Bodleian Library, MS Clarendon 112
A brief description of the entertainments. The MS appears on paper, and has a recent
binding. This is the original MS of The History of the Rebellion by Edward Hyde, Earl
of Clarendon, in Clarendon's own hand,
used for the 1888 edition. However, the 1702-4 edition was printed not from this MS,
but
from the seven volumes now classed as MSS Clarendon 114-20.
[p. 78] THIS whole Progress was made from the first setting out, to the end
of it, with the greatest Magnificence imaginable; and the highest excess of Feasting
was
then introduced, or, at least, Feasting was then carried to a height it never had
attain'd before, from whence it hardly declin'd afterwards, to the great damage and
mischief of the Nation in their Estates, and Manners. All Persons of Quality and
Condition, who liv'd within distance of the Northern Road,
receiv'd the great Persons of the Nobility with that Hospitality which became them;
in
which all cost was employ'd to make their Entertainments splendid, and their Houses
capable of those Entertainments. The King
himself met with many Entertainments of that nature, at the charge of particular
Men, who desir'd the Honour of his Presence, which had been
rarely practised till then by the Persons of the best Condition, though it hath since
grown into a very inconvenient custom. But when he pass'd through
Nottingham
-shire, both King and Court were receiv'd, and entertain'd by the Earl of New-Castle
, and at his own proper Expence, in such a wonderful manner, and in such an excess
of Feasting, as had scarce ever before been known [p. 79] in
England
; and would be still thought very prodigious, if the same Noble
Person had not, within a year or two afterwards, made the King
and
Queen
a more stupendious Entertainment; which (God be thanked)
though possibly it might too much whet the appetite of others to Excess, no Man ever
after in those days imitated.
Bibliography
Summary Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Bodleian
Library, 3.568 (ref. 16198)
Hyde (1712), [Extra masque bib.] 6 vols., 1, pp.
78-9, art. 167
Hyde (1888), pp.
101-5
H&S 10.703-4 (from Clarendon,
1712)
ESTC, Reel 2487, no. 1