Oranges.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 849, 8 June 1888, Page 5

Oranges.

It is exceedingly difficult to fix, even approximately, the date when oranges began to he regularly brought to England. It is certain that they were seen there as early as 1290, since in that year it is recorded that Eleanor of Castile, the Queen of Edward I, purchased a quantity of pomade orenge from the cargo of a Spanish ship whioh came into Portsmouth. A grove of ‘orengis, alrnondis and the pomegarnarde ’ figured, however, in the pageant with which the citizens of London, in 1432, welcomed Home Henry VI on hiß return from being crowned King of France. Oranges are mentioned in the Paston Letters a generation later ; but it was not until the Sixteenth century that the frnit became familiar to Englishmen, even of the upper classes. In 1502 they were certainly rare, for in that year Elizabeth of York rewarded the sorvant of the Prothonotary of Spain for bringing her a present of oranges. There are entries of money spent for oranges in the housekeeping books of Henry VIII and Mary ; and in 1558 the Stationers’ Company provided fourpennyworth of them for a feast. In the fourth quarter of the Sixteenth century, they seem to have been imported in relatively considerable quantities ; and Stowe, writing in 1598, says that most of them were landed at Billingsgate. At that date, and until probably much later, the sweet variety was unknown in England, the bitter or Seville orange, now chiefly used for making marmalade, being alone imported. ;