lifts were furrounded with lofty towers, and fcaffolds of wood, in which the princes and princeffes, ladies, lords, and knights, with the judges, marthals, heraids, and minstrels, were feated in their proper places, in their richest dreffes. The combatants, nobly mounted, and completely armed, were conducted into the lifts by their respective miftreffes, in whofe honour they were to fight, with bands of martial mufic, amidst the acclamations of the numerous fpectators. In these exercifes, reprefentations were exhibited of all the different feasts of actual war, from a fingle combat to a general action, with all the different kinds of arms, as fpears, fwords, battle-axes, and daggers. At the conclusion of every day's tournament, the judges declared the victors, and diftributed the prizes, which were prefented to the happy knights, by the nobleft and moft beautiful ladies in the affembly. The victors were then conducted in triumph to the palace; their armour was taken off by the ladies of the court; they were dreffed in the richeft robes, feated at the table of the fovereign, and treated with every poffible mark of distinction. In a word, they became the greatest favorites of the fair, and the objects of univerfal admiration. The moft magnificent tournament celebratedin this period, was that proclaimed by Henry II. of England, in the plains of Beaucaire, at A. D. 1174. which no fewer than 10,000 knights were prefent, besides ladies and other spectators. Though the Normans were brave and generous, they were allo haughty, paffionate, and licentious. Their fuccefs and profperity in England rendered them regardless of that refpect and decency, with which the fair fex was commonly treated in thofe times, and made them rude in their behaviour to the wives and daughters of the English. This licentiousness was fo great, that the princefs Matilda daughter of Malcolm Canmore, king of Scotland, and afterwards queen of Henry I. being educated in England, was obliged to wear the veil of a nun, to preserve her honour from being violated by the Normans. G 4 The The Anglo-Normans had only two flated meals a-day, dinner and fupper. The time of dinner, even at court, and in the families of the greatest barons, was at nine in the morning, and the time of fupper at five in the afternoon. These hours were thought to be friendly to health and long life, according to the following verfes which were then often repeated. Lever a cinq, diner a neuf, Souper a cinq, coucher a neuf, To rife at five, to dine at nine, The fumptuous entertainments, which the kings of England and of other countries, gave to their nobles and prelates, at the festivals of Chriftmas, Eafter, and Whitfuntide, contributed very much to diffufe a taste for profufe and expenfive living. It was natural for a proud and wealthy baron to imitate, in his own castle, the entertainments he had feen in the palace of his prince. A celebrated writer, during this period, tells us, that he was prefent at an entertainment, which lafted from three o'clock in the afternoon to midnight, at which delicacies were ferved up, which had been brought from Conftantinople, Babylon, Alexandria, Palestine, Syria, and Phoenicia. Thefe delicacies, we may prefume, were very expenfive; for Thomas à Becket gave five pounds, equivalent to feventy-five pounds at prefent, for one dilh of eels. Great men had fome kinds of provifions at their tables, which are not now to be found in Britain. When Henry II. entertained his own court, the great officers of his army, with all the kings and great men of Ireland, in Dublin, at the feftival of Christmas, the A. D. 1171. Irifh princes and chieftains were quite * John of Salisbury. aflonifbed aftonished at the variety of provifions which they beheld and were not eafily prevailed upon to eat the flesh of cranes, a kind of food to which they had not been accustomed. In the remaining monuments of thofe ages, we meet with the names of feveral difhes, as dellegrout, maupigyrnun, and karumpie, the compofition of which is now unknown. CHAP. IX. INCIDENTS, AND CURIOUS PARTICULARS. 1 A. D. 1066-1216. ! IN N 1068, the English were required to put out their fires and candles, at eight in the evening, on the ringing of the curfew bell. They were also obliged to deliver up their arms. In 1991, a ftorm at South Weft blew down: 600 houses, and many churches in London. Beams from the roof of Marybone church were whirled away by the wind with fuch force, that they funk down twenty feet in the street. They could not be dug out, but were fawed off even with the ground. In the fame year Ingulphus, abbot of Croyland, laments the deftruction of his monaftery by fire, and particularly the lofs of a precious aftronomical inftrument, which he calls a Nadir. "It was a beautiful table," fays he, "wherein Saturn was of copper, Jupiter of gold, Mars of iron, and the Sun of filver. The eyes were charmed, and the mind inftructed by beholding the colure-circles, the: Zodiac, and all its figns, formed with wonderful art, of metals and precious ftones." Was not this an imperfect orrery? In 1092, a dreadful conflagration destroyed the greatest part of London. In 1100, an inundation of the fea happened, which overflowed the lands of Godwin, earl of Kent, to this day called Godwin Sands. Of thefe fhoals, the late Mr. Smeaton, civil engineer, gives the following ac G 5 count. BOOK IV. CHAP. 1. MILITARY HISTORY FROM THE DEATH OF KING JOHN, IN 1216, ΤΟ THE ACCESSION OF HENRY IV. IN 1399. ENGLAND was in a deplorable fituation when the crown devolved upon Henry III. who was only nine years old. The earl of Pembroke being chofen his guardian, the French were driven out of the kingdom, and their king renounced all claims to English territory. Henry, having married the daughter of the carl of Provence, was perfuaded to violate the Great Charter. An affociation of the barons was immediately formed against him, and a civil war broke out, when he was abandoned by all but his Gafcons and foreign mercenaries. The famous Stephen Montfort, earl of Leicester, who had married his fifter, being appointed general of the affociation, the king and his two fons were defeated and taken prifoners, at the battle of Lewes. Prince Edward, however, obtained his liberty, and affembling a confiderable number of his father's fubjects, put the rebels to flight, and killed Montfort. Henry died in 1272, in the 65th year of his age, and the 56th of his inglorious reign. But to the ftruggles at that time, the people, in great measure, owe the liberties of the prefent day. Edward I. began his reign by confirming the Great charter, and making ftrict enquiry into the affairs of the ftate. He annexed the principality of Wales to his crown, and was the first who gave the title of prince of Wales to his eldeft fon. He then invaded Scot land, land, when John Baliol, the king, renewed his oath of fidelity, and put him in poffeffion of the whole kingdom. But, while Edward was endeavouring to recover fome dominions which he had loft in France, the brave William Wallace rose up in defence of his country, and, having difpoffeffed the Englifh of all the fortified places, was declared regent. Upon thisEdward returned from France, advanced into Scot, land at the head of a powerful army, and defeated Wallace, who, feveral years afterwards, was betrayed into the hands of the English, and fent to London, where that great hero fuffered the death of a traitor. Edward died in 1307, in the 68th year of his age, and the 35th of his reign, having ordered his heart to be fent to the Holy Land. A. D. 1314. His fon Edward II. who married Ifabella, daughter to the French king, mounted the throne with great advantages, which he foon forfeited by his own imprudence. The battle of Bannockburn between him and Robert Bruce, eftablished the latter on the throne of Scotland. He raif, ed to the fummit of power, the two Spencers, father and fon, whom the parliament banished. The queen, an ambitious and worthlefs woman, who perfuaded her husband to recal the Spencers, at last became enamoured with Mortimer, earl of March. A breach between her and the Spencers foon followed, and, going over to France with her lover, the found means to form fuch a party in England, that, on her return with fome French troops, the put the eldest Spencer to an ignominious death, made her hufband prifoner, and forced him to abdicate his crown in favour of his fon Edward III. then fifteen years of age. Nothing was now wanting to complete her guilt but the death of Edward II. who was barbaroufly murA. D. 1327. dered in Berkley-caftle by ruffians, fupposed to be employed by her and her paramour. During the minority of Edward III. little domeftic tranquillity was to be expected. When he affumed the reins of government, Mortimer was hanged at 6 Tyburn, |