" The elders are skillful in
surgery and the distillation of waters, and sundry other artificial
practices pertaining to the ornature and commendation of their bodies;
and when they are at home they go into the kitchen and supply a number of
delicate dishes of their own devising, mostly after Portuguese receipts;
and they prepare bills of fare (a trick lately taken up) to give a brief
rehearsal of all the dishes of every course. I do not know whether this
was called the "higher education of women" at the time.
In every office of the palaces is a Bible, or book of acts of the church,
or chronicle, for the use of whoever comes in, so that the court looks
more like a university than a palace. Would to God the houses of the
nobles were ruled like the queen's! The nobility are followed by great
troops of serving-men in showy liveries; and it is a goodly sight to see
them muster at court, which, being filled with them, "is made like to the
show of a peacock's tail in the full beauty, or of some meadow garnished
with infinite kinds and diversity of pleasant flowers." Such was the
discipline of Elizabeth's court that any man who struck another within it
had his right hand chopped off by the executioner in a most horrible
manner.
The English have always had a passion for gardens and orchards. In the
Roman time grapes abounded and wine was plenty, but the culture
disappeared after the Conquest. From the time of Henry IV.
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