Procession.—Morning of the Tournament.
Henry, his son, the fourth earl, married Anne, daughter of John Lord Russell, heir apparent to the Earl of Bedford; and, in 1642, was created Marquess of Worcester. And this brings us down to the period, when the family fortunes—like the fortress they inhabited—were destined to undergo a lamentable change.
As the civil commotions increased, the Marquess fortified his castle of Raglan, and there entertained his Sovereign with unbounded magnificence. Such were his unlimited sacrifices to the royal cause, that the king, fearing lest the garrison stores should become exhausted by his numerous suite, offered to invest him with powers to exact supplies from the neighbouring country. But with great magnanimity Worcester replied—“I humbly thank your Majesty; but my castle would not long stand, if it leant upon the country. I had rather myself be brought to a morsel of bread, than see one morsel wrung from the poor to entertain your Majesty.” But of this more fully when we describe the royal visit and the Siege.
From these brief introductory notices of the lives and services of the primitive lords of Raglan, we proceed to give a few sketches of life, as it generally passed in the retirement of their own domains, in the midst of their friends and retainers at Raglan Castle.
Baronial Life.—Of the expenses of a nobleman’s family and household in the olden time, some idea may be formed by adverting to the facts adduced by writers of the day. In a letter from the Earl of Shrewsbury, who had the custody of Mary of Scotland, to the Marquis of Winchester, and Sir Walter Mildmay, it is said—“May it please you to understand, that whereas I have had a certain ordinary allowance of wine, amongst other noblemen, for expenses in my household, without impost: the charges daily that I do now sustain, and have done all this year past, well known by reason of the Queen of Scots, are so great therein, as I am compelled to be now a suitor unto you, that you will please to have a friendly consideration, unto the necessity of my large expenses. Truly two tuns in a month have not hitherto sufficed ordinarily; besides that which is sacrificed at times for her bathings, and such like use; which seeing I cannot by any means conveniently diminish, my earnest trust and desire is, that you will now consider me with such larger proportion in this case, as shall seem good unto your friendly wisdoms, even as I shall think myself much beholden for the same. And so I commit you unto God. From Tetbury Castle, this 15 of January, 1569. Your assured friend to my power.—G. Shrewsbury.”[211]
“This passage,” Mr. Lodge observes, “will serve to correct a vulgar error, relating to the consumption of wine in those days, which, instead of being less, appears to have been—at least in the houses of the great—even more considerable than that of the present time. The good people who tell us that Queen Elizabeth’s maids of honour breakfasted on roast beef, generally add, that wine was then used in England as a medicine, for it was sold only by apothecaries. The latter assertion, though founded on a fact, seems to have led to a mistake in the former; for the word apothecary [from the Greek αποθήχη, a repositorium] is applicable to any shopkeeper, or warehouseman, and was probably once used in that general sense.”[212] In the retinues and domestic attendance[213] of the nobles of this period, everything proclaimed that the era of feudal authority and magnificence had departed. Accordingly, when the civil wars had commenced, no peer, however wealthy or high in rank, could drag after him a regiment, or even a company, of unwilling vassals to the field. On the contrary, the meanest hind was free to choose between king and parliament. Something, however, of the mere pomp of feudalism was still maintained in the domestic establishments of the nobility and wealthier gentry. “The father of John Evelyn, when he was sheriff of the counties of Surrey and Sussex,[214] had a hundred and sixteen servants, in liveries of green satin doublets, besides several gentlemen and persons of quality, who waited upon him, dressed in the same garb.”
One of the largest, if not the very largest, of English establishments ever maintained by a subject, was that of the Lord Treasurer, the Earl of Dorset,[215] heir of the Lord Buckhurst, and well-known poet of the court. It consisted of two hundred and twenty servants, besides workmen attached to the house, and others that were hired occasionally.
The chief servants of the nobility—so they were called, but they were rather followers or clients—were still the younger sons of respectable, or even noble families, who attached themselves to the fortunes of a powerful patron, and served him either in court or military affairs, for which they were allowed separate retinues in men and horses, with gratuities in money, and promises of promotion.[216] The progress of improvement that had banished minstrels, jugglers, and tumblers, from princely establishments, had naturally introduced the drama in their room; and, accordingly, we sometimes find a company of actors classed among the servants of the chief noblemen, as well as a family physician, or even a whole band. A steward, distinguished by a velvet jacket, and a gold chain about his neck, presided as marshal of the household, and next to him was the clerk of the kitchen. But these cumbrous appendages were daily lessening, as domestic comfort came to be better understood. This improvement, however, had commenced still earlier among those of less rank and pretension. All who had their fortune still to seek in the court, or in the army, and all who repaired to the metropolis in quest of pleasure, found, so early as the time of Elizabeth, that the bustle and the scramble of new and stirring times, made a numerous train of attendants an uncomfortable appendage. The gallant, and the courtier, therefore, like Sir John Falstaff, studied “French thrift,” and contented himself with a single “skirted page,” who walked behind him carrying his cloak and rapier.[217]
In consequence of the extravagant living introduced during this period, the spendthrift gentleman often sank into the serving-man, as we may see from the frequent recurrence of such a transformation in the old plays. When servants were out of place—as we learn from the same authentic pictures of the real life of the times—they sometimes repaired to St. Paul’s Churchyard, the great place of public lounge, and there stood against the pillars, holding before them a written placard, stating their peculiar qualifications, and their desire of employment.[218]