Note 291 — PART III.

Straw was first used for the king’s bed in 1242, in the reign of Henry III., whose court was considered the most polite in Europe. (Dr. Henry’s History of Great Britain, vol. iii. p. 507.) Some estates in England were held by the tenure of the proprietors finding clean straw for the king’s bed, and litter for his chamber. (Henry, ut supra; Camden’s Britannia, vol. i. p. 311; Index Monasticus, p. 12.) In the charter granted by Robert the Bruce to the Burgh of Ayr, the providing of this latter item for him and his successors, for three days and nights, whenever they visited the town, is specially entered in the reddenda—“Et inveniendo nobis et heredibus nostris per vices in adventibus nostris et heredum nostrorum apud Are per tres dies et noctes literium pro aulâ nostrâ.” (Records of Prestwick, p. 128.) The office of rush-strewer was continued till a late period on the list of the royal household (Craik and Macfarlane’s History of England, vol. i. p. 644.)