The king was served by the lords and
pensioners who brought up the dishes. About the middle of the
dinner the knights drank the king's health, then the king theirs,
when the trumpets and musick plaid and sounded, the guns going
off at the Tower. At the banquet came in the queene and stood by
the king's left hand hand, but did not sit. Then was the
banquetting stuff flung about the roome profusely. In truth the
crowd was so great that I now staied no longer than this sport
began for fear of disorder. The cheere was extraordinary, each
knight having forty dishes to his messe, piled up five or six
high."
Concerning the habit mentioned by Evelyn, of mobs rushing into
banquet-halls, in order to possess themselves of all on which
they could lay hands, many instances are mentioned. The Duke of
Tuscany, amongst other authorities, narrates the inconvenience it
caused at a supper he gave the king. When his majesty drove to
the duke's residence he was preceded by trumpeters and torch-
bearers, attended by the horse-guards and a retinue of courtiers,
and accompanied by a vast crowd. On alighting from the coach the
Duke of Tuscany, together with the noblemen and gentlemen of his
household, received and conducted him through passages lighted by
torches to the banquet-hall. From the ceiling of this saloon was
suspended a chandelier of rock crystal, blazing with tapers;
beneath it stood a circular table, at the upper end of which was
placed a chair of state for the king.
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