ho gape and
starve after it?"(210)

(M87)

During the brief career of the new company Cockaine had enjoyed the honour
of entertaining the king at his own house in Broad Street. The cost of the
entertainment, which took place on the 8th June, 1616--including a bason of
gold and L1,000 presented to James and another gift of L500 to Prince
Charles--amounted to more than L3,000, and this (we are told) was
discharged by the company, whilst his majesty reserved his thanks for
Cockaine alone, and at parting conferred upon him the honour of knighthood
with the civic sword.(211)

(M88)

A few months later (Nov., 1616) the city was the scene of another festive
gathering, the occasion being a supper given at Drapers' Hall to the
recently created Knights of the Bath. That the wives of city burgesses
were looked upon as fair game for the courtier to fly at may be seen in
the works of the dramatists of the day; nor was the merchant's or
tradesman's daughter averse to the attention of the court gallant when
kept within reasonable bounds, but on this occasion the exuberant spirits
of the knights, after the long ordeal they had recently gone through,
appear to have overcome them, for, we are told, they were so rude and
unmannerly and carried themselves so insolently divers ways, but specially
in "putting citizens' wives to the squeak," that the sheriff interfered,
whereupon they left the hall in high dudgeon without waiting for the
supper prepared for them.(212)

(M89)

Previous to his departure on a progress to Scotland in the spring of 1617,
the king addressed a letter to the mayor and Common Council of the City
asking for a loan of L100,000.(213) The necessary occasions of his
affairs, he said, required just then "the present use of good somes of
money," by way of a loan, and he could think of no better way of supplying
himself than by resorting, as his forefathers had done, "to the love" of
his city, and borrowing the money upon the credit of its common bonds. He
reminded them that whenever he had borrowed money the lenders had always
received "royall paiement," and he doubted not that they would now act as
their own registers and records would show that their predecessors had
acted on similar occasions. On the 22nd January this application was read
to the Common Council, when, after mature deliberation, it was unanimously
agreed--"without either word or hand to the contrary"--that one or more
bonds should be made in the nam