heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

264 THE HERALDRY OF YORK MINSTER.
The wedding feast of her sister, Elizabeth Nevill to George Rockley,
seems to have lasted for a week, and to have been very sumptuous. The
menu of the first
day is as follows " First course : :
First, brawn with
" mustard served alone with malmsey
; item, frumetty to pottage, a roe
" roasted for standart, peacocks 2 of a dish, swans 2 of a dish, a great
" pike on a dish, conies roasted 4 of a dish, venison roasted, capon of
" grease 3 of a dish, mallards 4 of a dish, teals 7 of a dish, pyes baken with
"rabbits in them, baken oringe, a flampett, stoke fritters, dulcetts 10 of
" a dish, a tart. Second course : Martens to potage, for a standart 2
" cranes of a dish, young lamb whole roasted, great fresh sammon gollis,
" heron sewes 3 of a dish, bytters 3 of a dish, pheasants 4 of a dish, a
" great sturgeon goil, partridges 8 of a dish, stints 8 of a dish, plovers 8 of
" a dish, curlews 8 of a dish, a whole roe baken, venison baken, red and
" fallow, a a tart, marchpane, gingerbread, apples, and cheese stewed with
" sugar and sage."
The arrangements for the evening were as follows
"
: First a play,
" and streight after the play a maske, and when the maske was done, then
"the bankett, which was no dishes and all of meat, and then all the
" gentlemen and ladyes danced ;
and this continued from Sunday to the
" Saturday after," except Friday and Saturday, when there was only
fish.
Expenses of the week for fish/and flesh, ^46 $s. &d.
Three hogsheads of wine, two white, the one red, one claret, costing
,5 5$-> with barley-malt for beer, ^6 i8s. 8d., seem to have been the amount
of liquor provided.
But it is time we turned from the possessions of the Cliffords to the
Cliffords themselves, and though in so long a line they are not all heroes,
there were at least some of them who, for weal or woe, deserve a recognition
as having taken active part in some of the most stirring incidents of
our national history.
Of Clifford, the castellan of York Castle, there is little to be said.
It is reported that his name was originally Fitz-Punt, or Ponz, and that
coming on with the Conqueror, he acquired
the name and castles of
Clifford, in Herefordshire, by marriage with the heiress thereof, and that,
on being appointed Governor of York, he built the ancient tower of the
castle which to this day bears his name.
But to an early member of this family, probably his granddaughter,
Fair (and I am afraid I must add frail) Rosamond, an unenviable notoriety
is attached. She is said to have been the daughter of Walter de Clifford,
a baron of the marches of Wales, of so turbulent a character that when
one of the King's officers endeavoured to serve a writ upon him, he
enforced the luckless official "to eate the King's writ, wax and all."