100,000 scudos, Caraways, Tilt-Boats and more!

It's that time, again!
It's Tudor Trivia Tuesday!

1) The second child of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon was a boy.  His name was Henry.  He was born on January 1, 1511 and died on  February 22 of the same year.

2) “Watermen notched the height to which the water reached on mile-posts and mooring-piles in high tides, and to know the time of high-water at London Bridge was the first duty of a Thames waterman.” [W. H. Harper]

3) There were 19 kitchens in Richmond Palace during the reign of Queen Mary.

4) Upon the death of Henry VII, Ferdinand the King of Spain authorized bills of payment on merchants in England to the amount of 100,000 scudos to be paid if Henry VIII would immediately marry Princess Catherine of Aragon.  He also waived any future rights of repayment of the dower of the Princess.  Henry married Catherine before his coronation and they were both crowned together soon after as man and wife, king and queen.

5) According to Dyer, ‘It appears that apples and caraways were formerly always eaten together; and it is said that they are still served up on particular days at Trinity College, Cambridge. This practice is probably alluded to by Justice Shallow, in the much disputed passage in "2 Henry IV."…, when he speaks of eating "a last year's pippin, . . . with a dish of carraways." The phrase, too, seems further explained by the following quotations from Cogan's "Haven of Health" (1599). After stating the virtues of the seed, and some of its uses, he says: " For the same purpose care-way seeds are used to be made in comfits, and to be eaten with apples,…”’

Last year’s pippins likely refers to "apple johns" which were said to be delicious in their second year.

6) On May 20, 1524, the Holy Roman Emperor instructed his envoy to England, Sieur De Courrieres, “to go to England and to tell the King… God has given him [the Emperor] a great victory in Italy over his enemies and the enemies of England. The victory is the more complete as it has been obtained without loss of life on the part of his army, whilst the losses of the enemy are so great that they could not be greater if a battle had been fought. The army of the enemy has suffered so much in different engagements, assaults of towns and castles, from want of provisions during eight months, pestilence and other causes, that it is no longer in a state to take the field. Out of 1,500 men-at-arms only 350 at the outside have returned to France. Almost all the captains, lieutenants, ensigns, and other persons of rank in the hostile army have either perished on the field or been made prisoners. Those who remain either suffer from maladies or are wounded.”

7) In February of 1566, Mary, Queen of Scots, discovered that Thomas Randolph, the English agent accredited to her court, had assisted her rebellious subjects with a gift of 3,000 crowns.  She at once ordered him to quit the kingdom and sent a letter of complaint to Queen Elizabeth.

8) As of February 20, 1566, England owed Antwerp moneylenders 192,500l.  Queen Elizabeth I instructed her agent, Thomas Gresham, to extend the amount for another 6 months.

9) ‘Voyagers by the “tilt-boats” to Gravesend had perhaps much more to endure than any other class of riverine travellers: for “below-bridge” men were often more uncouth than those “above bridge.” The mixed character of the passengers, the risk of bad weather, the horse-play of the boatmen, the occasional loss of the tide, and the miserable accommodation, made the “long ferry” a means of conveyance hardly to be commended. The establishment of the Watermen's Company, in 1556, was an attempt to bring a rough and churlish class of men into subjection to law and order. But, rightly or wrongly, the watermen always had a bad name.’ [Harper]

10) We learn from Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis that the idea was then current of:

A red morn, that ever yet betokened

Wreck to the seamen, tempest to the field,

Sorrow to shepherds, woe unto the birds,

Gust and foul flaws to herdsmen and to herds.

Even in the 16^th century, a “red sky in the morning” meant “sailor take warning,” it would seem.

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• The Secret Correspondence of Robert Cecil and James I. August 25, 2019.  “As he was planning an armed attempt to “secure the person of the Queen,” after having returned from the country, in disgrace, and to force her to dismiss ministers who did not satisfy him, he was waiting for a return letter from King James VI of Scotland.”
• What Color Were Shakespeare’s Potatoes? July 27, 2019. “By the year 1599-1600, when Shakespeare’s play would seem to have been written, the potato was available in London.  It was considered a delectable treat and an aphrodisiac.”
• 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.”
• The Battle Over Shakespeare's Early and Late Plays. September 24, 2018. “The answers to the post-Oxford dilemma, of course, are three.”
• Shakespeare’s King Richard II as Prequel. August 06, 2018. “It is for the same reason, more or less, that we must accept that Richard II was written before Henry V.  'When the players replied to the Essex conspirators “that of King Richard as being so old and so long out of use” would not attract an audience, they were indeed referring to Shakespeare’s Richard II.  And they knew what they were talking about.”
• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.