uous feasts which she received from them.

"I could, in this town, buy the best pig or goose I could
lay my hands on for fourpence, which now costeth
twelvepence; a good capon for threepence or fourpence; a
chicken for a penny; a hen for twopence?" (p. 35.) "Yet the
price of ordinary labor was then eightpence a day," (p. 31.)

* Lives of the Admirals, vol. i. p. 475.

** Digges's Complete Ambassador.

*** Strype, vol. iii. Append, p. 54.

Harrison, after enumerating the queen's palaces, adds, "But what shall
I need to take upon me to repeat all, and tell what houses the queen's
majesty hath? Sith all is hers; and when it pleaseth her in the summer
season to recreate herself abroad, and view the estate of the country,
and hear the complaints of her poor commons injured by her unjust
officers or their substitutes, every nobleman's house is her palace,
where she continueth during pleasure and tell her an entertainment in
Kenilworth Castle, which was extraordinary for expense and magnificence."
Among other particulars, we are told that three hundred and sixty-five
hogsheads of beer were drunk at it.[*] The earl had fortified this
castle at great expense; and it contained arms for ten thousand men.[**]
The earl of Derby had a family consisting of two hundred and forty
servants.[***] Stowe remarks it as a singular proof of beneficence in
this nobleman, that he was contented with his rent from his tenants, and
exacted not any extraordinary services from them; a proof that the great
power of the sovereign (what was almost unavoidable) had very generally
countenanced the nobility in tyrannizing over the people. Burleigh,
though he was frugal, and had no paternal estate, kept a family
consisting of a hundred servants.[****] He had a standing table for
gentlemen, and two other tables for persons of meaner condition, which
were always served alike, whether he were in town or in the country.
About his person he had people of great distinction; insomuch that
he could reckon up twenty gentlemen retainers who had each a thousand
pounds a year; and as many among his ordinary servants who were
worth from a thousand pounds to three, five, ten, and twenty thousand
pounds.[v] It is to be remarked, that though the revenues of the crown
were at that time very small, the ministers and courtiers sometimes
found means, by employing the boundless prerogative, to acquire greater
fortunes than it is poss