In the succeeding reign feasting was carried to a riotous extent, and it has been computed that the household expenditure of James I. was twice as much as that of Queen Elizabeth, amounting to £100,000 a year. A pig was an animal of which James had an abhorrence, and in his “Counterblast to Tobacco” he says, that were he to invite the devil to dinner he would place three dishes before him—first, a pig; secondly, a poll of ling and mustard; and thirdly, a pipe of tobacco to assist digestion. The state of cookery under Charles II. is indicated by the names of Chiffinch and Chaubert, to whose skill Sir Walter Scott has borne testimony in his “Peveril of the Peak.” But it is questionable whether epicures of the present day would appreciate the Duke of York’s taste, who, when instructed by the Spanish ambassador to prepare a sauce, recommended one consisting of parsley, dried toast pounded in a mortar, with vinegar, salt, and pepper. Charles II., however, if not a decided epicure, was fond of gastronomy, and in a ballad of the “New Sir John Barleycorn,” the knighting of the loin of beef has been ascribed to him:—
“Our Second Charles of fame facéte,
On loin of beef did dine;
He held his sword, pleased, o’er the meat,
Arise, thou fam’d Sir Loin.”
But Fuller, in his “Ecclesiastical History,” relates of Henry VIII. at the Abbey of Reading, how “a sirloin of beef was set before him, so knighted, saith tradition, by this King Henry;” and, according to another account, James I., on his return from a hunting excursion, so much enjoyed his dinner, consisting of a loin of roast beef, that he laid his sword across it and dubbed it Sir Loin. And at Chingford, in Essex, is a house called “Friday Hill House,” in one of the rooms of which is an oak table with a brass plate thus inscribed: “All lovers of roast beef will like to know that on this table a loin was knighted by King James I. on his return from hunting in Epping Forest.”
When Cosmo III., the Grand Duke of Tuscany, was in England, Charles II., on the evening before his departure, supped with him at the house of his Highness, when a singular adventure occurred, which the Grand Duke thus relates:—
“The entertainment was most superb, both as to the quantity and quality of the dishes. The supper was served up in eighty magnificent dishes, many of which were decorated with other smaller ones, filled with various delicious meats. To the service of fruit succeeded a most excellent course of confectionery, both those of Portugal and other countries famous for the choiceness of their sweetmeats. But scarcely was it set upon the table when the whole was carried off and plundered by the people who came to see the spectacle of the entertainment; nor was the presence of the King sufficient to restrain them from the pillage of these very delicate viands, much less his Majesty’s soldiers, armed with carbines, who guarded the entrance of the saloon, to prevent all ingress into the inside, lest the confinement and too great heat should prove annoying; so that his Majesty, to avoid the crowd, was obliged to rise from the table and retire to his Highness’s apartment.”
An amusing little anecdote is told by Lady Marlborough of William III., who thus writes: “I give an instance of his worse than vulgar behaviour at his own table when the Princess dined with him. It was the beginning of his reign, and some weeks before the birth of the Duke of Gloucester. There happened to be just before her a plate of green peas, the first that had been seen that year. The King, without offering the Princess the least share of them, drew the plate before him, and devoured them all. The Princess Anne confessed when she came home, that she had so much mind for the peas that she was afraid to look at them, and yet could hardly keep her eyes off them.”
Prince George of Denmark, consort of Queen Anne, was renowned for his appetite, and for the bent of it towards pastry, which reminds us of the readiness with which Charles XII. was wont to swallow raspberry tarts, and Frederick II. Savoy cakes.
Under Queen Anne, who had Lister, one of the editors of the Apicius, for her pet physician, and who “achieved the highest honour of gastronomy by giving her name to a pudding,” cookery did not suffer from any lack of encouragement; but soon after the accession of the House of Brunswick a fashion was introduced which somewhat threatened to retard the progress of cookery. “The last branch of our fashion,” says Horace Walpole, “into which the close observation of nature has been introduced, is our desserts.” Jellies, biscuits, sugar-plums, and creams have long since given way to harlequins, gondoliers, Turks, Chinese, and shepherdesses of Saxon China. But these, unconnected, and only seeming to wander among groves of curled paper and silk flowers, were soon discovered to be too insipid and unmeaning. By degrees, meadows of cattle, of the same brittle materials, spread themselves over the table; cottages rose in sugar, and temples in barley-sugar; pigmy Neptunes in cars of cockle-shells triumphed over oceans of looking-glass, or seas of silver-tissue.... The Intendant of Gascony, on the birth of the Duke of Burgundy, amidst many other magnificent festivities, treated the noblesse of the province with a dinner and a dessert, the latter of which concluded with a representation, by wax figures moved by clock-work, of the whole labour of the Dauphiness, and the happy birth of an heir to the monarchy.”[34]
George I. was fond of good living, and was indiscreet, it is said, in what he ate. His too free indulgence in sturgeon and other strong food, and his custom of partaking of hearty suppers at late hours of the night, counteracted the exertions made by nature in his behalf. On the 3rd of June 1727 the King left Greenwich for Holland, and on reaching Delden, and taking supper with the Count de Twittel, he indulged too freely in melons, an act of imprudence to which was ascribed the disorder that caused his death.
A characteristic anecdote is told of George II., to the effect that the House of Commons having gratified him on some point in which the interests of Hanover were concerned, he sent for his German cook, and said to him: “Get me a very good supper, get me all the varieties;” and he added, “I don’t mind expense.”[35] The mention of his German cook reminds us of the poor opinion he had of our own cooks, insisting that “no English cooks knew how to roast.”