Fitz-Stephen says, "Thomas à Becket lived in such splendour, that besides
having silver bits to his horses, he had such numerous guests at his
banquets, that he was obliged to have rooms covered with clean hay or
straw, in winter, and green boughs or rushes in summer, every day, lest
his guests, not finding seats at his tables, should soil their gay
clothes by sitting on the floor." He would pay five pounds (equal nearly
to fifty pounds of our money) for a single dish of eels. Once riding
through London with Henry, the King seeing a wretched, shivering beggar,
"It would be a good deed (said he) to give that poor wretch a coat."
"True, (said Becket.) and you, sir, may let him have yours." "He shall
have _yours_" said Henry, and after a heavy scuffle, in which they had
nearly dismounted each other, Becket proved the weakest, and his coat was
allotted to the astonished mendicant.

"When William the Conqueror was crowned at Westminster, the people (says
Andrews) within the Abbey shouted, on the crown being placed on his head,
the Normans without, thought the noise a signal of revolt, and began to
set fire to houses, and massacre the populace, nor were they satisfied
that all was well until considerable mischief had been done."

"Dr. Henry, (says Sulivan) who has made a very full collection of the
facts mentioned by ancient authors, concerning the provincial government
of Britain, supposes its annual revenue amounted to no less than two
millions sterling; a sum nearly as great as that which was derived from
Egypt, in the time of the father of Cleopatra. But this calculation is
built upon the authority of Lipsius. Nor are there perhaps any accounts
transmitted by historians, from which the point can be accurately
determined. The Britons excelled in agriculture. They exported great
quantities of corn, for supplying the armies in other parts of the empire.