ese
things speak of the growing wealth and luxury of the age. Only a little
before this date, in 1568, Lord Buckhurst, who had been ordered to
entertain the Cardinal de Chatillon in Queen Elizabeth's palace at Sheen,
complains of the meanness of the furniture of his rooms. He showed the
officers who preceded the cardinal such furniture and stuff as he had,
but it did not please them. They wanted plate, he had none; such glass
vessels as he had they thought too base. They wanted damask for long
tables, and he had only linen for a square table, and they refused his
square table. He gave the cardinal his only unoccupied tester and
bedstead, and assigned to the bishop the bedstead upon which his wife's
waiting-women did lie, and laid them on the ground. He lent the cardinal
his own basin and ewer, candlesticks from his own table,
drinking-glasses, small cushions, and pots for the kitchen. My Lord of
Leicester sent down two pair of fine sheets for the cardinal and one pair
for the bishop.

Harrison laments three things in his day: the enhancing of rents, the
daily oppression of poor tenants by the lords of manors, and the practice
of usury--a trade brought in by the Jews, but now practiced by almost
every Christian, so that he is accounted a fool that doth lend his money
for nothing. He prays the reader to help him, in a lawful manner, to hang
up all those that take cent. per cent. for money. Another grievance, and
most sorrowful of all, is that many gentlemen, men of good port and
countenance, to the injury of the farmers and commonalty, actually turn
Braziers, butchers, tanners, sheep-masters, and woodmen. Harrison also
notes the absorption of lands by the rich; the decay of houses in the
country, which comes of the eating up of the poor by the rich; the
increase of poverty; the difficulty a poor man had to live on an acre of
ground; his forced contentment with bread made of oats and barley, and
the divers places that formerly had good tenants and now were vacant,
hop-yards and gardens.

Harrison says it is not for him to describe the palaces of Queen
Elizabeth; he dare hardly peep in at her gates. Her houses are of brick
and stone, neat and well situated, but in good masonry not to be compared
to those of Henry VIII's building; they are rather curious to the eye,
like paper-works, than substantial for continuance. Her court is more
magnificent than any other in Europe, whether you regard the rich and
infinite furniture