Saturday, March 16, 2024

Mothering Sunday.

Time flies, doesn't it? We're a week late to post about Mothering Sunday1. Dyer is just one of a number of authors of Popular Antiquities to draw from more or less the same references. His volume, however, includes information taking the origin of the simnel cake back at least to Henry I.

Simnel Sunday is better known as Mid-Lent or Mothering Sunday, and was so called because large cakes called Simnels were made on this day.

Bailey in his Dictionary... says, Simnel is probably derived from the Latin Simila, fine flour, and means a sort of cake, or bun, made of fine flour, spice, &c. Frequent mention is made of the Simnel in the household allowances of Henry the First.


Cancellarius v solidos in die et i Siminellum dominicum, et ii salum, et i sextarium de vino claro, et i sext. de vino expensabili, et unum grossum cereum, et xl frusta Candell."

—Libr. Nigr. Scaccarii

To the chancellor 5 shillings per day and 1 Sunday simnel, and 2 salt, and 1 pint of clear wine, and 1 pint of table wine, and one large candle, and 40 candle chips2

—Black Book of the Treasury.

The " Siminellum Dominicum," Hearne thinks, was a better kind of bread and that "Siminellum Salum," from [s]al, cibus, victus, was the ordinary bread ; if it be not the Latin Salis (Siminellum Salinum), in which case it denotes that more salt is contained in it than in the other. If the derivation from Simnel be not satisfactory, perhaps the Anglo-Saxon [s]ymbel, a feast or banquet, whence [s]imbel, daeg, a festival day, may suffice.3

As is so often the case, the poetry of Herrick provides a stanza on the tradition that informs us that it was practiced throughout much or most of England for centuries.

Herrick in his Hesperides has the following:

To Dianeme.


I'll to thee a Simnell bring,

'Gainst thou go'st a mothering ;

So that, when she blesseth thee,

Half that blessing thou'lt give me.

Mothering Sunday,—In many parts of England it was formerly customary for servants, apprentices, and others to carry presents to their parents on this day. This practice was called Going a-Mothering, and originated in the offerings made on this day at the mother-church.

Dyer seems a little off the mark here. I am not aware that the day was dedicated to both parents but only to one's mother. Much wider celebrations, however, were practiced on the same day to relieve the fast of Lent with merriment.



1 Dyer, Thiselton. British Popular Customs (1900). 113-17.

2 candle chips] presumably to melt his own additional small candle(s).

3 Hampson, R. T. Med. AEvi Kalendarium (1841). I.177n.


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Sunday, March 10, 2024

Opportunity Hovers Around A Dying Queen: 1602-3.

The Carey boys were dashing young cavaliers in the opening years of the 17th century. John, the elder, who would soon become the 3rd Baron Hunsdon. For the moment he was the Governor of the vital strategic fortress town of Berwick on the Scottish border. His younger brother, Robert, was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth I and had been appointed Warden of the Middle March.

Robert tells us that he decided to visit the Royal Court in London, late in 1602, but he was far too well connected and far too much an opportunist not to have chosen the time in light of news about the queen's declining health. It is more than a little likely that the decision to leave his post in the hands of a lieutenant came after the two brothers consulted on the family interests involved. John would follow upon a signal from Robert that matters called for both of them to be present in London where all interests were resolved in England.

History may thank those interests, then, for one of the more informative records of the last days of the queen.

After that all things were quieted, and the border in safety, towards the end of five years that I had been Warden there, having little to do I resolved upon a journey to court, to see my friends and renew my acquaintance there. I took my journey about the end of the year. When I came to court I found the Queen ill disposed, and she kept her inner lodging; yet she, hearing of my arrival, sent for me. I found her in one of her withdrawing chambers, sitting low upon her cushions. She called me to her, I kissed her hand, and told her it was my chiefest happiness to see her in safety and in health, which I wished might long continue. She took me by the hand, and wrung it hard, and said, " No, Robin, I am not well," and then discoursed with me of her indisposition, and that her heart had been sad and heavy for ten or twelve days, and in her discourse she fetched not so few as forty or fifty great sighs. I was grieved at the first to see her in this plight; for in all my lifetime before I never knew her fetch a sigh, but when the Queen of Scots was beheaded. Then upon my knowledge she shed many tears and sighs, manifesting her innocence that she never gave consent to the death of that Queen.

I used the best words I could to persuade her from this melancholy humour; but I found by her it was too deep rooted in her heart, and hardly to be removed. This was upon a Saturday night, and she gave command that the great closet should be prepared for her to go to chapel the next morning. The next day, all things being in a readiness, we long expected her coming. After eleven o'clock, one of the grooms came out and bade make ready for the private closet, she would not go to the great. There we stayed long for her coming, but at the last she had cushions laid for her in the privy chamber hard by the closet door, and there she heard service. From that day forwards she grew worse and worse. She remained upon her cushions four days and nights at the least. All about her could not persuade her either to take any sustenance or go to bed.

I, hearing that neither the physicians nor none about her could persuade her to take any course for her safety, feared her death would soon after ensue. I could not but think in what a wretched estate I should be left, most of my livelihood depending on her life. And hereupon I bethought myself with what grace and favour I was ever received by the King of Scots, whensoever I was sent to him. I did assure myself it was neither unjust nor unhonest for me to do for myself, if God at that time should call her to his mercy. Hereupon I wrote to the King of Scots (knowing him to be the right heir to the crown of England) and certified him in what state her Majesty was. I desired him not to stir from Edinburgh; if of that sickness she should die, I would be the first man that should bring him news of it.1

Perhaps the Carey brothers were the first to move into position to grab the golden ring. Some would chose to stay out of London, and the Court, and depend upon the main players to protect their interests, for the circumstances could erupt in conflicts of every kind.

For just one potential catastrophe, among many, Arabella Stuart, a Catholic with rights to succession that might challenge the Scottish king, was rumored to have married and to have communicated with the Pope. Neither was true. Regardless, she remained under effective “house arrest” in the care of her grandmother, the Dowager Countess of Shrewsbury.

Being 27 years of age, and kept in isolation from all but a very few persons approved by her grandmother, Arabella could only struggle to get free. The struggle could only be interpreted as rebellion — rebellion that could arrive, at some point, in her being advised, by very interested parties, who hovered waiting at a distance, to claim the throne. A throne to which there were numerous claimants — especially one being Catholic — could well mean a bloody civil war.



1 Powell, G. H. The Memoirs of Robert Carey Earl of Monmouth (1905). 70-1.



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Sunday, March 03, 2024

Rumors of the Queen's Sad Decline: Winter 1602.

At the end of 1602, the people around Queen Elizabeth I were alarmed at various changes she was undergoing. In August she had still been able to ride horseback:

Wednesday night the Queen was not well, but would not be known of it, for the next day she walked abroad in the park, lest any should take notice of it. . . . The day of the remove, Her Majesty rode on horseback all the way, which was ten miles, and also hunted, and whether she was weary or not I leave to your censure.1

An hour of horseback riding, the French ambassador, Count Beaumont, reported back to his boss King Henry IV, in November, exhausted her to the point that she needed days to recover.2

In Beaumont's January 29, 16023 dispatch to his king, we first heard of the persistent pain in the queen's left arm:

By and bye she sat down in a chair, complaining of her left arm, fromwhich she had suffered four or five days…4 

Reference is made to this issue still in December of 1602.

Our queen is troubled with a rheum in her arm, which vexeth her very much....5

At this point, Elizabeth was not sleeping well and was displaying clear signs of deep depression.

One particular letter tends to be excerpted whenever this subject comes up. Lucy Aiken gives it complete in her biography of the queen.

A letter from [Elizabeth's godson,] sir John Harrington[,] to his lady, dated December 27th, 1602, gives the following melancholy picture of the state of his sovereign and benefactress.


Sweet Mall ;

I herewith send thee what I would God none did know, some ill-bodings of the realm and its welfare. Our dear queen, my royal godmother and this state's natural mother, doth now bear some show of human infirmity; too fast, for that evil which we shall get by her death; and too slow, for that good which she shall get by her releasement from pains and misery. Dear Mall, how shall I speak what I have seen or what I have felt? thy good silence in these matters emboldens my pen. For thanks to the sweet god of silence, thy lips do not 'wanton out of discretion's path like the many gossiping dames we could name, who lose their husbands' fast hold in good friends rather than hold fast their own tongues. Now I will trust thee with great assurance ; and whilst thou dost brood over thy young ones in the chamber, thou shalt read the doings of thy grieving mate in the court. I find some less mindful of what they are soon to lose, than of what they may perchance hereafter get: Now, on my own part, I cannot blot from my memory's table the goodness of our sovereign lady to me, even, I will say, before born. Her affection to my mother, who waited in privy chamber, her bettering the state of my father's fortune (which I have, alas, so much worsted), her watchings over my youth, her liking to my free speech and admiration of my little learning and poesy, which I did so much cultivate on her command, have rooted such love, such dutiful remembrance of her princely virtues, that to turn askant from her condition with tearless eyes, would stain and foul the spring and fount of gratitude. It was not many days since I was bidden to her presence; I blessed the happy moment ; and found her in most pitiable state j she bade the archbishop ask me if I had seen Tyrone? I replied with reverence, that I had seen him with the lord deputy; she looked up with much choler and grief in her countenance, and said: O! now it mindeth me that you was one who saw this man elsewhere, and hereat she dropped a tear and smote her bosom; she held in her hand a golden cup, which she often put to 

her lips; but in truth her heart seemeth too full to need more filling. This sight moved me to think of what passed in Ireland; and I trust she did not less think on some who were busier there than myself. She gave me a message to the lord deputy, and bade me come to the chamber at seven o'clock. Hereat some who were about her did marvel, as I do not hold so high place as those she did not choose to do her commands Her majesty inquired of some matters which I had written ; and as she was pleased to note my fanciful brain: I was not unheedful to feed her humour; and read some verses, whereat she smiled once and was pleased to say: 'When thou dost feel creeping time at thy gate, these fooleries will please thee less; I am past my relish for such matters; thou seest my bodily meat doth not suit me well; I have eaten but one ill-tasted cake since yesternight.' She rated most grievously at noon at some one who minded not to bring up certain matters of account: several men have been sent to, and when ready at hand, her highness hath dismissed in anger; but who, dearest Mall, shall say, that 'your highness hath forgotten?'6

What was in the cup history would not seem to know.

Elizabeth's first secretary, Robert Cecil, was trying to present a more positive picture to prevent the growing rumors from destabilizing the kingdom. Already he had long been involved in a secret correspondence with James VI of Scotland, preparing the way for him to accede to the throne. The last thing he needed was to give the impression that he was eagerly awaiting the queen's demise.



1 Chamberlin, Frederick. The Private Character of Queen Elizabeth (1921). 73. Earl of Northumberland to Lord Cobham. August 6, 1602.

2Ibid. 74. November 26, 1602.

3All dates are New Style.

4 Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. “Queen Elizabeth I’s Heart and the French Ambassador.” Virtual Grub Street. April 3, 2019. Citing “A French Portrait of the Queen”, The Gentleman's Magazine. July—December, 1859. 557. https://gilbertwesleypurdy.blogspot.com/2019/04/1602-queen-elizabeths-heart-and-french.html

5Chamberlin, 74.

6 Aiken, Lucy. Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth (1819). 488-90.


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Sunday, February 25, 2024

An Inventory of the Wardrobe of Henry VIII.

Joseph Strutt published his Horda Angel-Cynnam: A Compleat View of the Manners, Customs, Arms, Habits, &c. of the Inhabitants of England in 1776. In Volume 3 he quotes at length from Harleian Library manuscripts of the inventory of the wardrobe of Henry VIII. Together with these he provides his reader a few related colorful facts from which I also sample.


Early in the reign of Henry the Eighth, the fashion of wearing trawses was much affećted : these were breeches (sàys Randle Holme) which fat fo tight upon the thighs, that they discovered the whole make and shape. But this fashion was by no means now newly invented; for its first appearance was, I believe, in the middle of the reign of Edward the Fourth. [see plate 1 below]

Some of the apparel of king Henry the Eighth himself, we meet with in the inventory of his secret wardrobe, at Westminster.


Amongst the Gowns,

Item a gowne, with a square cape of crimson vellat, and crimson satten, all over embraudered with pirles of damaske golde and silver; having a riche border, and gaurde of crimson vellat, embraudered with damaske golde and perles, faced with crimsen satten, also alover embraudered with the same damaske golde, and perles; with a like border cut the length of the said faceing; – being upon the sleeves of the same gowne, 26 diamonds set in buttons of gold;—the same gowne is lined throughout with crimsen sattin. Another was of purple sattin, and had on the sleeves 10 butttons, and 28 pair of agletts of gold.



Among the kirtles,


The foreparte of a kirtle of crimson satten, all over embraudered with damaske peele[?], and perle; with a pair of sleeves of the same work, haveing perles set in golde.



Among the Robes.

A mantle for the parliament, of crimson vellat, partely furred with powdred ermyns. Two mantles for the order of St. George, one of blue the other of purple vellat, lined with white sarcenet;– a crymson vellat hoode, lyned with white sarcenet.



Cotes and Doublettes.

A cote of shamewe,1 of purple clothe, with goldsmithes work, furred with sables gaurded with purple vellat, and enbraudered with gold. - One doubelett of crymson vellat, embraudered with gold; the same doublet set oute with camerike.



Various other things.

Shirt bandes of golde, with ruffles to the same: a cloake of tawny satten, of 2 yardes, enbraudered with Venice gold, and lyned with tawny sarcenet – Sumptous sleeves (Note, this part of the dress was separate from the gownes and kirtles, being buttoned on to them). Stomachers; some of purple, silver tissue, others enbrawdered with gold, and pirles. Frontlettes of crimson satten, embraudered with perles 3-plumes of feathers for helmets, of white ostrich feathers, richly garnished with passemayne,2 and fringes of Venice gold, and gold spangles intermix'd, with small copper ones, and either of the plumes having a toppet of herons fethers.–Large plumes of feathers for horses, of all colours, chiefly herons feathers, garnish’d with spangles and toppets. Toppets. — [Of these sorts of plumes, both on the helmets and horses, see plate 2 below].



At Hampton Court, I find mention of a payer of sweete gloves, lined with white vellat, each glove trimmed with 8 buttons, and 8 small aigletts of gold enamelled; also knitte gloves of silk, and handekerchers edged with gold and silver, others with needle-work. Thefe handkerchiefs, wrought with gold and silver, were not uncommon in the after times.



Strutt then moves on to Hall's Chronicle description of the “habits” of Henry and Catherine at their coronation:


Henry the Eighth's habit, when he rode from the Tower of London, the day preceding his coronation, as also that of his queen, &c. are thus set down by Hall: “His grace wared in his upperst apparrell, a robe of crimsyn velvet, furred with armyns ; his jacket or cote of raised gold; the placard embrowdered with diamonds, rubies, emeraudes, greate pearles, and other riche stones; a greate bauderike aboute his necke, of large balasses;3 the trapper of his horse damaske gold, with a depe pursell of armyns; his knights and esquires for his body, in crimosyn velvet; and all the gentlemen, with other of his chappell, and all his officers, and houshold servauntes, wer appareled in skarlet. 

The quene (Katheryne) sittyng in her litter, borne by two white palfries, the litter covered, and richely appareled, and the palfries trapped in white cloth of gold: her persone appareled in white satyn embrodered, her haire hangyng downe to her backe, of a very great length, bewtefull and goodly to behold, and on her hedde a coronall, set with many riche orient stones.”



1 shamewe] Shemewe. Loose lawn gown or short-gown.

2 passemayne] passemaine. Handmade trimmings.

3 balas] a type of ruby.



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Plate 1

Plate 2






Sunday, February 18, 2024

The Booksellers and the First London Shopping Mall.

It is fair to say that London was emerging from the middle ages a little later than the rest of the great cities of the West. In the 16th century, more accurate maps began to appear. More accurate navigational instruments followed. Both of these advancements were accelerated by rapid strides in printing.

Books were being published on every subject not just exploration. While the ocean was becoming less a barrier for defense, and more a means of trade, expanding knowledge and wealth, daily life everywhere that bordered the sea was rapidly being changed.

More common people were learning to read. Publishers were springing up everywhere looking for popular texts to offer the new public. By the late 1580s, the humble pamphlet began to take over the market. The freelance pamphleteer and playwright arrived to meet the demand for entertaining fare.

Among the vast range of topics the new authors offered publishing itself received considerable attention. While authors railed at the poor pay and conditions of their craft they also mentioned that the “weight” of a competitor's works was as little as “Boyes paper-dragons that they let fly with a packthrid in the fields”. They mention that play bills and title pages of popular literature were pasted up on London Stone, the columns of Saint Paul's, the walls of the universities, any convenient place that passersby would gathering around to read advertisements.

None of the playbills or kites survives but the accounts of the pamphleteers do. None of the title-page advertisements, none of the help wanted ads of soldiers between wars, of craftsmen and able bodied workmen, none of it survives. We know of them — and a great deal more — from the colorful descriptions of the playwrights and pamphleteers.

In Thomas Middleton's Father Hubburd's Tales (1604) we learn not only that Mother Hubbard was already a byword at the beginning of the 17th century but that books in the book stalls were wrapped rather than bound into covers.

To the true general patron of all Muses, Musicians, Poets and Picture - drawers, Sir Christopher Clutchfist,

*

I hear that they rail against you in booksellers' shops very dreadfully, that you have used them most unknightly, in offering to take their books, and would never return so much as would pay for the covers, beside the gilding too, which stands them in somewhat, you know, and a yard and a quarter of broad sixpenny ribband; the price of that you are not ignorant of yourself, because you wear broad shoe-string; and they cannot be persuaded but that you pull the strings off from their books, and so maintain your shoes all the year long; and think, verily, if the book be in folio, that you take off the parchment, and give it to your tailor, but save all the gilding together, which may amount in time to gild you a pair of spurs withal.1

Again, what wonderful color. Books were sold with pages loose and binding was done by order or by the customer after sale. The booksellers often found that the binding string on their quarto editions had been removed to serve as someone's shoelaces. The larger folios needing sturdier stuff were wrapped in parchment paper which penny-pinching noble customers removed to save a few pence on their tailors' bills.

What the nobleman does not do is provide patronage to authors. With modern mass printing patronage was fast going out of style.

Some 20 years later, the book-seller is so much the master of those who depend upon his shop that the situation of the author and the various other tradesmen is desperate. Not only has patronage perished but the book-seller is the new Clutchfist.

The retailer of bookes, commonly called Booke-seller is a Trade, which being well governed, and lymited within certaine bounds, might become somewhat serviceable to the rest. But as it is now (for the most part abused) the Booke-seller hath not onely made the Printer, the Binder, and the Clasp-maker a slave to him: but hath brought Authors, yea the whole Commonwealth, and all the liberal sciences, into bondage. For he makes all professors of Art, labour for his profit, at his owne price, and utters it to the Commonwealth in such fashion, and at those rates, which please himselfe.2

The author's complaint, however, is rich for us for the author gives us a picture of the common book at the time. The printer delivers the book unbound in loose sheets. The binder depends upon the bookseller for referral unless the buyer has his own man. Better books feature clasps. Clasp-makers must compete for the bookseller's business and he is a merciless negotiator. After binding and clasping, the book is ready for the customer to pick up.

By the mid-1590s, the booksellers (a.k.a. Stationers) have gathered their stalls together outside of the St. Paul's Cathedral which has become to first shopping mall in London as well as a place of worship. The aisles of the cathedral — familiarly known as “Paul's Walk” or “the Mediterranean” — are also lined with stalls offering every kind of thing. The columns are papered layers deep with title-page book advertisements, hand-lettered help-wanted ads, as mentioned.

Thomas Dekker instructs the young man of fashion not to spend too long in the Mediterranean. He will appear to have nothing else to do.

by no meanes you be seene above foure turnes; but in the fift make your selfe away, either in some of the Sempsters' shops, the new Tobacco-office, or amongst the Booke-sellers, where, if you cannot reade, exercise your smoake,...3

After having displayed himself, perhaps it is time to go get himself a pair of shoe-laces.



1  Father Hubburds Tales. The Works of Thomas Middleton, V.551.

2  Albright, Evelyn May. Dramatic Publication in England, 319. Citing Wither, George. Schollers Purgatorie (1625).

3 The Guls Hornbooke. The Non-Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, II.231.


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Friday, February 09, 2024

The Tenants Meet the New Owner (London, c. 1600).

The movable type printing press became viable circa 1450. It is for this reason that Northern Europe and England soon experienced a belated renaissance — mostly literary. The capability to publish a lot of books soon enough implied the need for a lot of readers and all of the rapid progress of the modern West was off to the races.

A lot of readers to buy all of those books and bankroll all of that progress meant expanded education and expanded economies. Expanded economies meant more people with more personal wealth. As a result of all of this we know a lot more about the life people lived in Tudor times.

Most of the record by which we know the people is stored in the pamphlets and plays that those same people bought. They liked to see themselves portrayed. Especially they loved to laugh at themselves.

One such work was Thomas Middleton's Father Hubbard's Tales. The following tale is fiction by virtue of the fact that it was actually occurring in a great many lives. It is a portrait of the times around 1600 rather than of any specific individuals. The owner of a tenant farm has died and his son having grown used to life at Court has called the tenants together in London to inform them to expect certain changes.

Well, our landlord being dead, we had his heir, gentle enough and fair-conditioned, rather promising at first his father's virtues than the world's villanies; but he was so accustomed to wild and unfruitful company about the court and London (whither he was sent by his sober father to practise civility and manners), that in the country he would scarce keep till his father's body was laid in the cold earth; but as soon as the hasty funeral was solemnised, from us he posted, discharging all is old father's servants (whose beards were even frost-bitten with age), and was attended only by a monkey and a marmoset; the one being an ill-faced fellow, as variable as New-fangle for fashions; the other an imitator of any thing, however villanous, but utterly destitute of all goodness.

The narrator is a man of common-sense with a colorful way of expressing it.

His head was dressed up in white feathers like a shuttlecock, which agreed so well with his brain, being nothing but cork, that two of the biggest of the guard might very easily have tossed him with battledores, and made good sport with him in his majesty's great hall.... His breeches, a wonder to see, were full as deep as the middle of winter, or the roadway between London and Winchester, and so large and wide withal, that I think within a twelvemonth he might very well put all his lands in them; and then you may imagine they were big enough, when they would outreach a thousand acres: moreover, they differed so far from our fashioned hose in the country, and from his father's old gascoynes, that his back-part seemed to us like a monster; the roll of the breeches standing so low, that we conjectured his house of office, sir-reverence, stood in his hams. All this while his French monkey bore his cloak of three pounds a-yard, lined clean through with purple velvet, which did so dazzle our coarse eyes, that we thought we should have been purblind ever after, what with the prodigal aspect of that and his glorious rapier and hangers" all bost" with pillars of gold,...

The bulk of the young heir's billowing breeches is so great that the bottom droops until one suspects that his butt with its amenities must hover just above his knees. Below these the young heir wore hip-boots that sported spurs — both for fashion, neither for riding.

...casting mine eyes lower, I beheld a curious pair of boots of king Philip's leather, in such artificial wrinkles, sets, and plaits, as if they had been starched lately and came new from the laundress's, such was my ignorance and simple acquaintance with the fashion, and I dare swear my fellows and neighbours here are all as ignorant as myself. But that which struck us most into admiration, upon those fantastical boots stood such huge and wide tops, which so swallowed up his thighs, that had he sworn, as other gallants did, this common oath, Would I might sink as I stand! all his body might very well have sunk down and been damned in his boots. Lastly, he walked the chamber with such a pestilent gingle, that his spurs over-squeaked the lawyer, and made him reach his voice three notes above his fee; but after we had spied the rowels of his spurs, how we blest ourselves! they did so much and so far exceed the compass of our fashion, that they looked more like the forerunners of wheelbarrows.

As for his lodging, he must live in the finest neighborhood — the Strand — away from the odors of the city.

...his lodging must be about the Strand in any case, being remote from the handicraft scent of the city; his eating must be in some famous tavern, as the Horn, the Mitre, or the Mermaid; and then after dinner he must venture beyond sea, that is, in a choice pair of noblemen's oars, to the Bankside where he must sit out the breaking-up of a comedy, or the first cut of a tragedy; or rather, if his humour so serve him, to call in at the Blackfriars, where he should see a nest of boys able to ravish a man.

As for the tenants, they took porridge for their evening meal at an ordinary that charged the lowest rate like the young heir's father did in his youth.

...being almost upon dinner-time, we hied us and took our repast at thrifty mother Walker's, where we found a whole nest of pinching bachelors, crowded together upon forms and benches, in that most worshipful three-half penny ordinary, where presently they were boarded with hot monsieur Mutton-and-porridge (a French man by his blowing); and next to them we were served in order, every one taking their degree: and I tell you true, lady, I have known the time when our young landlord's father hath been a three-halfpenny eater there, — nay more, was the first that acquainted us with that sparing and thrifty ordinary



Source: The Works of Thomas Middleton (1840). Alexander Dyce, ed., II.566-8, 577.


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