ongst their neighbours." The
presence of the higher classes was needed among the country people to
give that assistance which was quaintly recommended by Tusser in his
"Hundreth good Points of Husbandrie":

"At Christmas be mery, and thanke God of all:
And feast thy pore neighbours, the great with the small.
Yea al the yere long have an eie to the poore:
And God shall sende luck to kepe open thy doore."

Henry Lord Berkeley, who had a seat in Warwickshire,
appears to have set a good example in this respect to the
noblemen of the period, for, according to Dugdale, "the greatest
part of this lord's abydinge after his mother's death, happenynge
in the sixth yeare of Queen Elizabeth, was at Callowdon, till his
own death in the eleventh of Kinge James, from whence, once
in two or three yeares, hee used in July to come to Berkeley."
The historic house of Berkeley essentially belongs to Gloucestershire;
but on the death of Edward VI., Henry Lord Berkeley,

[Illustration:

"With a good old fashion, when Christmas was come,
To call in all his old neighbours with bagpipe and drum."]

by descent from the Mowbrays and the Segraves, became possessed of the
ancient Manor and castellated mansion of Caludon, near Coventry, where
he lived in splendour, and kept a grand retinue, being profuse in his
hospitalities at Christmas, as well as in his alms to the poor
throughout the year. "As touchinge the Almes to the poore of 5 & six
country p'ishes & villages hard adjoyninge to Callowdon were relieved,
with each of them a neepe of holsome pottage, with a peece of beoffe
or mutton therin, halfe a cheate loafe, & a kan of beere, besides the
private Almes that dayly went out of his purse never without eight or
ten shillings in single money of ijd iijd & groates, & besides
his Maundy & Thursday before Ester day, wherein many poore men and
women were clothed by the liberality of this lord and his first wife,
whilest they lived; and besides twenty markes, or twenty pound, or
more, which thrice each yeare, against the feaste of Christmas, Ester,
and Whitsontide, was sent by this Lord to two or three of the chiefest
Inhabitants of these villages, and of Gosford Street at Coventry, to
bee distributed amongst the poore accordinge to their discretions.
Such was the humanity of this Lord, that in tymes of Christmas and
other festyvalls, when his neighbor townships were invited and feasted
in his Hall, hee would, in the midst of their dy