Harrison does not make much account of the early meal called “breakfast”; but Froude says that in Elizabeth’s time the common hour of rising, in the country, was four o’clock, summer and winter, and that breakfast was at five, after which the laborers went to work and the gentlemen to business.  The Earl and Countess of Northumberland breakfasted together and alone at seven.  The meal consisted of a quart of ale, a quart of wine, and a chine of beef; a loaf of bread is not mentioned, but we hope (says Froude) it may be presumed.  The gentry dined at eleven and supped at five.  The merchants took dinner at noon, and, in London, supped at six.  The university scholars out of term ate dinner at ten.  The husbandmen dined at high noon, and took supper at seven or eight.  As for the poorer sort, it is needless to talk of their order of repast, for they dined and supped when they could.  The English usually began meals with the grossest food and ended with the most delicate, taking first the mild wines and ending with the hottest; but the prudent Scot did otherwise, making his entrance with the best, so that he might leave the worse to the menials.

I will close this portion of our sketch of English manners with an extract from the travels of Hentzner, who visited England in 1598, and saw the great queen go in state to chapel at Greenwich, and afterwards witnessed the laying of the table for her dinner.  It was on Sunday.  The queen was then in her sixty-fifth year, and “very majestic,” as she walked in the splendid procession of barons, earls, and knights of the garter:  “her face, oblong, fair, but wrinkled; her eyes small, yet black and pleasant; her nose a little hooked; her lips narrow, and her teeth black (a defect the English seem subject to from their great use of sugar).  She had in her ears two pearls with very rich drops; she wore false hair, and that red; upon her head she had a small crown, reported to be made of some of the gold of the celebrated Lunebourg table.  Her bosom was uncovered, as all the English ladies have it till they marry; and she had on a necklace of exceeding fine jewels; her hands were small, her fingers long, and her stature neither small nor low; her air was stately, her manner of speaking mild and obliging.  That day she was dressed in white silk, bordered with pearls of the size of beans, and over it a mantle of black silk, shot with silver threads; her train was very long, and the end of it borne by a marchioness; instead of a chain she had an oblong collar of gold and jewels.”  As she swept on in this magnificence, she spoke graciously first to one, then to another, and always in the language of any foreigner she addressed; whoever spoke to her kneeled, and wherever she turned her face, as she was going along, everybody fell down on his knees.  When she pulled off her glove to give her hand to be kissed, it was seen to be sparkling with rings and jewels.  The ladies of the court, handsome and well shaped, followed, dressed for the most part in