Subtleties&Stuffe Elizabeth I and Sugar-work 12-13-14

Elizabeth I and Sugar-work

Beginnings can be difficult, so to start I'll offer up this account of Queen Elizabeth I and sugar-works created in her honor in 1591.

"At another entertainment given to the "' Queenes Majestie in progress at Elvetham in Hampshire, by the Right Honourable the Earl of Hertford, 1591, on the third day .… [And] …. During a brilliant display in the fire works on the water, there was a banquet served up, all in glass and silver, into the low gallerie in the garden, from a hill side, fourteen score off, by two hundred of my Lord of Hertford's gentlemen, every one carrying so many dishes, that the whole number amounted to a thousand : and there were to light them in their way a hundred torchbearers. To satisfy the curious, we will here enumerate some of the particulars of what this banquet consisted :

Her Majesty's arms, in sugar work. The several arms of all our nobility, ditto.

Many men and women, in sugar work, and some ' inforst' by hand.

Castles, forts, ordnance, drummers, trumpeters, and soldiers of all sorts, in sugar work.

Lions, unicorns, bears, horses, camels, bulls, rams, dogs, tigers, elephants, antelops, dromedaries, apes, and all other beasts, in sugar work.

Eagles, falcons, cranes, bustards, hermshaws, bittens, pheasants, partridges, quails, larks, sparrows, pigeons, cocks, owls, and all that fly, in sugar work.

Snakes, adders, vipers, frogs, toads, and all kinds of worms, in sugar work.

Mermaids, dolphins, whales, congars, sturgeons, pikes, carps, breams, and all sorts of fishes, in sugar work.

All these were standing dishes of sugar work. The selfe same devises were also there, all in flat work. 

As well as the following items, and many such like, in flat sugar work and cinnamon.

March-panes, grapes, oysters, muscles, cockles, perriwinkles, crabs, lobsters.

Apples, peares, and plums of all sorts.

Preserves, suckats, jellies, leaches, marmelals, pasts, comfits, of all sorts."

As recorded in Recollections of royalty from the death of William Rufus, in 1100, to that of the Cardinal York, the last lineal descendant of the Stuarts, in 1807.

by Charles Chadwicke Jones. London, Saunders and Otley, 1828. pp 169-172. 

Also mentioned in Annals of the Seymours  by Richard Harold St. Maur. London: 1902 on Google Books. page 473.

The author John Lily (1554?-1606) ended his account with the slightly differing words:

 "All these were standing dishes of sugar-work. The selfe same deuises  were also there all in flat- worke. Moreouer these particulars following, ... Apples, peares, and plums, of all sorts. Preserves, suckats, jellies, leaches, ...."

As recorded in The Complete works of John Lyly: by John Lyly. Edited by Richard Warwick Bond - 1902 –. Volume 1 - Page 449. Again on Google Books.

[Michael R. Best in his edition of Markham cites this Lyly edition.]

The original book and yes, there is a printed volume dating from 1591 is:

The honorable entertainement gieuen to the Queenes Maiestie in progresse, at Eluetham in Hampshire, by the right honorable the Earle of Hertford 1591. London: Printed by Iohn Wolfe, and are to bee solde at the little shop right ouer the great South dore of Paules, 1591. The actual book may be viewed through EEBO/Early English Books Online. The account of the sugar-works appears on images 16 and 17.