lodging.
When wages and salaries were so low, compared with those of our own
day, we must expect to find a corresponding difference in prices. In
1541 a hundred eggs sold for 1s. 2d., a dozen pigeons cost 10d., a good
fat goose cost 8d., and you could buy a fat sheep for from 2s. 4d. to
4s., and an ox for about £2. In 1533 an Act was passed by which the
price of beef and pork was fixed at ½d. a pound, and veal at ¾d.
Of the state of learning, in the houses at any rate of the upper
classes, much is to be said that reflects credit on our ancestors.
The royal court of Henry VIII., whatever might be its faults, did not
neglect study. In the case of Prince Edward, afterwards Edward VI.,
devotion to his books no doubt had an injurious effect on his health,
and there is no saying what might have been the result to England had
he had less learning and more exercise. Bishop Burnet tells us that he
was so forward in his education that “before he was eight years old
he wrote Latin letters to his father, who was a prince of that stern
severity that one can hardly think that those about his son durst cheat
him by making letters for him.”
Mary had a good knowledge of classic authors, and wrote good Latin
letters. Elizabeth began every day with an hour’s reading in the Greek
Testament, the tragedies of Sophocles, and the orations of Isocrates
and Demosthenes. She also was a good Latin scholar, spoke French and
Italian as fluently as English, had a smattering of Dutch and German,
and was a devourer of works on history.
These two princesses were the highest in station of the accomplished
women of the time, but there were many who equalled, and some
who surpassed, them in learning. The most remarkable of all for
accomplishments was certainly Lady Jane Grey, afterwards the
unfortunate queen of a ten-days’ reign. Lady Jane took so kindly to
study that she became the marvel of the age for her acquirements. She
excelled in needlework and in music, and, aided by her tutor, Dr.
Elmer, or Aylmer, afterwards Bishop of London, had thoroughly mastered
Latin, Greek, French, and Italian, and knew something of at least three
Oriental tongues—Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic.
One of the most interesting passages—and a touching one it is, too—in
the writings of Roger Ascham is that in “The Schoolmaster,” in which
he describes a visit he paid to the home of Lady Jane’s parents in
Leicestershire in 1550. She was then little over thirteen years old.
It gives us a glimpse of the girl-life of the period in a high rank of
society, and deserves to be quoted in full.
“Before I went into Germany,” says Ascham, “I came to Broadgate, in
Leicestershire, to take my leave of that noble Lady Jane Grey, to whom
I was exceeding much beholden. Her parents, the Duke and Duchess, with
all the household, gentlemen and gentlewomen, were hunting in the park.
I found her in her chamber, reading Phædon Platonis, in Greek, and
that with as much delight as some gentlemen would read a merry tale in
Boccaccio.
“After salutation and duty done with some other talk, I asked her why
she would leave such pastime in the park?
“Smiling, she answered me, ‘I wis all their sport in the park is but a
shadow to that pleasure that I find in Plato. Alas, good folk! they
never felt what true pleasure meant.’
“‘And how came you, madam,’ quoth I, ‘to this deep knowledge of
pleasure, and what did chiefly allure you unto it, seeing not many
women but very few men have attained thereunto?’
“‘I will tell you,’ quoth she, ‘and tell you a truth which perchance
you will marvel at. One of the greatest benefits that God ever gave
me is that He sent me so sharp and severe parents, and so gentle a
schoolmaster. For when I am in presence either of father or mother,
whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand or go, eat, drink, be merry
or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do
it as it were in such weight, measure, and number—even so perfectly
as God made the world—or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly
threatened, yea, presently, sometimes, with pinches, nips, and bobs,
and other ways which I will not name for the honour I bear them; so
without measure misordered that I think myself in hell, till time come
that I must go to Mr. Elmer, who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly,
with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time
nothing whiles I am with him. And when I am called from him I fall on
weeping, because whatsoever I do else but learning is full of grief,
trouble, fear, and whole misliking unto me. And thus my book hath been
so much my pleasure, and bringeth daily to me more pleasure and more,
that in respect of it all other pleasures in very deed be but trifles
and troubles unto me.’
“I remember this talk gladly,” Ascham adds, “both because it is so
worthy of memory, and because, also, it was the last talk that ever I
had and the last time that ever I saw that noble and worthy lady.”
However learning might flourish in the upper circles of society, it
seems to have languished in the schools and among the people. But
efforts were made in the direction of popular education, and more
grammar schools it is said were founded in the latter part of Henry
VIII.’s reign than in the three hundred years preceding.
Music was practised by all classes. Erasmus, who saw much of England in
the beginning of the sixteenth century, speaks of the English as the
most accomplished in the skill of music of any people. “It is certain,”
says Mr. Chappell, “that the beginning of the sixteenth century
produced in England a race of musicians equal to the best in foreign
countries, and in point of secular music decidedly in advance of them.”
Henry VIII. was a great patron of music, and, more than that, he was
himself a composer and performer. He played well on both the virginals
and the lute, and could sing at sight. But to sing at sight was a
common accomplishment amongst gentlemen; so common, indeed, that
inability to do so was looked on as a serious drawback to success in
life. Homes were rendered cheerful by the singing of madrigals and
other part music. The first collection of songs in parts that was
printed in England belongs to the year 1530.
Besides music, many other recreations were indulged in. These were
the days of archery, casting of the bar, wrestling, and such martial
sports as fighting with swords and battle-axes. For rural pastimes
there were hunting and hawking—and in these the ladies were often as
enthusiastic as the gentlemen. Card-playing was highly popular, and in
the reign of Henry VIII. a prohibitory statute was found necessary to
prevent apprentices from using cards, except in the Christmas holidays,
and then only in their masters’ houses. The same statute forbade any
householder to permit card-playing in his house, under the penalty of
six shillings and eightpence for every offence.
May Day was a general holiday, and Maypoles were set up in every town
and village. The observance of May Day differed no doubt in minor
particulars in different places, but in general it consisted in people
of all ranks going out early in the morning into the “sweet meadows
and green woods,” where they broke down branches from the trees, and
adorned them with nosegays and crowns of flowers. “This done, they
returned homewards with their booty, and made their doors and windows
triumph in the flowery spoil.” The Maypole was set up, and the rest
of the day was spent in dancing round it, and in sports of different
kinds. When evening came, bonfires were lighted in the streets. Even
the reigning sovereign joined in these amusements. On May Day, 1515,
Henry VIII. and Queen Katherine, his wife, rode a-Maying from Greenwich
to the high ground of Shooter’s-hill, accompanied by many lords and
ladies.
There was a famous London Maypole in Cornhill before the parish church
of St. Andrew, which thus got the name of St. Andrew Undershaft. The
pole or shaft, Stow tells us, was set up by the citizens “every year,
on May Day, in the morning, in the midst of the street, before the
south door of the said church; which shaft, when it was set on end and
fixed in the ground, was higher than the church steeple.” When its
annual day of usefulness was over, the pole was taken down again and
hung on iron hooks above the doors of the neighbouring houses.
This pole was destroyed in 1550, the fourth year of Edward VI.’s reign,
in an outburst of Puritanism, after a sermon preached at St. Paul’s
Cross against May games. The inhabitants of the houses against whose
wall the pole had found shelter sawed it in pieces, and every man took
a bit and made use of it to light his fire.
Mingled with the festivities of May Day there was a distinct set of
sports, very popular in the early part of the sixteenth century,
intended to represent the adventures of the renowned woodland hero,
Robin Hood. The enthusiasm with which the common people entered into
these sports may be seen from the reception Bishop Latimer met with
when he once proposed to preach in a town on the 1st of May. He tells
the incident himself in a sermon he preached in 1549 before Edward VI.
“I came once myself,” he says, “to a place, riding on a journey
homeward from London, and I sent word overnight into the town that
I would preach there in the morning because it was holy day, and
methought it was an holy day’s work.” (It was the Feast of the Apostles
Philip and James.) “The church stood in my way, and I took my horse
and my company and went thither. I thought I should have found a great
company in the church, and when I came there the church door was fast
locked.
“I tarried there half an hour and more. At last the key was found, and
one of the parish comes to me and says, ‘Sir, this is a busy day with
us. We cannot hear you. It is Robin Hood’s Day. The parish are gone
abroad to gather for Robin Hood. I pray you forbid them not.’
“I was fain there to give place to Robin Hood. I thought my rochet”—or
bishop’s surplice—“should have been regarded, though I were not; but it
would not serve; it was fain to give place to Robin Hood.”
How did stay-at-home people amuse themselves then in the long winter
evenings? No doubt they either made time seem short by going to sleep,
or they sat by the fireside singing songs or telling oft-told stories,
or exercising their wits by asking each other riddles or conundrums.
Some of their fireside riddles are preserved in a little book called
“Demands Joyous”—in modern English Merry Questions—which was printed
by Wynkyn de Worde in 1511.
The following are a few of the conundrums contained in this work, and
at some of them the reader, who is well acquainted with the conundrums
of the present day, will be tempted to exclaim with Solomon, that there
is nothing new under the sun.
“What is it that never freezeth?—Boiling water.
“What is it that never was and never will be?—A mouse’s nest in a cat’s
ear.
“How many straws go to a goose’s nest?—Not one, for straws, not having
feet, cannot go anywhere.
“How many calves’ tails would it take to reach from the earth to the
sky?—No more than one, if it be long enough.
“What man getteth his living backwards?—A ropemaker.
“Why doth a dog turn round three times before he lieth down?—Because he
knoweth not his bed’s head from the foot thereof.
“Why do men make an oven in a town? Because they cannot make a town in
an oven.
“How may a man discern a cow in a flock of sheep?—By his eyesight.
“What is the worst bestowed charity that one can give?—Alms to a blind
man; for he would be glad to see the person hanged that gave it to him.”
An industry of considerable interest from a domestic point of view came
to the front in 1542; this was the manufacture of pins. These useful
articles were originally made abroad, but the English pinners took to
making them, and on their engaging to keep the public well supplied at
reasonable prices, an Act of Parliament was passed in the year just
named, forbidding the sale of any sort of pins excepting “only such as
shall be double-headed, and have the heads soldered fast to the shank
of the pin, well smoothed, the shank well shaven, the point well and
round filed, canted and sharped.”
The English pinmakers, however, either proved unable or unwilling to
keep their part of the bargain, and complaints were so loudly made
that the pins were not what they should be, that in 1545 the Act was
declared “frustrate and annihilated, and to be repealed for ever.”
Pins of good quality were of brass, but unscrupulous makers made pins
of iron wire, blanched, and passed them off as brass ones.
People who went from home then had no choice—they must either ride or
walk. Kings, queens, and gentlefolk all mounted to the saddle, the
ladies being accustomed to ride on pillions fixed on the horse, and
generally behind some relative or serving-man. Rude carriages, however,
made their appearance in England in 1555.
Before the Reformation there were no poor’s rates. The poor had their
wants supplied by charitable doles given at religious houses, and by
contributions placed in the poor man’s box which stood in every church.
In all parishes there was a church house supplied with dishes and
cooking utensils. “Here,” says John Aubrey, “the housekeepers met, and
were merry and gave their charity.”
Begging, under certain conditions, was regulated by an Act of
Parliament passed in 1530. By this Act justices of the peace were
required to give licences under their seals to such poor, aged, and
impotent persons to beg within a certain precinct as they thought had
most need. If anyone begged out of the district assigned to him he was
to be set in the stocks two days and two nights; and if anyone begged
without first obtaining a licence he was to be put in the stocks three
days and three nights, and be fed with bread and water only.
Vagrants were very sternly dealt with; but in this Act, and in
subsequent legislation on the same subject, we see that our
sixteenth-century forefathers had an honest desire to do their duty in
relieving such as were in “unfeigned misery.” In an Act passed in the
first year of Edward VI.’s reign we find the curate of every parish
required, “on every Sunday and holiday, after reading the Gospel of
the day, to make (according to such talent as God hath given him) a
godly and brief exhortation to his parishioners, moving and exciting
them to remember the poor people, and the duty of Christian charity in
relieving of them which be their brethren in Christ, born in the same
parish and needing their help.”
One of the interesting households of the period was that of Sir Thomas
More, the famous Lord Chancellor who was executed in 1535. More lived
at Chelsea, and of his happy home there Erasmus, who knew him well,
has given the following charming account:—“More,” he says, “has built,
near London, upon the Thames, a modest yet commodious mansion. There
he lives, surrounded by his numerous family, including his wife, his
son, and his son’s wife, his three daughters and their husbands, with
eleven grandchildren. There is not any man living so affectionate to
his children as he, and he loveth his old wife as if she were a girl
of fifteen. Such is the excellence of his disposition, that whatsoever
happeneth that could not be helped, he is as cheerful and as well
pleased as though the best thing possible had been done.
“In More’s house you would say that Plato’s Academy was revived again,
only whereas in the Academy the discussion turned upon geometry and
the power of numbers, the house at Chelsea is a veritable school
of Christian religion. In it is none, man or woman, but readeth or
studieth the liberal arts; yet is their chief care of piety. There is
never any seen idle. The head of the house governs it, not by a lofty
carriage and oft rebukes, but by gentleness and amiable manners. Every
member is busy in his place, performing his duty with alacrity; nor is
sober mirth wanting.”
Speaking of More’s home life in his “Short History of the English
People,” Mr. J. R. Green says:—“The reserve which the age exacted
from parents was thrown to the winds in More’s intercourse with his
children. He loved teaching them, and lured them to their deeper
studies by the coins and curiosities he had gathered in his cabinet. He
was as fond of their pets and their games as the children themselves,
and would take grave scholars and statesmen into the garden to see
his girls’ rabbit-hutches or to watch the gambols of their favourite
monkey.”
(_To be continued._)
THE SHEPHERD’S FAIRY.
A PASTORALE.
BY DARLEY DALE, Author of “Fair Katherine,” etc.