Old men of Radwinter noted three things marvelously altered in England within their remembrance.  The first was the multitude of chimneys lately erected; whereas in their young days there were not, always except those in the religious and manor houses, above two or three chimneys in most upland towns of the realm; each one made his fire against a reredos in the hall, where he dined and dressed his meat.  The second was the amendment in lodging.  In their youth they lay upon hard straw pallets covered only with a sheet, and mayhap a dogswain coverlet over them, and a good round log for pillow.  If in seven years after marriage a man could buy a mattress and a sack of chaff to rest his head on, he thought himself as well lodged as a lord.  Pillows were thought meet only for sick women.  As for servants, they were lucky if they had a sheet over them, for there was nothing under them to keep the straw from pricking their hardened hides.  The third notable thing was the exchange of treene (wooden) platters into pewter, and wooden spoons into silver or tin.  Wooden stuff was plenty, but a good farmer would not have above four pieces of pewter in his house; with all his frugality, he was unable to pay his rent of four pounds without selling a cow or horse.  It was a time of idleness, and if a farmer at an alehouse, in a bravery to show what he had, slapped down his purse with six shillings in it, all the rest together could not match it.  But now, says Harrison, though the rent of four pounds has improved to forty, the farmer has six or seven years’ rent, lying by him, to purchase a new term, garnish his cupboard with pewter, buy three or four feather-beds, coverlets, carpets of tapestry, a silver salt, a nest of bowls for wine, and a dozen spoons.  All these things speak of the growing wealth and luxury of the age.  Only a little before this date, in 1568, Lord Buckhurst, who had been ordered to entertain the Cardinal de Chatillon in Queen Elizabeth’s palace at Sheen, complains of the meanness of the furniture of his rooms.  He showed the officers who preceded the cardinal such furniture and stuff as he had, but it did not please them.  They wanted plate, he had none; such glass vessels as he had they thought too base.  They wanted damask for long tables, and he had only linen for a square table, and they refused his square table.  He gave the cardinal his only unoccupied tester and bedstead, and assigned to the bishop the bedstead upon which his wife’s waiting-women did lie, and laid them on the ground.  He lent the cardinal his own basin and ewer, candlesticks from his own table, drinking-glasses, small cushions, and pots for the kitchen.  My Lord of Leicester sent down two pair of fine sheets for the cardinal and one pair for the bishop.