Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/490

476 ings, robberies, thefts, sacrileges, perjuries, treacheries, and treasons, that the nation hath lost all sense of distinction between right and wrong, virtue and vice."

No nation had shown such valour as the English, but none had shown so little mercy abroad, or the wise policy which puts on a show of it. We have seen how much the First and Third Edward gained by their arms, both in Scotland and France, and how they lost it all again by the reckless cruelties which they inflicted on those countries, and their total neglect of every attempt to conciliate their good-will. Froissart, who does all justice to the bravery and virtues of the English, blames them for their insolent and disgusting behaviour to people of other nations.

Bed of the Thirteenth Century. From the Frieze in Edward the Confessor's Chapel.

"When I was at Bordeaux, a little before the Black Prince set out on his expedition into Spain, I observed that the English were so proud and haughty, that they could not behave to the people of other nations with any appearance of civility. Even the gentlemen of Gascony and Aquitaine, who had lost their estates in fighting for them, could not obtain the smallest place of profit from them, being constantly told that they were unfit for and unworthy of preferment. By this treatment they lost the love and incurred the hatred of those gentlemen, which they discovered as soon as opportunity offered. In a word, the King of France gained those gentlemen, and their countries, by his liberality and condescension, and the English lost them by their haughtiness."

The style of living of this period, however, at home amongst the princes and aristocracy, was most magnificent—rudely so, it is true, but lavish and lordly. The enormous establishments of Edward II. and Richard II. we have described, the household of the latter consisting of 10,000 persons. Alexander III. of Scotland, being present at the coronation of Edward I., rode to Westminster, attended by 100 knights, mounted on fine horses, which they let loose, with all their furniture, as soon as they alighted, to be seized by the populace as their property. In this he was imitated by the Earls of Lancaster, Cornwall, Gloucester, Pembroke, and Warenne, who each paid Edward the same expensive, unprofitable compliment.

The style of living amongst the great barons is shown by the household accounts of the Earl of Lancaster in 1313. That year the earl expended £7,309, containing as much silver as £21,927, or equivalent to £109,635 of our money; nay, so excessively cheap were wines and some other things, that it would now-a-days require a far greater sum than that to maintain an equal hospitality. The quantity of wine consumed in the earl's establishment in that year was 471 pipes. Other earls and barons consumed in free living all the revenues of their immense estates. Towards the conclusion of this period this profuse hospitality was on the decline, and, instead of dining in their great hall with their dependents, the nobles began to dine in private parlours with a few familiar friends. But this innovation was extremely unpopular, and subjected those who adopted it to much reproach.

It appears that painted ceilings and walls in the great houses prevailed even before the reign of Henry III. Scripture and romantic subjects prevailed in these decorations. The "Painted Chamber" at Westminster was embellished in this manner. In the romance of "Arthur of Little Britain" these painted walls and ceilings are described as "done with gold, azure, and other fresh colours," which is precisely the style of the old Byzantine school. In the reign of Henry III. they had painted glass windows, not only in churches, but in private houses, and with lattices which opened and shut.



In different old illuminated MSS. we have specimens of the chairs, beds, reading-desks, and other furniture. The chair of Edward the Confessor, or so called, in Westminster Abbey, still used as the coronation chair, is probably the oldest chair in the country. In Strutt and other works may be found various things of this kind copied from the old writers. The wills of our sovereigns and nobles give accounts of other articles bequeathed; and the romances of the time abound in lavish descriptions of the splendour of the palaces and halls of knights and barons. The Countess of Pembroke in 1367 gives her daughter a bed with furniture of her father's arms. Lord Ferrers leaves his son his green bed with his arms thereon, and to his daughter his white bed, and all the furniture, and the arms of