"LARGESSE!"

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 11347, 9 August 1902, Page 7

"LARGESSE!"

STORIES OP "THE KING'S BOUNTIES." The bounty dispensed by the Sovereign to his or her faithful subjects on the occasion of a Coronation dates back to what the guide-books call the remotest antiquity. It generally took the form of food. The Norman kings entertained their immediate adherents to great feasts, where oxen were roasted whole, and wine flowed like water. When Normans and Saxons became merged, the feasts still continued. But they had a party character. Thus Edward IV., a few days before his Coronation in 1461, sumptuously entertained most of the nobility and great men who were favourers of the house of Ycjk. But those who would have benefited most from these banquets were never thought of. The most that was done for the multitude, for " the man in the street," was to set the fountains and conduits perpetually running with while and red wine. This was the public " treat '* at the crowning of Itichard 11. in 1377. and of Henry IV. twenty-two years later. Who paid tor the wine is "not always very clear. Sometimes the Sovereign promised to pay ana remembered, and sometimes he promised to pay and forgot. So "it went on through the ages. Even in the case of such an incidental event as the Coronation of Anne Boleyn, " the great conduit in Cheape ranne ccntinuaHie wine, both white and claret, all the afternoon At the Coronation of Mary the conduit in Cornhill and the great conduit in Cheap ran wine." What gifts the Sovereign mads to the people took the form of iargesse or sums of money scattered among a crowd of suppliants who were hardy and not highminded. The Sovereign and the Sovereign's guests ate to their heart's content. As Hall says of the Coronation banquet, " no honorable or worshipfull persone went unfeasted." After that, gold coins were scattered among the crowd. The nearest approach to a royal gift in recent times was the course adopted by the late Queen. She visited the great fair in Hyde Park a few days after she was crowned, and by her orders presents were given to those who were close at hand. The custom cc throwing the theatres open to the public obtained at one or two Coronations; but the State paid, and it could hardly be considered a personal gift such as the banquet which the King will provide for so many ci his subjects.