remarkable from the following scene, as described by one of the old chroniclers. "The king," says Holinshed, "upon that day served his son at the table as sewer, bringing up the boar's head, with trumpets before it, according to the usual manner. Whereupon the young man, conceiving a pride in his breast, beheld the standers-by with a more stately countenance than he had wont. The Archbishop of York, who sat by him, marking his behaviour, turned unto him, and said, 'Be glad, my good son, there is not another prince in the world hath such a sewer at his table.' To this the new king answered, as it were disdainfully, 'Why dost thou marvel at that? My father, in doing it, thinketh it not more than becometh him; he being of princely blood only on the mother's side, serveth me that am a king born, having both a king to my father, and a queen to my mother.' Thus the young man, of an evil and perverse nature, was puffed up with pride by his father's unseemly doing." During the reigns of Richard the First and King John we find no particular notices of Westminster Hall, but, as both these monarchs were crowned and kept their courts at Westminster, they must often have banqueted beneath its roof. On the occasion of his marriage, in January, 1236, with Eleanor, daughter of Raymond, Earl of Provence, and her subsequent coronation, we find Henry the Third giving a magnificent banquet in Westminster Hall. "At the nuptial feast," says Matthew Paris, "were assembled such a multitude of the nobility of both sexes, such numbers of the religious, and such a variety of stage-players, that the city of London could scarcely contain them. In the procession, the Earl of Chester bore before the king the sword of Edward the Confessor. The High Marshal of England (the Earl of Pembroke) carried a rod before the king, both in the church and in the hall, making way for the king, and arranging the guests at the royal table. The barons of the Cinque Ports bare a canopy over the king, supported on five spears. The Earl of Leicester held water for the king to wash before dinner, and the Earl of Warenne officiated as the royal cup-bearer, in lieu of the Earl of Arundel, who was a youth not yet knighted. Master Michael Belet had the office of butler; the Earl of Hereford was marshal of the king's household; William de Beauchamp was almoner. The justiciary of the forests removed the dishes from the king's table; the citizens of London poured the wine abundantly into precious cups; the citizens of Winchester had oversight of the kitchen and napery. The chancellor, the chamberlain, the marshal, and the constable, took their seats with reference to their offices; and all the barons in the order of their creation. The solemnity was resplendent with the clergy and knights, properly placed; but how shall I describe |