In the first three years of his reign James passed Acts against the spread of ale-houses and against ‘the loathsome sin of drunkenness’. But the state had no police force, so it depended on the pulpit to put the fear of God into the country’s drinkers. “It is no one sin, but all sins” became the message; the drunkard was someone “wholly at Satan’s command.”

But drink was a central and celebrated part of daily life. Ale was regarded by the poor as vital to their diet, and drinking it was portrayed as a patriotic duty : while the rituals of social and family life for the wealthy were washed down with French or Portuguese wine. Royal celebrations at the Palace of Whitehall were also notoriously drunken affairs.