In a play of 1608, the apprentices of old Hobson, a rich citizen, in 1560, frequent the Rose and Crown, in the Poultry, and the Dagger, in Cheapside.
"Enter Hobson, Two Prentices, and a Boy.
"1 Pren. Prithee, fellow Goodman, set forth the ware, and looke to the shop a little. I'll but drink a cup of wine with a customer, at the Rose and Crown in the Poultry, and come again presently.
"2 Pren. I must needs step to the Dagger in Cheape, to send a letter into the country unto my father. Stay, boy, you are the youngest prentice; look you to the shop."
In the reign of Richard II., it was ordained by statute that "the wines of Gascoine, of Osey, and of Spain," as well as Rhenish wines, should not be sold above sixpence the gallon; and the taverners of this period frequently became very rich, and filled the highest civic offices, as sheriffs and mayors. The fraternity of vintners and taverners, anciently the Merchant Wine Tonners of Gascoyne, became the Craft of Vintners, incorporated by Henry VI. as the Vintners' Company.
The curious old ballad of London Lyckpenny, written in the reign of Henry V., by Lydgate, a monk of Bury, confirms the statement of the prices in the reign of Richard II. He comes to Cornhill, when the wine-drawer of the Pope's Head tavern, standing without the street-door, it being the custom of drawers thus to waylay passengers, takes the man by the hand, and says,—"Will you drink a pint of wine?" whereunto the countryman answers, "A penny spend I may," and so drank his wine. "For bread nothing did he pay"—for that was given in. This is Stow's account: the ballad makes the taverner, not the drawer, invite the countryman; and the latter, instead of getting bread for nothing, complains of having to go away hungry:—
"The taverner took me by the sleeve,
'Sir,' saith he, 'will you our wine assay?'
I answered, 'That cannot much me grieve,
A penny can do no more than it may;'