Among the papers of the Strickland-Constable family of Wassand Hall in the East Riding of Yorkshire, now lodged at the East Riding Archives (ERA) office in Beverley, is a modest little booklet, of paper bound in a piece of recycled parchment, which is listed in the ERA catalogue as ‘Sir John Nevile’s memoranda book. 1595’.[1] The booklet does seem to have been compiled in 1595, not by Sir John Nevile himself, who died in 1541, but by his great-grandson Henry Nevile (the front cover bears his initials). There are 28 leaves in the booklet, of which the first 14 contain a densely discursive family pedigree down to Henry, and the rest contain what appear to be Henry’s copies (in the same hand as the pedigree) of notes from Sir John’s Memoranda Book, mainly on expenses for the weddings of his four children.
Nevile Mem. Bk. cover, East Riding Archives, Beverley, DDWS/8/1/1/1. Reproduced with permission.
All the notes are of interest for what they tell us about the rich fabrics and the variety of foodstuffs laid on for each occasion. However an extra note in the account of Elizabeth’s wedding is the most interesting in a REED context. Among copious lists of wedding clothes and food, the account suddenly pauses to describe entertainment given on the first evening of Elizabeth’s prolonged wedding celebrations:
ffor night
ffirst a play, and, streight after the play, a maske, and when the maske was done, then the banquett, which was 110 dishes and all of meat, and then all the gentlemen and Ladys danced and this continued from Sunday to the Saturday after,
Nevile Mem. Bk., East Riding Archives, Beverley, DDWS/8/1/1/1 Reproduced with permission.
It’s a pleasantly intriguing little note, though lacking detail; but enough is known of Sir John Nevile’s career, wealth and social status to suggest what kind of wedding entertainments he might have wanted – and been able to afford – to host at Elizabeth’s wedding in 1526. Although the second son of a scion (Sir John Nevile I) of a minor branch of the great Neville clan, Sir John II, born c. 1488, married the wealthy heiress of Chevet in the West Riding of Yorkshire and built up the estate and manor house over many years. He was knighted in 1513, served three times as High Sheriff of Yorkshire, was chosen to joust at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, was an MP in 1529 and was appointed a Knight of the Body to Henry VIII by 1533. His experiences of lavish ostentation by Henry’s court might well have inspired his ideas of a family celebration.
Although the note about Elizabeth’s wedding entertainments tells us so little, it is enough to suggest that Sir John was quite in line with the fashion of his day in royal and noble festivities. The ‘maske’ was evidently becoming a regular part of court entertainments on special occasions, according to Revels Office records of the same date which contain rich costumes for ‘meskelers’; and the Second Household Book complied for Sir John’s Yorkshire neighbour, Henry Percy, the ‘Magnificent’ fifth Earl of Northumberland, indicates that court fashions were equally popular with the great households of the north.
Percy ‘Dancers’ panel, c. 1500, from York town house of the Earls of Northumberland. Image courtesy of York Museums Trust (http://yorkmuseumstrust.org.uk/ :: Public Domain)
Work on the Second Household Book by REED N-E colleague Suzanne Westfall (editor of REED: Northumberland) indicates that the pattern of entertainment at Elizabeth Nevile’s wedding – play, maske and banquet – was very much in fashion: ‘The combination of banquet and disguising appears to be a typical structure for wedding revels.’[2] And whereas Henry VIII himself attended the grand wedding hosted by the Earl of Rutland in 1536, bestowing a forty-dish banquet on the guests, Sir John Nevile’s 110 dishes copiously outdid the lavishness of the King’s contribution. Further research may help to illuminate the content of the maske and play, but the record itself shows us that Sir John, even if a mere knight and a minor Nevile, had the means and the social standing to marry his daughter in the latest style.
[1] Beverley, East Riding Archives, DDWS/8/1/1/1.
[2] Quotations are taken from a paper entitled ‘“We must be married, or we must live in bawdry”: Wedding Revels at the Earl of Northumberland’s Household’, which was given by my REED N-E colleague Suzanne Westfall, the editor of REED: Northumberland, at the Kalamazoo International Congress in 2015. I am very grateful to her for generously letting me use it.
* This month’s flower was provided by Dr Diana Wyatt, editor of the REED: East Riding volume.