Page:The Elizabethan stage (Volume 1).pdf/168

116 its indication is confirmed, so far as civic visits are concerned, by entries in corporation accounts, which appear to be limited to expenditure upon the hire or purchase of plenishing, the repair of streets and pavements and painting of gates and public buildings, the provision of a fairly costly gift in the form of a gold cup with money in it, and the payment of fees to the queen's waymaker for inspecting the roads, and to various officers of the chamber, hall, and stable. The visit of 1575 cost the city of Worcester £173, raised partly out of corporation funds, partly by a special levy. The city of Leicester met that of 1612 with a levy of £74 1s. 9d., while that of 1614 cost them £102 12s. 6-1/2d. Anything in the way of a mimetic entertainment would probably fall by civic custom on the guilds. And the establishment of the Revels, which followed the progress, was ready to help at need, with a mask or banqueting house. There are definite statements as to the recoupment of the cost of light, rushes, and fuel at Oxford in 1566, and of beer when Prince Charles passed through Leicester in 1604. Of course, the Crown used its feudal right of purveyance; that is to say, of purchase within the verge at rates fixed by itself; and for this purchase a local jury was empanelled to assist the Clerk of the Market in drawing up a tariff and supervising weights and measures.