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Between 1691 and 1694 William III and Mary II held more than 14 elaborate, all-night winter balls at Kensington Palace, with the lamps of Hyde Park kept alight to illuminate them. The food and drink supplied were lavish – including beer, ale, cider, mead, port and other wines, as well as bread, fruits and confectionary (a “square piramede of the best confeccons”), meat, poultry and seafood. The expenses for one of these came to £332, equivalent to nearly £30,000 in today’s money. One contemporary account describes
“dancing and gaming, and a great supper….there could not be less than 1000 persons, but it was five of the clock in the morning before some of them could get home”.
