Prices, Statutes, Hippocras and more.

It's Tudor Trivia Tuesday!!!!

1. By the statute 13 Eliz. c. 19., on every Sunday and Holy Day every person of six years and upward was to wear on his head one cap of wool fully wrought in England.  If he neglected to do so, he was to pay a fine of three and fourpence for each offence.  This to support the struggling cap-makers trade.

2. Upon her death, Queen Elizabeth’s standing navy included a total of thirteen men of war.

3. The spiced wine hippocras was so called from the bag termed "Hippocrates' sleeve" through which it was strained.  The wine had originally been developed as a medicine.

4. “During the week of 1587 ending July 10th, the great house hold of Henry, Earl of Derby, consumed the following food: two hundred and forty bushels of wheat, twenty-one hogsheads of beer, two oxen, fourteen veal calves, seventeen sheep, seven lambs, three ling and twenty haberdine. Fresh fish cost 18s, while £8: 4s: 8d was spent for special food including butter and cheese.”  Household of a Tudor Nobleman, 77.

Scads of colorful information and entertainment.

5. An Act was passed 4 Henry VII that “noe Butcher slae any manner of beast within the Walles of London” upon the petition of the citizens that the smell from “Seynt Nycholas Flesshamle [Flesh Shamble]” was unbearable.

6. In early May of 1498, the King Henry VII traveled through Canterbury where a “heretic” (presumably Protestant) priest was about to be burned at the stake.  Engaging the man in debate, the king converted him back to the Catholic faith.  If the man thought to save himself by his conversion, he was mistaken.  God was praised for the king’s having saved the man’s soul after which the sentence was duly executed.

7. At William Darrell’s farm, in Littlecote, in Midsummer 1589, The rat-catcher was paid 2s. 6d for the half-year.

8. In 1577, Queen Elizabeth’s Privy Council levied a tax of 2s. 6d for every new license granted to inns, ale houses, and taverns, etc., throughout England.  All existing licenses were then declared void and in need of renewal at a date shortly thereafter.

9. In London, in 1589, a half a pound of the best tobacco cost 30s.

10. In the inventory provided, in Chancery proceedings, of the goods and chattels of J. Holloway of the Parish of Kingsbury in the County of Southampton, circa 1560, his feather bed “and all things to it” were valued at 40s.

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• A Most Curious Account of the Funeral of Queen Elizabeth I: April 28, 1603.  April 28, 2019.  “Once it was clear that James I would face no serious challenges, Cecil and the others could begin to give attention to the matter of the Queen’s funeral.”
• Lady Southwell on the Final Days of Queen Elizabeth I.  March 24, 2019.  “her majesty told [Lady Scrope] (commanding her to conceal the same ) that she saw, one night, in her bed, her body exceeding lean, and fearful in a light of fire.”
• Shakespeare’s Barnacles.  March 3, 2016.  “Prospero will wake, he fears, before they can murder him, and will cast a spell on them.”
• Hedingham Castle 1485-1562 with Virtual Tour Link.  January 29, 2019. “Mr. Sheffeld told me that afore the old Erle of Oxford tyme, that cam yn with King Henry the vii., the Castelle of Hengham was yn much ruine,…”
• What Hamlet’s Gravedigger Teaches Us.  July 01, 2018. “The William Shakspere of the monument proudly presented a bag of grain to the world, the source, together with usury, real estate, and theater shares, of most of his considerable wealth and of his right to a grave within the chancel.”
• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.