[5] See the Engraving, vol. xviii. p. 337 of The Mirror.

* * * * *

POVERTY OF KINGS, AND THE BRITISH CROWN PAWNED.

As to increasing wealth by war, that has never yet happened to this nation; and, I believe, rarely to any country.  Our former kings most engaged in war were always poor, and sometimes excessively so.  Edward III. pawned his jewels to pay foreign forces; and magnam coronam Angliae, his imperial crown, three several times—­once abroad, and twice to Sir John Wosenham, his banker, in whose custody the crown remained no less than eight years.  The Black Prince, as Walsingham informs us, was constrained to pledge his plate.  Henry V., with all his conquests, pawned his crown, and the table and stools of silver which he had from Spain.  Queen Elizabeth is known to have sold her very jewels.

G.K.

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HEAD-DRESS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY, IN ENGLAND.

In Wickliffe’s Commentaries upon the Ten Commandments, in the midst of a moral exhortation, he manages, by a few bold touches, to give us a picture of the fashionable head-dress of his day:—­

“And let each woman beware, that neither by countenance, nor by array of body nor of head, she stir any to covet her to sin.  Not crooking (curling) her hair, neither laying it up on high, nor the head arrayed about with gold and precious stones; not seeking curious clothing, nor of nice shape, showing herself to be seemly to fools.  For all such arrays of women St. Peter and St. Paul, by the Holy Ghost’s teaching, openly forbid.”

D.P.

* * * * *

SALADS.

Oil for salads is mentioned in the Paston Letters, in 1466, in which year Sir John Paston writes to his mother, that he has sent her “ii. potts off oyl for salady’s, whyche oyl was goode a myght be when he delyv’yd yt, and schuld be goode at the reseyving yff itt was not mishandled nor miscarryd.”  This indicates that vegetables for the table were then cultivated in England, although the common opinion is, that most of our fruit and garden productions were destroyed during the civil wars between the houses of York and Lancaster.  A good salad, however, had become so scarce some years afterwards, that Katharine, the queen of Henry VIII., is said, on a particular occasion, to have sent to the continent to procure one.

D.P.

* * * * *

ADVERTISEMENT OF THE OPENING OF THE LONDON COFFEE HOUSE, UPWARDS OF A CENTURY AGO.

“May, 1731.

“Whereas it is customary for Coffee Houses and other Public Houses to take 8_s._ for a quart of Arrack, and 6_s._ for a quart of Brandy or Rum, made into Punch;