not only appointed to control or superintend the festivities at court, where his power was probably restrained by the royal prerogative, but also at the houses of the nobility, the different colleges, and the inns of court. In the 7th of Henry VII. in the household-book of that monarch, is a payment to “Ringley, Abbot of Misrule, £5.” In the 10th year, to the same person £2; and in the 18th year, to the Abbot of Mysrule, in rewarde, £6. 13s. 4d.; in the 22nd and 23rd years, to the same character, for his besynes in Crestenmas holydays, £6. 13s. 4d.[1] The establishment and equipment of this officer were frequently of a very expensive description. In 1551, when Mr. Ferrers, as before-mentioned, was Lord of Misrule, his expences were more than £650, his apparel alone amounting to a third; he had different dresses for Christmas-day, New Year’s day, and Twelfth-day. That on New Year’s-day was a robe of red bawdekyn, nine yards, with a great embroidered gard of purple silver, fourteen yards; a coat of the same materials, and embroidered and garded in like manner; a pair of hosen slopwise, the breeches of cloth of gold, figured with velvett red and green, with a cut gard of cloth of gold on it; a pair of buskins of red bawdekyn. The cost £34. 14s.[2]
Grafton, in his description of this Christmas, states it to be of old ordinary course; that there is always one appointed to make sport in the court, called commonly Lord of Misrule, whose office was not unknown to such as had been brought up in noblemen’s houses, and among great housekeepers, which used liberal feasting in that season.
The Lord Mayor and Sheriffs also formerly had their Lord of Misrule, as mentioned by Stow, but the
