This prince lived in a more magnificent manner than perhaps any of his predecessors or successors.

His household consisted of ten thousand persons: he had three hundred in his kitchen; and all the other offices were furnished in proportion.[*] It must be remarked, that this enormous train had tables supplied them at the king's expense, according to the mode of that age.

Such prodigality was probably the source of many exactions by purveyors, and was one chief reason of the public discontents.
* Harding: this poet says, that he speaks from the authority of a clerk of the green cloth..