"I will make a Star-Chamber matter of it."
MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.




CHAPTER I.

The Three Cranes in the Vintry.


Adjoining the Vintry Wharf, and at the corner of a narrow lane
communicating with Thames Street, there stood, in the early part of the
Seventeenth Century, a tavern called the Three Cranes. This old and
renowned place of entertainment had then been in existence more than two
hundred years, though under other designations. In the reign of Richard
II., when it was first established, it was styled the Painted Tavern,
from the circumstance of its outer walls being fancifully coloured and
adorned with Bacchanalian devices. But these decorations went out of
fashion in time, and the tavern, somewhat changing its external
features, though preserving all its internal comforts and accommodation,
assumed the name of the Three Crowns, under which title it continued
until the accession of Elizabeth, when it became (by a slight
modification) the Three Cranes; and so remained in the days of her
successor, and, indeed, long afterwards.