of wine, and half a chine of mutton or boiled beef; while the nursery
repast consisted of a manchet, a quart of beer, and three boiled
mutton breasts; and so on: whence it is deducible that in the Percy
family, perhaps in all other great houses, the members and the ladies
and gentlemen in waiting partook of their earliest meal apart in their
respective chambers, and met only at six to dine or sup.

The beer, which was an invariable part of the _menu_, was perhaps
brewed from hops which, according to Harrison elsewhere quoted, were,
after a long discontinuance, again coming into use about this time.
But it would be a light-bodied drink which was allotted to the
consumption at all events of Masters Thomas and Ingram Percy, and
even of my Lady Margaret. It is clearly not irrelevant to my object
to correct the general impression that the great families continued
throughout the year to support the strain which the system of keeping
open house must have involved. For, as Warner has stated, there were
intervals during which the aristocracy permitted themselves to unbend,
and shook off the trammels imposed on them by their social rank and
responsibility. This was known as "keeping secret house," or, in other
words, my lord became for a season incognito, and retired to one of
his remoter properties for relaxation and repose. Our kings in some
measure did the same; for they held their revels only, as a rule, at
stated times and places. William I. is said to have kept his Easter
at Winchester, his Whitsuntide at Westminster, and his Christmas at
Gloucester. Even these antique grandees had to work on some plan. It
could not be all mirth and jollity.

A recital of some of the articles on sale in a baker's or
confectioner's shop in 1563, occurs in Newbery's "Dives Pragmaticus":
simnels, buns, cakes, biscuits, comfits, caraways, and cracknels: and