Red and White: A Tale of the Wars of the Roses

by Emily Sarah Holt

The whole transaction was so unwonted that the Duke really did not know what to offer.

"Oh, my gracious Lord, we shall find no bones in that matter," returned John Goose, metaphorically. "I will leave that to Mother, seeing the charge shall be hers and my sisters'. Mefeareth, howbeit, that our rude cookery shall little content your good Lordship."

"Bread and water would content me," answered the Duke, "so your cookery is little like to fail."

There were at this time as many delicate gradations of rank in cooking as in costume. Peers were entitled to five dishes at a meal; gentlemen to three, and meaner persons to two, exclusive of pottage. The distinctions of bread have been already mentioned. The daily provision made for the household of the Duke of Clarence is on record, and it reads almost like the details of an army commissariat. For a man who was accustomed to a provision of two oxen, twelve sheep, twelve pigs, and thirty-six barrels of fish—with a great many other things—as the daily consumption of his household, to come down to the style of living of a small tradesman, was a descent indeed. Trade was then held in very low estimation, even a first-class merchant being reckoned below a gentleman's servant. The supply customary for such a house as that of John Goose, was bread and dripping for breakfast, with ale to drink; one dish of meat, with a vegetable and bread, for dinner; the same for supper on grand occasions, perhaps with a pudding or pie in addition; but in all ordinary cases, the supper was brown bread and buttermilk. Only one thing, therefore, could more have astonished old Mrs. Goose than the Duke's expressed indifference on this point; and that would have been to find that he was willing to sleep on a mattress. Down beds for the upper ten—mattresses for the common folks—was the arrangement in the fifteenth century. I said, only one thing; but there was indeed a lower depth even than this, which to see would have reduced Mrs. Goose to the furthest point of amazement. Had the Duke—for any purpose short of disguise—made his appearance with a long cloak, a buff jerkin, a fustian doublet, and neither gloves nor rings, she would almost have thought the world was coming to an end.

It was, therefore, as may be conjectured, with some trepidation, that Mrs. Goose ventured to superintend her grand-daughters, Joan and Cicely, in the preparation of the room destined for so superior an occupant. The estimation in which a Brahmin of the highest caste is held by a Pariah is alone to be compared with the feelings wherewith Mrs. Goose regarded her lodger elect. She was deeply concerned to remember that the Duke would be accustomed to sleep on cambric sheets, and to eat from gold plate, while she had nothing better to offer him than blankets in the first place, and wooden trenchers in the second. But she was far from realising that, during many years now, the Duke had been accustomed to sleep on whatever he could get to sleep on; and that a good meal served on a wooden trencher was luxury to a man who had begged his bread for months in exile. The cloth of Rennes and the gold plate which were the proper adjuncts of his rank had receded into the far distance, behind the long years of want and pain which Providence had decreed for him.

"Eh dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Goose, surveying her preparations when complete, with her head on one side, as if that would assist her sight. "Gramercy, but it shall be a come-down for the like of him!"

"'Tis the best we can do, Mother," said Cicely. "And 'somewhat is better than nought.'"

"Eh, good lack, but 'tis a small somewhat!" returned the old woman. "Why, I trow he shall have washed him in silver basins set with turkey stones,[#] and drank out of cups of gold all bordered with pearls."

[#] Turquoise.

"Mighty discomfortous, in good sooth!" said Cicely. "I would liefer have a good cow's horn any day. It should hold the drink every whit as well, and be a deal smoother to take in your lips."