This chapter explores the stress and cost of feeding Mary in the manner she expected as a queen. In France and Scotland, Mary had been used to abundant regular meals; as a prisoner she still required two ‘courses’ twice a day, since this was what Queen Elizabeth had, with each course comprising sixteen separate dishes including soup, fish, meat, game, and fruit. These needed to be seasoned with spices, and Mary demanded fine wine not only to drink but also to wash her face with. Often she did not eat anything, but if she did not receive a full sixteen dishes she complained bitterly to the French ambassador, who told Elizabeth that the Shrewsburys were starving her. Bess had to supply all this and Shrewsbury had to pay for it. Until 1581 he was theoretically paid a weekly allowance of £52 for housing Mary; it was then cut to £30 per week, but there was no corresponding diminution in expense and it has been estimated that he was in fact spending more like £30 a day. The surviving correspondence between Bess and Shrewsbury is often about food, and his growing financial worries precipitated the disintegration of his marriage to Bess.