To confine and limit this treatise to its purpose and designment prefixed in the title, we must (though with some petty injury to the reader) pass over her economy at her private home, before Oliver's bold achievement and attainment of the supreme power, (because part of it is already public) when she had brought as (we say) a noble to nine pence, by her pious negligence and ill management of the domestic affairs, and was as giddy to see her bare walls as Oliver was mad with enthusiasms and divinations of regal furniture and all princely pomp and greatness. Those memorials may be reduced to this present use in this short corollary.
That the former extremities of her necessitous and indigent Condition, upon the bettering thereof (by the general Ruin) raised in her such a quick sense of the misery of want, that she became most industriously provident, and resolvedly sparing and cautious for the future, and to prefer the certainty of her own care and diligence to the extempore, fond and easy delusions of Deus providebit, with which she had been fooled before into an almost voluntary and devoted poverty.
This her aspect and consideration of the future, extended itself (with more prudence and sagacity then her husband would descend to) in some humble thoughts of her present rise levelled to her past depression: she took a prophetical prospect of the times, and having seen two, three or four variations in the calmness and tranquillity of her husband's fortunes, did wisely presage to herself that after those hurly-burlies of war and the tempest of rebellion, wherein he had whirled, and with so much impatient precipitancy engaged himself, there would another turn happen, against which she concluded to be more discreetly armed. The first eddy of that boisterous and unruly current of his prosperity, which at last over-ran all banks and boundaries flowed into the receptacle of her committee-ship in the associated counties, particularly Cambridge and Huntingdon, where to recover and piece up her ruins, she with the same spirit of zeal and piety of her husband, consecrated her house to be the temple of rapine, one of the prime goddesses next the cause; whither for sacrifices all manner of cattle clean and unclean, were brought from all the adjacent parts; as other costly utensils of the best moveables to adorn and enrich this sacred place; from whence to hope for any re-delivery was mental sacrilege, and to endeavour it was punished with irreparable ruin; and I am sure (like the guilt of that crime) there are some who now feel it to the third generation, and may without miracle to perpetuity.
For not only was her Corban to be satisfied with the product of such oblations, but lands were to be set apart and sequestered, the revenue of which passed first through her fingers, and were made impropriations of her own.
Having thus recruited her estate, and adjusted her present seizures to her past losses, and exalted above the dignity of Mrs. Sheriff, or Countess of those Shires, no person her equal in greatness; upon the success of her husband after Marston Moor she abandoned the dull country, partly not enduring the ordinary demeanour of her acquaintance towards her, nor sufferable nor endurable by her betters, for her imperious and unsociable Carriage towards all persons of quality; and partly to partake in the supreme fruition of the City's more elaborate & exquisite pleasures, & to housewife early admiration: for the ladies of the cause began to appear at thanksgiving dinners, and to reckon as many dishes to a mess, as their husbands numbered achievements.
At her arrival in town she was little less then saluted by the whole junta, though not in a body, yet severally by them all, and afterwards by the pastors, elders and brethren of the sects, who came not a house warming with the breath of their mouths, in zealous gratulations, but brought all silver implements for her accommodation of household stuff, and offered them according to the late pattern of reformation in Guildhall. Nor did tis humour cease here, the middle sort of the religiously fanatic, sent her in Westphalia hams, neat's tongues, puncheons, and tierces of French wine, runlets, and bottles of sack; all manner of preserves and comfits, to save her the trouble of the town; the most of which gifts, they being multiplied upon her, she retailed by private hands, at as good a rate as the market would afford.
But much more of these was given afterwards when Oliver was returned from the ending the war, and was looked upon as the great motion of the Parliament's proceedings: not to reckon on those immoderate bribes that obtruded themselves upon her, more welcome by far than those saintlike benevolences and civil offices of love, under which their corrupting practices were veiled to no purpose; for she very well understood the very first addresses though never so innocently remote from the main design, and would rate them (as they do post miles, for she kept her constant distant stages in all her public brocage and transactions) duly and exactly.
And indeed her house was in this respect a political or state exchange by which the affairs of the kingdom were governed, and the prizes of all things set, whether offices, preferments, indemnity; as all other manner of collusion and deceits were practised, and money stirring nowhere else: and in the other respect of provisions, it might have passed for the temple of Bel and the Dragon, (to pursue the former sanctity of her rural mansion) where all those offerings of diet were consumed, or as good, altered and assimilated to her nature (the use of the nutritive faculty) by serving her covetousness in their reduction to money.
Now she needed no such austere diligence in the preservation of an estate, for it was more than she and her ministers could do to receive it. It was impossible to keep any decorum or order, in that house where masterless money like a haunting spirit, possessed and disquieted every room. It was a kind of Midas his palace, where there was nothing but gold to eat, only instead of being confined to that indigestible food, she and her servants were most frequently invited out of doors to most sumptuous and magnificent treatments, whence because of that more sacred employment at home, (like Sabbatarians that provide themselves baked and cold meats for the superstitious observation of the day) they and their progging lady brought home such relics, as they might mumble down in the dispatch of their business, and save the trouble or magic of their long graces, which had brought a curse instead of a blessing, upon their master's and mistress's first endeavours, though she herself (so hard it is to forgo and shake off an habitual customary hypocrisy and fallacy) would look as religiously upon a marchpane, preserve or comfit, as despairing lover upon his mistress's lips.
But the war expired, and those thanksgiving and triumphal festivals over and ended, this pious family began to enter upon the years of famine after those of plenty. Her husband was now engaged in deep designs and practices upon the King and Kingdom, and in order to ruin them both, upon the army; Every one of those mischievous and Machiavellian consultations and projects, were ushered continually by a fast, which being appointed for, and observed by the host, were always intimated to the friends and relations of the officers, and kept by them with no less strictness in their private households; which by the frequent shifts, and various turns of policy, which Cromwell's fate, and the uncertainty of the times guided him to, came so often and thick upon the neck of one another, that her domestics had almost forgot dinner time; upstart piety, like the modern frugality, baiting a meal, and as that had limited the diet to noon, this changed it and inverted it to night.
So that, as in other authoritative continued fasts, there is a political and humane reason, viz. the sparing the creature, even to the same end, this good housewife directed her domestic abstinence; and when on such occasions she had cause to suspect a general discontent of her people and household; she would up with this scripture expression, and lay it in their teeth for better fare; The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace, and some such scriptural dehortations from gluttony and the like luxurious intemperance, and other zealous sentences of moderation in diet; as that the pleasure of a full diet consists more in desire then in satiety; that to have the stomach twice repleted in the day, is to empty the brain, and to render the mind unserviceable to the actions of life; no abyss, no whirlpool is so pernicious as gluttony, which the more a man eats, makes him more a-hungry; and the better he dines to sup the worse, with such other morals, taken out of Guzman and Lazarillo de Tormes,[Note 1] and only altered a little, by being made serious in practice.
Yet I cannot pass this necessary lesson of temperance, however it proceeds from this sophistical corrupt teacher thereof, without some reflection on some more ancient and authentic instructions, but because it is a little beside my design, I will conclude them in some fit sentences, as of the satrist Persius.
Poscis opem nervis corpusque fidele senectae,
Esto age sed grandes patinae tucetaque crassa
Annuere his superos vetuere Jovemque morantur.
Englished thus, by De Barten Holyday.
Thou wishest for firm nerves, and for a sure
Sound body, that would healthfully endure
Until old age; why be it, that thy wish
Is granted by the gods; yet thy large dish
And full fat sausage make the gods delay
To bless thee, and do force good Jove to stay.
And that other of Epictetus, worthy to be inscribed in all our parlours and banqueting-Houses. Inter epulandum duos excipere debemus convivas, corpus & animam; tum quod in corpus collatum sit repente effluxurum, quod autem in animam perpetuo servandum (i.e.) "in feasting and banqueting we must except two guests, the body and the mind, because that which is bestowed on the body will suddenly pass away, and that which comes into the mind will be there laid up for ever;" adding that commendation of Plato to a friend a philosopher; Vestrae quidem caenae non solum in praesentia sed etiam postero die sunt jucundae, intimating that "there is no such lasting pleasure as in a sober diet, which, when excesses bring surfeits, renews the feast the next day, and gives a continual relish to the appetite."
But I must beg pardon for this (otherwise seasonable) digression, and reduce the discourse in pursuit of her Ladyship's errantry from one abode to another, in the suburbs of London, more or less like a sojourner, (however she inhabited whole houses) and a great person incognito, than as a woman of that state and degree, to which her husband's condition and command, and great probabilities of succeeding titles, did forespeak her; if anything could be observable by her for state and charge, it was the keeping of a coach, the driver of which served her for caterer, as much occasion as she had for him, for butler, for serving-man, for gentleman usher, when she was to appear in any public place. And this coach was bought at the second-hand, out of a great number, which then lay by the walls, while their honourable owners went on foot, and ambled in the dirt to goldsmiths and haberdashers' halls, if so fairly come by. She might, and she did ('twas thought) save that very inconsiderable charge, but the sense she had how obvious and odious her carriage in a sequestered caroche would be to everybody, made her jealous of such scorn and derision; as for horses she had them out of the army, and their stabling and livery in her husband's allotment out of the mews, at the charge of the state; so that it was most thrifty and unexpensive pleasure and divertissement; (besides the finery and honour of it) that could be imagined; for it saved many a meal at home, when upon pretence of business, her ladyship went abroad, and carrying some dainty provant for her own and her daughter's own repast, she spent whole days in short visits, and long walks in the air; so that she seemed to affect the Scythian fashion, who dwell in carts and wagons, and have no other habitations.
Her public retinue was also very slender, and as slenderly accoutred, no more commonly, then one of her husband's horse-boys running by her, sometimes one, and sometimes another; with or without livery, all was one; on purpose (it may well be supposed, beside the saving the cost) to prevent her being descried and discovered, so much suspicion & hatred had her husband drawn upon himself, even from the vulgar which she feared, might by some such badge of notice, light upon herself in the streets as she passed.
She was the same recluse likewise in her habit, rather harnessing herself in the defence of her clothes, then allowing herself the loose and open bravery thereof, as not having been used to such light armour; and her hood, till her face was seen in her highness's glass, was clapped on like a headpiece, without the art of ensconcing and entrenching it double and single in redoubts and hornworks. In fine, she was cap-à-pie like a baggage lady, and was out of her element, in her vicinity to the court and city.
But her daughters were otherwise vested and robed, and a constant expense allowed in tire-women, perfumers, and the like arts of gallantry, with each their maid and servant to attend them: and by their array and deportment, their quality might have been guessed at; they were all (those that were unmarried) very young: but Mrs. Elizabeth, who about this time was married to one Mr. Claypole's son of Northamptonshire (the old man having had a hand in the same disloyal service with Oliver, in that county) but with a very private wedding, no way suitable to that port and grandeur, which Oliver kept in the Army, where he was looked upon with the same reverence and respect as the General himself; all that was Hymen-like in the celebration of it, was some freaks and pranks without the aid and company of a fiddler (which in those days was thought by their precise parents to be altogether unlawful and favouring of carnality, as the ring and form of marriage, were thought superstitious and antichristian) in Nol's military rude way of spoiling of the custard, and like Jack Pudding, throwing it upon one another, which was ended in the more manly game of buffeting with cushions, and flinging them up and down the room.
Neither appeared there the splendour and ornament of jewels, and pearls, and the like lustre of gems, whose invidious refractions like poisonous effluxes, might envenom the world with spleen and malice, at their plundered and stolen radiancy; for by the manifold surrenders and stormings of houses and castles, Cromwell had amassed good store of rarities, besides medals, and gold and silver vessels (the spoils of our captivity) which it was not as yet safe to produce in such an unsettlement of his conquest, till all propriety should be huddled up in the general ruin, out of whose mixed and confused rubbish, in his new polished government, they might exert their brightness underivable and clear from all former title and claim, as the masse of things shall be melted and calcined together, at the last universal dissolution.
And I have heard it reported for a truth, that most of the] precious movables, and other things of value, at the storming of Basing House by Cromwell, fell into his hands either immediately or directly, the soldiers either by command, or for some small price returning several precious pieces of the spoil, whose worth they understood not, to his agents, who gave an exact account thereof to the Lady Reciever at home, who was about that time seen to be very pleasant and pratchant at the enjoyment of those pretty things (as she expressed herself) being the best for substance and ornament, that belonged to the noble Marquis of Winchester and his family, which this she-usurper now lifted and catalogued for her own.
And if the whole inventory of her rapinous hoard were now producible, what a voracious monster would she appear to be? Not a corner in the kingdom which is not sensible of her ravage, and which had not a share in the Lombard of her uncountable and numberless chattels.
How many rare pieces of antique gold and silver, are again damned to the earth from whence they were brought? and are by her mischievous covetousness irrecoverably lost, which have been the glories and monumental pride of many families? and only the remains and evidences of their noble hospitality, now buried by this wretch in hugger-mugger.
Those advantages, together with the vails of the Army, which she had upon every commission, and other incident occasions, for her husband's interests and authority, together, with his extraordinary pay, and the appurtenances to it, and lands, and hereditaments bestowed on him, besides rewards and gratuities in ready money, amounted to an incredible sum, which almost glutted her eyes to satiety, but so, that they were yet lesser than her belly, which could stow as much more with convenience enough, and conserve and secure it by a very parsimonious use, and narrow strict disbursements; for having now quitted all fears of returning to a private condition by the insolence of her husband's fortunes, which drove at the sovereignty, the abominable design being communicated to her; this great bank was still kept supplied by her, for the support and maintenance of that dignity and supremacy to which Oliver aspired, and to facilitate his way to it; having rightly perceived, that nothing but money had carried on the war, and brought things to that pass, whatever was pretended of zeal, and to the cause, and therefore there was no difference in her manner of housekeeping, only Cromwell being now in town for the most part, conspiring that execrable parricide against the King, she dispensed with her niggardly regulation, and having taken a house near Charing-Cross, kept it in a manner open for all comers, which were none but the sectary party and officers, who resorted thither as to their head-quarters, with all their wild projections, and were entertained with small beer and bread and butter, which to the animation of the approaching villainy, was as bad as aqua fortis and horse flesh: for as was said of Caesar, nemo tam sobrius ad rempublicam evertendam accessit, "no man came more sober to the destruction of the commonwealth;" so I may aptly and more justly say, that no men of more abstemiousness ever effected so vile and flagitious an enterprise upon so just a government.
That being in perpetration, Mrs. Cromwell ran out of purse some score of pounds (for it is to be remembered that she stewarded it all along, Oliver's head being busy with greater and worser matters) very much to her regret and vexation; but that villainy over; and some two or three private treatments given his most sure and addicted accomplices, in exaltation of their monstrous success; the doors of the house were again barred, and all persons hindered, and of difficult admittance, upon what score or business soever; and now she was returned to her former privacy, and ordinary diet as before.
During the rest of the time while Cromwell stayed in England, she kept the same tenor, having received (besides a confirmation of the Marquis of Worcester's Estate, to the value of five thousand pounds a year) upon the account of the defeat given the Levellers by her husband's treachery at a thanksgiving dinner (where to he was invited by the city) a piece of gold plate of very good value, which discharged the former expense.
I must omit many other passages during his absence in Ireland and in Scotland, and after this preliminary, but prolix account, sum up all in her menage of her domestic affairs at Whitehall, for which she had so long prepared and furnish herself with Rules of Government and Economy, fitted for her usurpation and the times.
For her husband brought not so great and haughty, as she base and low spirited thoughts and resolutions to the grandeur of that place, the habitation and residence of the greatest and most famous monarchs of the world, and famed throughout it for truly royal and princely pomp, and immense munificence and entertainment.
She had flesh enough indeed to become any room in that spacious mansion, but so little of a brave spirit, that the least hole of it would have made her a banqueting house; but like a spirit she came only to haunt, not to enjoy any part of it; the penates and genii of the place abominating this profane and sacrilegious intrusion, neither giving him one hour's quiet or rest in it, from his troubled, mistrustful, and ill-boding thoughts, nor her any content and satisfaction, but what she found in repining & vexing herself at the cost and charge, the maintenance of that beggarly court did every day put her to.
It was in the year 1653, that Cromwell first possessed and seated himself there, as in his own right, and in chief, and brought his worshipful family thither, to their several apartments, she having appointed one Mr. Maidstone to be steward of his house, and one Mr. Starkey to be his master cook (who afterwards was betrayed and taken drunk in his cellar, designing the like upon my Lord Mayor's sword-bearer, while my Lord was in conference with the Protector, so that he could not conceal it from the household, who (out of spite to him, as being a spy over their actions and behaviours) first acquainted their Lady, and she Oliver with the fault, aggravated by the scandal and wasteful excess; insomuch, that Starkey was commanded to come before him, where instead of a compliment and excuse, he delivered himself by vomit, in the very face of his master, and was thereupon dismissed the house.
It will not be too distant a Review to observe and remark her introduction to, and seisin of this royal mansion, (which we have only mentioned) before any other procedure in the economy thereof.
The first preparatory as to public notice, was an Order from the new Council of State, after the dissolution of the parliament, commanding all persons to depart out of Whitehall, which was then the den of a hundred several families, and persons of power, and office in the anarchy; which being difficultly and grumblingly executed, she herself employed a surveyor to make her some convenient accommodations, and little labyrinths, and trap stairs, by which she might at all times unseen, pass to and fro, and come unawares upon her servants, and keep them vigilant in their places and honest in the discharge thereof.
Several repairs were likewise made in her own apartments and many small partitions up and down, as well above stairs, as in the cellars and kitchens, so that it looked like the picture of Bartholomew Fair; Her Highnesship, not being yet accustomed to that roomy and august dwelling, and perhaps afraid of the vastness and silentness thereof, which presented to her thoughts the desolation her husband had caused, and the dreadful apparitions of those princes whose incensed ghosts wandered up and down, and did attend some avenging opportunity; and this was the more believable, because the (not to name her husband's misgiving suspicions and frights could never endure and whispering, or to be alone by herself in any of the chambers.
And it is further here fit to be instanced, that upon her first coming, when her harbingers had appointed her lodgings, the same with the Queen's, which yet retained their royal names and distinctions, she would by no means hear of them but changed them into other appellations, that there might remain no manner of disgust and discontent to her ambitious and usurping greatness: and therefore they were adapted now into the like significations, by the name of the Protector's and Protectress's Lodgings, as more proper and fitter terms to their propriety, and undisputed possession.
Much ado she had at first to raise her mind and deportment to this sovereign grandeur; and very difficult it was for her to lay aside those impertinent meannesses of her private fortune; like the bride-cat by Venus's favour metamorphosed into a comely virgin, that could not forbear catching at mice, she could not comport with her present condition, not forget the common converse and affairs of life; but like some kitchen maid preferred by the lust of some rich and noble dotard, was ashamed of her sudden and gaudy bravery, and for a while skulked up and down the house, till the fawning observances and reverences of her slaves had raised her to a confidence, not long after sublimed into an impudence.
And this was helped on by Madam Pride, and my Ladies Hewson, and Ferkstead, Goff, Whalley, &c., who all came to compliment her Highness upon the felicity of Cromwell's assumption to the government, and to congratulate her fortune, and so accompany her to her Palace of Whitehall, where like the Devil cast out, she entered by fasting and prayer, after the usual manner, and like devout Jezebel, took possession of Naboth's Vineyard.
And thus we have waited on her to this basilicon, now swept and cleaned for her friendly entertainment; and the chimneys smoked and heated again, which had suffered so long a damp; and after so long a vacation; especially her highness took care, and gave strict charge to have all the rooms aired, for fear of those ill scents the rump had left behind them and was willing to be at the charge of perfumes to expel the noisomeness thereof, the account of which hath been seen by divers, allowed by her own hand; but foul odour was so equally natural to all the grandees, that Oliver when he died left it in a worse condition then when he found it, as is public in several treatises.
Cromwell was now his own steward and carver, not limited to any expenses of housekeeping, no more than to the charges of the Government; but was absolute both at dinner and at Council board, neither of which were yet well settled; and therefore, besides the nearness of his wife, it was necessary he should appear extraordinary frugal of the peoples' purse, (who wished every bit he eat might choke him, for all his temperance) in his private and public disbursements. Only that he might not appear so much a Military Governor, but have something of the Prince in him, about Noon time, a man might hear a huge clattering of dishes, and noise of servitors, in rank and file marching to his table (though neither sumptuously nor extraordinarily furnished) in some imitation of Paulus Aemilius in his answer to the Grecians, after his triumph and conquest of Perseus, the last Macedonian King; Ejusdem esse animi & aciem & convivium instrueere, illam quidem ut formidolosus hostibus hoc ut amicis gratus appareat; in English thus, "'Tis of the same spirit to order a battle, as to furnish a feast, by the one a man appears terrible to his enemies, and by the other pleasing to his friends."
But at his private table, very rarely or never, were our French quelque-choses, suffered by him or any such modern Gusto's, whether with the Fright he was prejudiced of poison, by such devices, (at an invitation made him and his General the Lord Fairfax, with the other of the supreme Commanders of the Army, by a small officer therein, who was formerly a Cook) at a Lady's in Hammersmith, where with one leg of mutton dressed all sorts of ways he entertained them all, but upon their discovery of the fellow's audaciousness in bidding them, which prompted them to believe it was a design against their lives, and put most of them to the vomit, was like to have been dressed himself by the hangman) or by stronger or more masculine appetite, which partaked with his other robust faculties, is uncertain; sure it is, that when in treatments given his familiars, such things were set upon the table, 'twas more for show and sport than for belly-timber, and about which the good housewife never troubled her head.
She, to return to her government, very providentially kept two or three cows in St. James's Park, and erected a new office of a dairy in Whitehall, with dairy maids to attend that business solely, (as most of the employment for servants was managed by females, for there were no sergeants but such as waited with halberds on the guard,) and fell to the old trade of churning butter, and making buttermilk, nor were Oxford Kate's fine things, half so famous among the cavalier ladies, as my lady protector's butter among the mushroom zealous ladies of the court, most whereof, being apple, or oyster-women, or stocking-heelers, and the like, did much wonder at, and magnify the invention and rarity.
Next to this covey of milk maids she had another of spinsters, and sewers, to the number of six, who sat the most part of the day, after she was ready, in her privy chamber sowing and stitching; they were all of them ministers' daughters, such as were inveterate Nonconformists to the Church, for which cause, and the pretence of piety (the main ingredient to things of the least moment) they were added to the family; nor did the Turkish ministers take more care to furnish the seraglio, and gratify their master with choice virginities, then some of these pious pimps did lay out for indigent godly maidens to pleasure this prostitute charity of hers, that the world might take notice of her exemplary humility and compassion. But indeed all persons of breeding and quality, abhorred the indignity of her service, and so rather than be served with common drudges, she erected this new order, and continued it to the term of her usurpation. Herein following the steps of her husband, who made a new daring militia of zealous persons, since he could not be served with generous spirits.
She was once resolved by the assistance and advice of her mother, to have made a small brewing place, with vessels, and other accommodation for her own, and Oliver's drink, as not liking the city brewing, nor trusting to the artifices of the town; but about the same time a drink was then grown famous in London, being a very small ale of 7s. 6d. a barrel, well boiled, and well tasted and conditioned, called, and known by the name of Morning Dew (From the brewer's name as I have heard) which was thence brought into request at court, and was the diet drink of this temperate couple, and the cool refreshing entertainment of those bouncing ladies that came weltering and wallowing in their coaches instead of drays to visit her.
And for the kitchen and pantry a great reformation was intended, but the multitude of comers and goers upon her first settling there, and number of mouths which came gaping for preferment, being to be stopped with victuals, put her besides her proposed regulation, yet was there not a joint of meat for which the cook was not to give an account, which she overlooked, as it came from them to the steward, whose accounts likewise were punctually cast up by her, and firmed by her hand, as well as afterwards by the Protector's.
Nay, so severe and strict she was in this thrifty way of housekeeping, that she descended to the smallest and meanest matters, the very chaffer, and price of the market, and that the Reader may not think he is imposed on and deceived by a general imputation of her niggardliness; I will give him two notable and apposite instances.
The first, was the very next summer after his coming to the Protectorate in 1654, in June, at the very first season of green peas, where a poor country woman living somewhere about London, having a very early but small quantity in her garden, was advised to gather them and carry them to the Lady Protectoress, her counsellors conceiving she would be very liberal in her reward, they being the first of that year; accordingly the poor woman came to the strand; and having her peas amounting to a peck and a half, in a basket, a cook by the Savoy as she passed, either seeing or guessing at them, demanded the price, and upon her silence offered her an angel for them, but the woman expecting some greater matter, went on in her way to Whitehall, where after much ado, she was directed to her chamber, and one of her maids came out, and understanding it was a present and rarity, carried it in to the Protectress, who out of her princely munificence sent her a crown, which the maid told into her hand; the woman seeing this baseness, and the frustration of her hopes, and remembering withal what the cook had proffered her; threw back the money into the maid's hands, and desired her to fetch back her peas, for that she was offered five shillings more for them before she brought them thither, and could go fetch it presently; and so half slightingly and half ashamedly, this great lady returned her present putting it off with a censure upon the unsatisfactory daintiness of luxurious and prodigal epicurism: the very same peas were afterwards sold by the woman to the said cook, who is yet alive to justify the truth of this relation.
The other is of a later date, upon Oliver's rupture with the Spaniard, the commodities of that country grew very scarce, and the prices of them raised by such as could procure them underhand: among the rest of those goods, the fruits of the growth of that place were very rare and dear, especially oranges and lemons.
One day, as the Protector was private at dinner; he called for an orange to a loin of veal, to which he used no other sauce, and urging the same command, was answered by his wife, that oranges were oranges now, that crab oranges would cost a groat, and for her part, she never intended to give it; and it was presently whispered, that sure her Highness was never the adviser of the Spanish War, and that his Highness should have done well to have consulted his digestion, before his hasty and inordinate appetite of dominion and riches in the West Indies.
I might confirm this by other retrenchments of expense, whensoever she could confine his table to her own privacy; particularly it was a great mode, and taken up by his court party to roast half capons, pretending a more exquisite taste and nutriment in it, then when dressed whole and entire; where I cannot but smile to think how it puzzled her Ladyship's carver, to hold him to the knife, and to apportion half and quarter limbs according to art. Much more do I wonder what those fellows at Rome did, or what they would have done here, who kept carving schools ludi structorii, and had all manner of fowl and fish, and such other grand festival meat carved in wood, which they marked out with wooden knives with very great curiosity, and instructed their scholars, who learned it as a worshipful employment and way to preferment, as the satirist very elegantly:
Sumine cum magno lepus atque aper & Pygargus,
Et Scythicae volucres, & Phenicopterus ingens,
Et Getulus oryx hebeti lautissima ferro
Caeditur, & tota sonat ulmea caena suburra.
Englished thus,
"The sow's large teat, the hare and boar and deer,
Scythian, & Afric's fowl and bearded beast,
The gaudies of the town, in wood appear,
So with dull iron carved sounds elmy feast."
And if it were not made almost incredible by the superfluity and excess of her fortune, which cannot be supposed to have no way advanced her thoughts from her former industry, and frugal care and intendency.
I might insert a story of her enquiry into the profit of the kitchen-stuff, and the exchanging of it for candles, which those that knew her humour had purposely put into her head; till she was told to whom it belonged; and the customs of the Court, to most of which she answered, they should not think to have them take place as in the other woman's days, for she would look better to it: like Vespasian, she had learnt, That Dulcis odor lucre ex re qualibet, "Gain was sweet from whatever thing."
And the reason she used to give for this her frugal inspection and parsimony, was the small allowance and mean pittance she had to defray the houshold expenses, which at her first coming to Court keeping, was barely sixty-four thousand pounds per annum, until Colonel Philip Jones, came to be Comptroller of the Household, when the weekly charge was nineteen hundred and twenty-three pounds odd money, the defalcation of the rest, from the just sum of two thousand pounds, at the rate of a 100,000l. yearly, making up the four thousand pound for the two weeks, above the 50. So exactly was this charge computed, and method punctually observed, that there might be no place for excess, and by means thereof, for deceit or any colluding practises.
Her order of eating and meal times, was not less regulated, and though inverted, yet designed well to the decency as well as conveniency of her service; for first of all, at the ringing of a bell dined the halberdiers, or men of the guard with the inferior officers; then the bell rung again, and the steward's table was set (in the same hall near the Water Stairs) for the better sort of those that waited on their Highnesses; ten of whom were apportioned to a table or mess, one of which was chosen by themselves every week for steward, and he gave the Clerk of the Kitchen the bill of fare, as was agreed upon generally every morning: to these ten men, and what friends should casually come to visit them, the value of 10 shillings in what flesh or fish soever they would have, with a bottle of sack, & two of claret, was appointed; but to prevent aftercomers from expecting any thing in the kitchen, there was a general rule, that if any man thought his business would detain him beyond dinner time, he was to give notice to the Steward of his mess, who would set aside for him as much as his share came to, and leave it in the buttery.
Suppers likewise they had none, eggs or some slops contenting Cromwell and her Ladyship; and to his exemplar all was conformed; in lieu thereof, for the family there was constantly boiled 8 stone of beef early in the morning, to keep her retainers in heart and earnest of a dinner, the broth whereof, and all the scraps and relics of dinner, (to give her her due) were alternately given to the poor of Saint Margaret's Westminster, and Saint Martin's in the Fields, according to the churchwarden's roll of each parish, and that very orderly, without any brabble or noise; so that amidst so many curses and imprecations, which were uttered against him; he had some prayers and blessings from those hungry jackdaws, that frequented and attended this dole, but those lame, decrepit, and starved precepts, never reached half way, and like impotent suspended meteors, hoisted half region high, fell distinctly at last upon himself and family.
His feasts was none of the liberallest, and far from magnificence even those two he gave the French ambassador, and the Parliament in 1656, upon their gratulation of his Syndercombe deliverance, which last amounted not to above 1000l. and she saved 200l. of it in the banquet, for a big bellied woman, a spectator, near Cromwell's table, upon the serving thereof with Sweetmeats; desiring a few dried candies of apricots, Col. Pride sitting at the same, instantly threw into her apron a conserve of wet, with both his hands, and stained it all over; when as if that had been the sign, Oliver catches up his napkin and throws it at Pride, he at him again, while all of that table were engaged in the scuffle: the noise whereof made the members rise before the sweet-meats were set down, and believing dinner was done, goe to this pastime of gambols, and be spectators of his Highness's frolics. Were it worth a description, I could give the reader a just and particular account of that Ahab festival, as it was solemnized in the Banqueting House of Whitehall.
But I must pass it, and those other nuptial entertainments at the marriage of his daughters, and the treats he gave to Duke De Crequi, and Monsieur Mancin the Cardinal's great Counsellor, and familiar's nephew, as things beyond her sphere, and out of her charge and my purpose, and instance the common ordinary diet of this family, whereby the reader will better perceive, and be perhaps advantaged also by the intention and nature of this discourse.
Note 1: Guzman de Alfarache and Lazarillo de Tormes were cunning rogues described in picaresque novels popular in the Seventeenth Century.