and dined yesterday at the Abbey with Sir Henry and a sort of gallons that came with them" (1613); Sir William Herrick and his lady, (1622); Prince Charles Louis, son of the Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia, and nephew of Charles I. (1636); the Earl of Arundel (1639); and the Earl of Stamford (1642). The account of the visit of Prince Charles Louis, contained in the Hall Book for 1636, may be worth quoting as an example of civic hospitality. "Upon the twelfth day of August 1636, Ludovicus Prince Palsgrave of the Rhine did dine at the Angell in Leicester, coming from our royal King Charles" (who was then at Tutbury), "to go to Holmby, where the Queen then lay at. The Mayor, Recorder and most of the Four-and-twenty went thither and presented unto him a banquet presently after the meat was taken from his table, which cost £23, and something more; and three gallons of Canary sack, three gallons of Claret, and three gallons of white wine; which was very kindly accepted of by the Prince, and Mr. Mayor, Mr. Recorder, and his brethren most courteously used by him."
The bells of St. Martin's Church were rung sometimes to celebrate the arrival at the Angel of an illustrious visitor, as when the Countess of Huntingdon alighted there at Christmas 1626, and when the Bishop of York arrived in 1630. Before the Recorder's Chamber was fitted up at the Guildhall in 1582, Mr. Recorder stayed at the Angel, as in 1580; it was also used as the resort of various Commissioners, and for other business purposes. Thus, when there was an invasion scare in 1580, Mr. Mayor and other Justices took wine at the Angel, on meeting there the Justices of the Shire "about the demilances and light horse that certain of the Mayor's brethren by the Council were charged to find." In 1584 Mr. Skevington and Mr. Wensley were at the Angel, "then sitting of a commission for Fenton"; and in 1587 the six Commissioners, who had been appointed to enquire into the decay of houses in Leicester town and the cost of repairing them, dined there on no penurious fare, but on "bread and bear, boyld meat, boyld bef, rost veall, caponettes, rabetes, pygons, frut and ches, wyne and suger, etc." Among the Judges, Mr. Justice Beaumont
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