KnoWoPerWriMo

[lucianus]

Saturday 11. December

This day Coningsby came to me and said he would be quit of this place its pestilential air and that he and I and several others and our men should ride out into the country and see if we might find some pleasant company and so we took horse and went from village to village roundabouts the area and asking the local folk what house is this and whose castle that might be until finally we did hear of a house of very fair ladies and so off rode we and came to their gate and the porter, seeing our martial aspect was at first loath to admit us but after persuasion from the King of France he unlocked the gate and let us in; when we were come in we were led to the ladies their parlor and the chiefest of them bid us welcome, she was somewhat older than the rest but quite a handsome woman and very richly dressed, and bade us come before the fire and warm ourselves and had the servant bring us hippocras to warm ourselves yet further, then chairs were brought for us and a very pretty young lady led me over to a settle and did begin to feed me sweetmeats from a little dish and so friendly was she that I could easily have forgotten myself right there but I did behave myself, then the lady who did greet us on our arrival bade us come and dine in their hall and so my young lady led me by the hand and sat me down and she beside me and we feasted upon goose and capons and many excellent dishes, the best I have had ere I have come to France (better than those dishes Mr. Ambassador served to the Prince) and much excellent wine and after dinner my fair young lady did lead me to her chamber and there we entertained ourselves the remainder of the afternoon until it was quite late and finally we all did part despite the entreaties of all the ladies who would have us stay the night but leave we must and rode we all the way back at the gallop with swords drawn owing to the danger of the countryside and so returned to camp and so to bed after a most delightful day.

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The visit to the high class bordello actually occurs in Coningsby believe it or not! He is a bit more coy in his description but it obvious what went on that afternoon. The “persuasion from the King of France” was coin with the king’s picture on it.

Coningsby, Thomas, Jornall of Cheife Thinges Happened in Our Jorney from Deape the 13. of Auguste, Untyll, MS.- Harl. 288. f. 253279, p. 60. Camden Miscellany by Camden Society (Great Britain), Royal Historical Society (Great Britain), published by Camden Society, 1847 Item notes: v.1 (1847)

Comments

[albreda.livejournal.com]

I find it odd that they didn't want to admit soldiers; were you thought too coarse for the fine ladies within? You were all officers, no? I would have thought gentlement of your class to be their bread and butter, if not capons and goose!

[lucianus.livejournal.com]

In Coningsby he says they could only get the door open "with great dexerity," I modified it a bit to having a choosy porter. Coningsby makes it very obvious that this was a high class place. So when you consider that the English troops had been living in slop outside Rouen for the past month, I expect that even though they were officers they were not the tidiest in the world at that point. I sure that a bit of money to grease the wheels of commerce was in order.

[albreda.livejournal.com]

Ah - so had the gentlemen been clean and properly attired, they would have been welcomed; it was their messy presentation that was in question, not they themselves?

(Now you've got me wondering what herbs and things the ladies might have purchased with some of their gains to delouse the place!)

[lucianus.livejournal.com]

Well all this is speculation on my part, it might just have been as Coningsby says that the door was didn't open very easily :). That said tho, this is the great age of the bribe, money changed hand all the time to grease the wheels of commerce and anything else. Elizabethan England was rather like a banana republic in that regard!

You make a good point about delousing, they were probably pretty covered with them. Basically you had similar living conditions as the armies of WWI (its the same part of the world after all), whenever those troops came off the line they went through delousing. There was what was probably typhus in the camp which is a louse borne disease.