A ROYAL THIRST.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVII, Issue 237, 3 September 1927, Page 3

A ROYAL THIRST.

REVEALED BY FAMOUS CELLAR.

Recent improvements and restorations on old Hampton Court Palace, London, revealed many interesting facts in connection with the life and habits of Henry VIII (according to the San Francisco Chronicle). That famous monarch’s “Newe Wyne Seller,” which was cleared of obstructing partitions of brick, was revealed with its stone pillars carrying a beautiful groined roof, exactly as it was in Tndor times.

Details of the regulations for the management of Henry VIII’s cellars show that the drinkables of all sorts consumed by the Royal household were enormous, their cost in modern currency amounting to £50,000 a year. The great master ofthe household alllowed himself 10 gallons of ale for dinner and 10 for supper, as well as Bix quarts of wine at each of these meals but he let the lord chamberlain have only four gallons of ale and a quart and a-half of wine at his meals. In addition to what they could drink at the public table, a duke or dueness had a personal allowance of a gallon of ale in the morning, another in the afternoon, and another with a pitcher of wine, after supper; hut a countess was allowed nothing at all after supper. The total expenditure on drink and food for the whole household came to a sum equivalent in modern currency to about £350,000 a year. The “Dryknge Howse,” adjoining the wine cellar, where those who had allowances of wine or ale resorted, was the resort of Shakespeare and his fellows of the King’s company of actors, where they received their daily allowance of a gallon of ale each as grooms of the chamber and an additional gallon on play nights.