It is unnecessary to state the numerous reasons why the Earl is stated
in the tale to be rather the dupe of villains than the unprincipled
author of their atrocities. In the latter capacity, which a part
at least of his contemporaries imputed to him, he would have made a
character too disgustingly wicked to be useful for the purposes of
fiction.
I have only to add that the union of the poisoner, the quacksalver, the
alchemist, and the astrologer in the same person was familiar to the
pretenders to the mystic sciences.
Note 8. Ch. XXXII.--FURNITURE OF KENILWORTH.
In revising this work, I have had the means of making some accurate
additions to my attempt to describe the princely pleasures of
Kenilworth, by the kindness of my friend William Hamper, Esq., who
had the goodness to communicate to me an inventory of the furniture
of Kenilworth in the days of the magnificent Earl of Leicester. I have
adorned the text with some of the splendid articles mentioned in the
inventory, but antiquaries especially will be desirous to see a more
full specimen than the story leaves room for.
EXTRACTS FROM KENILWORTH INVENTORY, A.D. 1584.
A Salte, ship-fashion, of the mother of perle, garnished with silver
and divers workes, warlike ensignes, and ornaments, with xvj peeces of
ordinance whereof ij on wheles, two anckers on the foreparte, and on the
stearne the image of Dame Fortune standing on a globe with a flag in her
hand. Pois xxxij oz.
A gilte salte like a swann, mother of perle. Pois xxx oz. iij quarters.
A George on horseback, of wood, painted and gilt, with a case for knives
in the tayle of the horse, and a case for oyster knives in the brest of
the Dragon.
A green barge-cloth, embrother'd with white lions and beares.
A perfuming pann, of silver. Pois xix oz.
In the halle. Tabells, long and short, vj. Formes, long and short,
xiiij.
HANGINGS. (These are minutely specified, and consisted of the following
subjects, in tapestry, and gilt, and red leather.)
Flowers, beasts, and pillars arched. Forest worke. Historie. Storie
of Susanna, the Prodigall Childe, Saule, Tobie, Hercules, Lady Fame,
Hawking and Hunting, Jezabell, Judith and Holofernes, David, Abraham,
Sampson, Hippolitus, Alexander the Great, Naaman the Assyrian, Jacob,
etc.
BEDSTEADS, WITH THEIR FURNITURE. (These are magnificent and numerous. I
shall copy VERBATIM the description of what appears to have been one of
the best.)
A bedsted of wallnut-tree, toppe fashion, the pillers redd and
varnished, the ceelor, tester, and single vallance of crimson sattin,
paned with a broad border of bone lace of golde and silver. The tester
richlie embrothered with my Lo. armes in a garland of hoppes, roses, and
pomegranetts, and lyned with buckerom. Fyve curteins of crimson sattin
to the same bedsted, striped downe with a bone lace of gold and silver,
garnished with buttons and loops of crimson silk and golde, containing
xiiij bredths of sattin, and one yarde iij quarters deepe. The ceelor,
vallance, and curteins lyned with crymson taffata sarsenet.