WHEN QUEEN ANNE LIVED

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 May 1937, Page 16

WHEN QUEEN ANNE LIVED

ITRMS OF ROYAL UPKEEP. Sidelights on the reign of Queen Anne —principally remembered by successive light-hearted generations for the fact that she is dead—are shed by a strange unpublished record which reposes with other documents of historic interest in the possession of the General Post Office, writes a. correspondent in the London “Observer.” This accounts book for 1702—the year of Anne’s succession to a reign of 12 years—and the crystal clear writing of Mr. Secretary of State Godolphin, together with the tabular entries of clerks gives a picture of The accounts tell us a great deal of the expenses of her garrisons, the life at court, and of the habits of her courtiers.

The calf-bound books sets out salaries and appointments to the different' State services, enumerates halfpay and pensions warrants; and;-gives lists of stipends to those who served Charles 11.. James 11.. and “our late Queen" (Mary II.), and who still looked to the newly-crowned Anne for support.

In general as declared in the bold writing of Secretary Godolphin, the book is “An Establishment of the yearly charge of our Dyet, with Incidents for housekeeping, also wages and board, wages to the officers and servants of our House, Chamber and Stables, with the Expence of the Chappels, and provision for horses, also allowances, stipends: and pensions to old an supernumerary servants’ and widows, to commence the first day of July. 1702.” There are minute details of the bread, beer and wine, manchets, loaves, ale. mead and claret allowable at table at Windsor and London, and also the tvhole quantity of firing allowed for our daily service.”

THE GREEN CLOTH. “Incidents allowed by officers of our Green Cloth” are many picturesque, and for a variety of service include: Per annum £ s. <l. For the laundress of our body linnen, for soap, allum starch, '• fuel, hire of a laundry when we. reside at St. .Tames’ or Kensington 184 10 0 For black jacks, huts, trays, bowls and wooden cups — SO (I For making pit coal fires in the Presence and Guard chambers and in other rooms Sfi 10 (I To our housekeeper at Kensington for a servant to keep ye gates .36 10 0 To Mary Bishop for wasing the coarse linen .... ... 30 0 0 For livers, gizzards, etc., for our civet 27 7 6 For lamps to be set up at St. .Tamos’, at and before Whitehall and the Cock pit, 500 0 0 This particular list of “incidents” reached the respectable and lawyerlike figure of £6789 6/8. There followed the board wages and the wages of all household officers and servants, from high officers of State to those who served in the buttry. the ewry, the kitchens, and the scalding house, where one Alexander Gretton, clerk, was accredited with the yearly board wages of £73 6/8. William, Duke of Devonshire, Lord Steward, received only £lOO a year as wages, but his board wages worked out rather nicely at £1360.

Obviously Anne kept a good table. It is shown that for 52 people for dinner and 15 people for supper at the Queen’s table that not only was 754 gallons of beer- allowed, but also the following 511 bottles: Ale, 4; claret, 32; white wine, 3; Rhenish, 2; and sherry. lOS. Catering for this party amounted to £26,000 a year, or £3BB per person. Even the precise allowance of hay, straw, oats, and beans for each horse was carefully worked out. The mole taker only took £8 1/8 a year, but the ratkiller —evidently with much more to do—'had a salary of £4B 3/4. Fees for four physicians are enumerated, and also the remuneration of James Chase, “one of the apothecarys of our person for sweets and other things to be by him provided.” The military items read curiously. Here, for example, is the daily pay of “Her Majesty’s Troop of Granadier Guards”: — Six serjeants . . each 4 0 Six corporals .. .. each 3 0 Four drummers .. each 2 6 Four hautboys .. .. each 2 6 145 private men .. each 2 6

There were four companies of Foot at New York to provide for, to say nothing of Danish, Prussian, Hessian, and Hanoverian soldiers fighting for her Majesty in Flanders, who were paid in guilders, and the maintenance of bread wagons for 40,000 men. Garrisons up and down the coasts varied greatly in cost. That at Clifford’s Fort, near Tynemouth, cost only 6/- a day, with one master gunner at 2/and four other gunners at 12d each. The Hull garrison cost £2 0/llid It day; that at Gravesend and Tilbury £2 4/llAd. ' The Tower of London in that year of grace 1702 had the daily charge of £G 8/53d.