in such plenty of costly provisions as ye would
wonder at the same", and further:

"The yeomen and grooms of the wardrobes were busied in
hanging of the chambers with costly hangings, and
furnishing the same with beds of silk, and other
furniture apt for the same in every degree. Then my Lord
Cardinal sent me, being gentleman usher, with two other
of my fellows, to Hampton Court to foresee all things
touching our rooms, to be noblily garnished accordingly.
Our pains were not small or light, but travailing daily
from chamber to chamber. Then the carpenters, the
joiners, the masons, the painters, and all other
artificers necessary to glorify the house and feast were
set to work. There was carriage and re-carriage of
plate, stuff and other rich implements; so that there
was nothing lacking or to be imagined or devised for the
purpose. There were also fourteen score beds provided
and furnished with all manner of furniture to them
belonging, too long particularly here to rehearse. But
to all wise men it sufficeth to imagine, that knoweth
what belongeth to the furniture of such triumphant feast
or banquet."

Cavendish goes on to tell of the sumptuousness and wonder of the
entertainment which the Cardinal gave to his guests before speeding
them on their way to Windsor on the following day. Of the furnishing
of the chambers for the "fourteen score beds" prepared for the guests,
he gives details which suggest an extraordinary display of gold and
silver; but the whole account should be read in the biography of
Wolsey, where it gives us a peculiarly full and detailed description
of the splendour of banqueting in Tudor days. And it must be added,
that though "the Frenchmen, as it seemed, were rapt into paradise",
yet this feast at Hampton Court was but as "silver is compared to
gold" when contrasted with that which the King gave at Greenwich a
little later to speed his parting guests on their homeward journey. In
the full account which Cavendish gives of the feasting at Hampton
Court and in his description of the furnishings of York House,
Westminster, when Wolsey left it on his last unhappy journey, we have
glimpses of the richness and magnificence to which the great men of
the sixteenth century had attained in the heyday of Henry the Eighth.
King Henry was at Hampton Court, engaged in practising archery in the
park when George Cavendish arrived