ur,
for the Christmas festival; while articles of apparel equally costly
are registered as sent by the King to his chamber at Shene, to be
given to Alice Perrers. And at a festival at Windsor the King caused
twelve ladies (including his daughters and Alice Perrers) to be
clothed in handsome hunting suits, with ornamented bows and arrows, to
shoot at the King's deer; and a very attractive band of foresters they
made. We have also seen that eighty costly tunics were provided for
the Christmas sports and disguisings at Guildford.

We now come to a

COMICALLY CRUEL CHRISTMAS INCIDENT,

recorded by Sir John Froissart, and which he says gave "great joye" to
the hilarious "knightes and squyers" who kept the festival with "the
Erle of Foiz":--

"So it was on a Christmas day the Erle of Foiz helde a great feest,
and a plentifull of knightes and squyers, as it is his usage; and it
was a colde day, and the erle dyned in the hall, and with him great
company of lordes; and after dyner he departed out of the hall, and
went up into a galarye of xxiiii stayres of heyght, in which galarye
ther was a great chymney, wherin they made fyre whan therle was ther;
and at that tyme there was but a small fyre, for the erle loved no
great fyre; howbeit, he hadde woode ynoughe there about, and in Bierne
is wode ynoughe. The same daye it was a great frost and very colde:
and when the erle was in the galarye, and saw the fyre so lytell, he
sayde to the knightes and squiers about hym, Sirs, this is but a small
fyre, and the day so colde: than Ernalton of Spayne went downe the
stayres, and beneth in the courte he sawe a great meny of asses, laden
with woode to serve the house: than he went and toke one of the
grettest asses, with all the woode, and layde hym on his backe, and
went up all the stayres into the galary, and dyde cast downe the asse
with all the woode into the chymney, and the asses fete upward;
wherof the erle of Foiz had great joye, and so hadde all they that
were there, and had marveyle of his strength howe he alone came up all
the stayres with the asse and the woode in his necke."

[Illustration]

Passing on to

THE REIGN OF RICHARD THE SECOND,

the son of Edward the Black Prince and Joan of Kent, who came to the
throne (in tutelage) on the death of his grandfather, Edward III.
(1377), we find that costly banquetings, disguisings, pageants, and
plays continued to be the diversions of Christmastide at court. From
the rol