The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-04-27
WEALTH OF TUDOR ENGLAND.
The Lilo Of the Country Gentleman
Treasures OF Plate. 4n

The Lilo of tho Country Gentleman
Treasures OF Plate.
The brilliant court life of the later Tudor
times was n new thing in English history,
Mrs. A. s. Green says in the Speaker. In
earlier days it had not been the fashion for
the great landowners to forsake their es-
tates and live at Tower hill or Shoe lane
with following of a hundred or two Of
gentlemen in livery of white frieze lined
with crimson taffetas, and to spend two or
three times their yearly income in merry
life Of dicing, card-playing and hunting in
Grsy's,inn: fields, 1slington and Highgate,
and in buying dresses fine enough to adorn
court pageants and professions where the
greatest mobiles of the land accepted the
honor of bearing the queens litter. The
country noble or gentleman of the time of
Edward ~. and Henry VII. had other bus
mess and other ambitions. He was not, in.
deed, housekeeping man; he had to be
away at the French wars, or fighting on the
Scotch border, or leading levieS hither and
thither to put down rebellion or to set
one going, or to make a raid on his
neighbours property. But whether he
Cotswold shepherd" or prosperous law
yer, or wealthy judge, he remained a true
provincial in heart and in interests. Booty
was to be had in France, even in Scotland;
there was none in London. On the con-
| d
one thing that mobiles and landowners
never had-ready money in the purse. II Q
country lord had to attend parliament, q
supply of oats and corn was carried for the
horses, ito save the expenses of his purse;"
iswife managed the big household and es-
army of servants rode backward and for
ward continually to fetch provisions from
fields, and ponds, and salting-tubs at home,
90 that he need never go to market or to
the baker to buy for money.
It was in the provinces that the noble
kept his true state. If his journey lay
through any town all the bells were set
ringing ITO give notice of the passage of
such eminency," and the burghers stood to
watch him pass, in his robe of scarlet
twelve yards wide. with pendant sleeves
in set," worth perhaps GOO or e3OO of our
money; while his attendants came after,
anxiously holding up with both hands, out
of the fifth of the medieval streets, tho
wide sleeves that trailed at their sides.
houses were piled up with splendid robes;
cloth of gold, figured satin, damask, and silk,
and velvets, and fine cloths were heaped to.
gether with rich furs of marten and beaver,
Sir John Fastolf had thirty-fve coverings
for his head,hoods Of satin, russell, and
damask, gilt, and the like, to suit his vari-
GUS robes. Chains of gold of the '.old
fashion" and the 'new," collars of gold
covered with 'roses and SUNS" precious
stones, women's girdles of cloth of gold
harnessed with gold, or with silver-gilt
worked by famous foreign makers, made
fully as brave o show in the fifteenth GEN.
tury as in the one that came after.
But the real wealth Of the mobiles lay in
their amazing stores of gold and silver plate.
Fastolf had laid up in his treasure tower
and in the safe rooms of inconsistencies vessels
that weighed over 5000 ounces, besides
the plate in his buffers pantry. We read
of ewers, and goblets, and platters of gold;
great chargers of silver weighing 200 ounces
or more; q faRon of silver of 35l ounces;
others with gold verges and enameled
chains about them; gilt basins, with
antelopes; gilt cups like fountains. with
enameled flowers; salt-cellars like towers;
''basins of $50 ounces, covered with silver Of
Paris touch and over-gilt, bounced and en-
bossed with roses, and with great large en-
amels in the bottom, with certain beasts
embossed standing within hedge Of silver
and gilt upon the said enamels;" great gal
lon pots having the edges gilt and wreathed
with poppy leaves; gilded goblets with col
umbins flowers, and the like. AT tie funer-
al Of lady of Berkeley, early in the six
teenth century, tho plate was brought out
to give ga drinking" to the mayor of Bristol
and his brethren; land thank God, wrote :
the steward, '.ro plate nor spoons were lost,
yet there were twenty dozen spoons" Such
was the wealth upon which the spendthFifts
of Elizabeth's court fed and fesstedn till
ruin overlook them. and which .Jask Of
Newbury" and his fellows p.oepessa aAA
laid field 10 field