Noble banquets, magnificent balls, and
brilliant suppers followed each other in quick succession. Three
times a week--on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays--the king and
queen dined publicly in ancient state, whilst rare music was
discoursed, and many ceremonies observed, amongst these being
that each servitor of the royal table should eat some bread
dipped in sauce of the dish he bore. On these occasions meats
for the king's table were brought from the kitchen by yeomen of
the guard, or beef-eaters. These men, selected as being amongst
the handsomest, strongest, and tallest in England, were dressed
in liveries of red cloth, faced with black velvet, having the
king's cipher on the back, and on the breast the emblems of the
Houses of York and Lancaster. By them the dishes were handed to
the gentlemen in waiting, who served royalty upon their knees.
"You see," said Charles one day to the Chevalier de Grammont,
"how I am waited on." "I thank your majesty for the
explanation," said the saucy Frenchman; "I thought they were
begging pardon for offering you so bad a dinner." [This mode of
serving the sovereign continued unto the coming of George I.]
The costliness and splendour of some royal entertainments require
the description of an eye-witness to be fully realized. Evelyn,
speaking of a great feast given to the Knights of the Garter in
the banqueting-hall, tells us "the king sat on an elevated
throne, at the upper end of the table alone, the knights at a
table on the right hand, reaching all the length of the roome;
over against them a cupboard of rich gilded plate; at the lower
end the musick; on the balusters above, wind musick, trumpets,
and kettle-drums.
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