Page:Robert the Bruce and the struggle for Scottish independence - 1909.djvu/362

302 populous, resounding industry that may be witnessed at this day in the same place.

The manor house first claimed attention, certain additions being made thereto, in order to accommodate the royal household. Payments appear in the treasurer's accounts for such things as verdigris and olive oil for painting the King's chamber, whitewash for the walls, glass for the windows (a great luxury), a roof for the falcon-house, and a hedge which was planted round it. Gilbert the gardener drew his wages, and eighteen pence for garden seeds. Elias the clerk and his son Henry looked after the granary; Gillis was the huntsman, William the park-keeper, Patrick the jester, and John, the son of Gun, master of the royal yacht. For King Robert dearly loved the sea, and his nephew Moray was often with him, superintending shipbuilding, and putting his name to payments for sails, pitch, iron, grease, and other naval stores.

Large expenditure on beef, mutton, salmon, haddocks, eels, lampreys, and breadstuffs, attest the liberal scale of the King's hospitality. One source of constant expence was a lion, which ate to the value of £6 13s. 4d. in a single year, besides the wages of a keeper, and the cost of a cage and a house for the brute in Perth. For the lion seems to have accompanied the King in some, at least, of his frequent journeys to that town. The King's physician, Magister Malvinus, lived in Perth, at the house of John