Higglers, Flip-Grotes, Butshafts and more.

It's Tudor Trivia Tuesday!!!

1) In the year 1603, Henry IV [of France] caused “higglers” to be punished who confiscated turkeys from the country villages without paying for them, under the pretense that they were for the use of the queen.

2) By a statute of 13 Hen. VIII. parliament established a fine of 6s. 8d. for playing “shoffe-grote” (shuffleboard) or “flip-grote” (tiddly-winks???) at the Inn of Court called the Inner Temple.

3) England was paved piecemeal over the centuries and later than France and parts of Italy and elsewhere in Europe.  The first European city to be paved was probably Cordoba, in the 9^th century, under the Moslem ruler Abdorrahman II.  Several of the principal streets, in upscale areas of London, such as Holborn, were paved for the first time by royal command in the year 1417. Others were paved under Henry VIII, some in the suburbs in 1544, others in 1571 and 1605, and the great market of Smithfield, where cattle are sold, was first paved in 1614.

4)  In the Parisian code of laws, called the “Costume de Paris,” in 1513, it is expressly ordered, that every house should have a privy. More severe punishments for failure to obey were added in 1533. In 1538 the under officers of police were required to inspect houses and to report the names of those who had not complied with the regulation.

Scads of colorful information and entertainment.

5) A “butshaft” was a kind of arrow, used for shooting at targets (i.e. butts).  They are made without barbs in order to be more easily extracted and without breaking.

6) According to The Relation of England, probably published from the journals of the secretary of the Venetian ambassador Francesco Capello, during his visit in 1502, “there is no country in the world where there are so many thieves and robbers as in England; insomuch, that few venture to go alone in the country, excepting in the middle of the day, and fewer still in the towns at night, and least of all in London.”

7) By a statute of 11 Henry VII., it was felony to steal swans, and if any one took the eggs from their nests he was liable to be imprisoned a year and a day, and to be fined at the king's pleasure.

8) Every parish, guild and company kept a hearse-cloth for the use of its members. In the parish of St. Margaret's, Westminster, the churchwardens received 8d. for use of the cloth during the reign of queen Mary.  In the guilds and companies the cloth was generally quite rich and donated by a member for whose soul (and health, if they were alive) the family of the deceased and the guild were required to pray before each use.

9) According to Lewis Frederick, Prince of Wirtemburg, who traveled to England in 1610, “Many witches are found there, who frequently do much mischief by means of hail and tempests.”

10) The ship in which Drake sailed round the world (the Golden Hind), was permanently docked at Deptford, once it became unfit for service, in 1598.  According to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, traveling in England in 1613, “the lower part only (corpus) was left, the upper part being all gone, for almost everybody who went there, and especially sailors, were in the habit of carrying off some portion of it.”

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• 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.”
• 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,…”
• Why Shakespeare Appears on Title Pages from 1598.  November 20, 2018.  ‘These he finds unconvincing.  The author’s name having appeared in a number of title pages after 1598, he continues, “it would seem foolish for publishers not to attach the Shakespeare brand to his previously unattributed plays—unless they had other reasons not to do so.”’ 
• The Battle Over Shakespeare's Early and Late Plays. September 24, 2018. “The answers to the post-Oxford dilemma, of course, are three.”
• Shakespeare on Gravity. August 26, 2018. “So carelessly does Shakespeare throw out such an extraordinary divination. His achievement in thus, as it were, rivalling Newton may seem in a certain sense even more extraordinary than Goethe's botanical and osteological discoveries;…”
• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.