This was only one of the many superstitions of the Elizabethan times. A bit of the wood of which the gallows was made would cure the ague; wearing a topaz stone would bring an insane man to his right mind; a verse of the Bible written on parchment and worn about the neck would drive away evil spirits; to carry fern-seed in the pocket would enable a man to “go invisible.” Powdered diamonds would heal one disease; wiping the face with a red cloth another; while pills made of the powdered skull of a man that had been hanged were a sure remedy for a third. Not only the ignorant but most of the most learned men of the day believed firmly in astrology, and the home of the queen’s astrologer, Dr. Dee, was often crowded with nobles who were eager to know the fates foretold to them by the heavens. There was so firm a belief in witchcraft that one of the queen’s bishops preached before her on the subject, telling her what sufferings her subjects were enduring from witches. “They pine away even unto the death,” said he, and he begged her Majesty to make a law providing for the punishment of sorcerers. This was done, or rather, an old law was revived. When Elizabeth had a toothache, many of her advisers declared that the pain had been produced by magic, and it was suggested that the treatment of waxen images of the queen at the hands of some who were ill-disposed toward her was the reason for her sufferings. The royal physicians could not agree upon the cause of the trouble or upon a remedy, and the matter was ended by the council of state taking charge of the affair and ordering a prescription from a foreign physician.
At the time of Queen Elizabeth’s progress to Kenilworth, a banquet was arranged for her. One of her courtiers says that it was neither well served nor nicely set down, that it was “disorderly wasted and coarsely consumed,” that it was carried on “more curtly than courteously;” but he adds, “If it might please and be liked and do that it came for, then was all well enough.”
Kenilworth in Elizabeth’s time.—From an old print.
The Elizabethan life was a strange mingling of magnificence and discomfort. There were most palatial mansions with noble towers and gateways and terraces, with lawns and gardens and fountains and parks and wide-spreading acres of hill and dale, of field and forest, but according to modern ideas there was little comfort in all this splendor. The only way to warm these lordly castles was by an occasional fireplace, and the rooms were full of drafts that even the heavy tapestry hung on the walls would not prevent. Cleanliness was almost unknown. Floors were strewn with rushes, and when a room was to be put in order, fresh rushes were brought in, but no one thought it at all necessary to carry away the old ones. A room was almost never swept unless space was needed for dancing; then a circle in the middle was cleared of rushes, dirt, dust, crumbs and bones from the dining table and all sorts of rubbish that had accumulated since the time of the last merrymaking. One letter-writer of the day declared that the rushes on floors not needed for dancing were sometimes left for twenty years without being swept away. Whoever could afford it owned several country houses, and when one became absolutely unendurable, even according to sixteenth century notions, he would move to another to let the first house “sweeten,” as was said.
The list of different kinds of food purchased for the queen’s progress gives an idea of what the rich folk ate, that is, what they ate in the summer. In the winter they had little besides salt meat, various kinds of bread, and the most remarkable pies that one ever heard of. They were made of everything from artichokes to herring. One pastry is described as made of fish and flavored with pepper, ginger, and cloves. The artichoke pies were made of a combination of artichokes, marrow, ginger, raisins and dates. Few vegetables were used. Potatoes had been brought from America, but they were regarded as a luxury. They were roasted in the embers or else boiled and eaten with pepper, oil, and vinegar. There was neither tea nor coffee; beer or wine was drunk at every meal. People ate with knives and fingers, for forks did not appear until near the end of Elizabeth’s life. One that was richly jeweled was presented to her and was kept in a glass case as a curiosity.
The homes of the poor were indeed bare and comfortless. The floors were of clay or beaten earth. A clumsy table, some wooden stools, a wooden trencher to hold the food, a pile of straw to sleep on, salt fish and rye or barley bread—these were all the comforts that a poor man could expect to have in his home. The house itself was built of boughs of trees interwoven with willow twigs and daubed with clay. The fire was made against a rock set into one of the walls, and the smoke found its way out as best it could. Before the reign of Elizabeth was over, chimneys had become more common, and many men whose fathers had lived in huts of mud and had eaten from wooden trenchers were building for themselves houses of oak with the comfort of a chimney and perhaps the elegance of a pewter porringer or two among their wooden dishes. At best the luxuries were not very luxurious, but a writer of the time lamented that men were no longer as brave and strong as they used to be, and thought their weakness was due to these dainty and enfeebling fashions.