He then gives an interesting account of the virtues of the Queen’s Maids of Honour, the vices of the Courtiers; the studies of the young Ladies, and the medical powers of the old; all of them being able to cook admirably, and the Carte or Bill of Fare of the dinner having been just introduced. Lastly he notes the admirable order and absence of ill-doing in the Queen’s court. Her “Progresses” he approv’d of.
He treats “Of Armour and Munition;” but, says Harrison, “what hath the longe blacke gowne to doo with glistering armour?” Still, he echoes the universal lament of Ascham, the Statutes, etc., etc., over the decay of Long-Bow shooting in England:—
“Certes the Frenchmen and Rutters deriding our new archerie in respect of their corslets, will not let in open skirmish, if anie leisure serue, to turne vp their tailes and crie: ‘Shoote English,’ and all bicause our strong shooting is decaied and laid in bed. But if some of our Englishmen now liued that serued king Edward the third in his warres with France, the breech of such a varlet should haue beene nailed to his bum with one arrow, and an other fethered in his bowels, before he should haue turned about to see who shot the first.”
He then says that all the young fellows above eighteen or twenty wear a dagger; noblemen wear swords or rapiers too, while “desperate cutters” carry two daggers or two rapiers, “wherewith in euerie dronken fraie they are knowen to work much mischief.” And as trampers carry long staves, the honest traveller is obliged to carry pistols, “to ride with a case of dags at his saddlebow, or with some pretie short snapper,” while parsons have only a dagger or hanger, if they carry anything at all. The tapsters and ostlers at inns are in league with the highway robbers,[48] who rob chiefly at Christmas time, to get money to spend at dice and cards, till they “be trussed vp in a Tiburne tippet.”
Passing over the chapter on the “Navy,” Queen Elizabeth’s delight in it, and the fast sailing of our ships, we come on a characteristic and interesting chapter “Of Faires and Markets.” This subject is within Harrison’s home-life, as a buyer; and it’s on the buyer’s side, which includes the poor man’s, that he argues. Magistrates don’t see the proclamation price and goodness of bread kept to; bodgers are allowd to buy up corn and raise the price of it; to carry it home unsold, or to a distant market, if they want more money than the buyer likes to give; nay, they’ve leave to export it for the benefit of enemies and Papists abroad, so as to make more profit. Again, pestiferous purveyors buy up eggs, chickens, bacon, etc.; buttermen travel about and buy up butter at farmers’ houses, and have raisd its price from 18d. to 40d. a gallon. These things are ill for the buyer and the poor man, and should not be allowd:—
“I wish that God would once open their eies that deale thus, to see their owne errours: for as yet some of them little care how manie poore men suffer extremitie, so that they may fill their purses, and carie awaie the gaine.”
Good doctrine, no doubt; but “nous avons changé tout cela.” However in one thing the modern Political Economist can agree with Harrison:—
“I gather that the maintenance of a superfluous number of dealers in most trades, tillage alwaies excepted, is one of the greatest causes why the prices of things become excessiue.”
There’s a comical bit about the names for ale, “huffecap, mad dog, angels’ food,” etc., and the way
“our maltbugs lug at this liquor, euen as pigs should lie in a row, lugging at their dames teats, till they lie still againe, and be not able to wag ... and ... hale at hufcap, till they be red as cockes, & litle wiser than their combs.”