“This done, let the cake and refreshments go round; and hey! for merriment!”
In earlier days, however, we know that the cake played a more important part in the festivities than Hone allows to it. In fact the English here closely followed the French fashion which I have already described, although in England the King’s bean was supplemented by a pea for the Queen. This much we may learn from a poem by Robert Herrick, who lived in the seventeenth century:
Now, now, the mirth comes
With the cake full of plums,
Where bean is the king of the sport here;
Beside we must know,
The pea also
Must revel as queen in the court here.
Begin then to choose
This night as ye use,