Warner on the Tudor Court, Part II
Another passage on the Tudor Court from Warner's Antiquitates Culinariae reads:
"I shall produce one more
extract from the accounts we have of Henry's maskes. In this yeere (the 8th of
his reign) the king kept his Christmasse at his manor of Greenwich, and on the
twelfe night, according to the old custome, he and the queene came into the
hall: and when they were set, and the queene of Scots also, there entered into
the hall a garden artificiall, called the garden of Esperance. This garden was
tower’d at every corner and railed with railes gilt, all the bankes were set with flowres artificiall of silke and
gold, the leaves cut of greene sattin, so that they seemed verie flowers.
In the midst of this garden was a pillar of antique worke, all gold set with
pearles and stones; and on the top of the pillar, which was six square, was a
lover, or an arch embowed, crowned with gold; within which stood a bush of
roses red and white, all of silke and gold, and a bush of pomegranats of like
stuffe. In this garden walked six knights and six ladies richly appareled; and
then they descended and dansed manie goodlie danses, and so ascended the garden
againe and were conveied out of the hall; and the king was served of a great banket." [p xl-xli]
footnote
II Holl Chron p 804 Holling Chron 839 b 30; Vide
Holling p 849 a 40
The reason why I find this passage of interest is because of the phrase "set with flowres artificiall of silke and gold, the leaves cut of greene satinn"because there it is, the use of artificial flowers and greenery at a Twelfth Night feast.
Warner may now be read online
through Google books http://tinyurl.com/ohxkrl9
For those who love books, Prospect Books published a lovely limited and
numbered edition facsimile edition of the book in 1981. It includes the
disputed plate of the “Peacock Feast.”
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