The furniture consists of one large table, several small round or oval tables, side tables, chairs, settee, couch, stools, a “court,” or “livery cupboard” (and sometimes both), a screen, cabinets, chests, and coffers; while the decorations are pictures, antlers, armour, vases and other ornaments of porcelain, gold, silver, or pewter, and table-clocks.
There has been much discussion regarding the “court cupboard” and the “livery cupboard,” mentioned above, but it is now generally accepted that the “court cupboard,” which may have derived its name from the French word _court_ (short), to distinguish it from the high standing cupboards, corresponded to the French _dressoir_, and was used for the display and keeping of plate, glass, etc., etc. The “livery cupboard,” on the other hand, still found in the farmers’ and labourers’ cottages in England, where it is sometimes called the “bread-and-cheese cupboard,” received its name from the French _livrer_ (to deliver) and was used both for service and as a receptacle for broken victuals. The difference between them is well defined in _Janua Linguarum_ (London, 1673), as follows: “Golden and gilded beakers, cruzes, great cups, chrystal glasses, cans, tankards and two ear’d pots are brought forth out of the cupboard and glass case; and being rins’d and rubb’d with a pot-brush are set on the livery cupboard.”
The “court cupboard” corresponded, in a measure, to the modern sideboard. It was a great feature at festivals and it rose in several receding stages or shelves, upon which the plate was displayed. The number of stages varied according to the rank of the master or mistress of the house. In _Les Honneurs de la Cour_, we learn that two steps were allowed to the wife of a baronet, three to a countess, four to a princess, and five to a queen.
At Cardinal Wolsey’s entertainment to the French Ambassadors at Hampton Court, Cavendish relates: “There was a cupboard for the time in length of the breadth of the nether end of the same chamber, six desks high, full of gilt plate, very sumptuous and of the newest fashions; and upon the nethermost desk garnished all with plate of clean gold were two great candlesticks of silver and gilt most curiously wrought.” When the same Ambassadors were entertained by Henry VIII. at Greenwich, there was a “cupborde seven stages high and thirteen feet long, set with standing cuppes, bolles, flaggons and great pottles all of fine golde, some garnished with one stone, and some with other stones and pearles.”