How were the Monarchs eating without a fork before Thomas Coryate

[**47**]

introduced table fork to Britain in 1608? How was their table etiquette...

 

[LiLi]

A lot of food was just eaten by hand -- pieces of meat and bread, for example.

Spoons, however, had been in use at the court since the Middle Ages, and of course people had knives.

 

[Olly]

Before the fork was introduced, Westerners were reliant on the spoon and knife as the only eating utensils. Thus, people would largely eat food with their hands, calling for a common spoon when required. Members of the aristocracy would sometimes be accustomed to manners considered more proper and hold two knives at meals and use them both to cut and transfer food to the mouth, using the spoon for soups and broth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork

The modern table setting is attributed to Charles I of England who in 1633 declared, "It is decent to use a fork," a statement that heralded the beginning of civilized table manners. But it wasn't until almost a century later that the fork gained acceptance among the lower class. In England, the acceptance of the fork encouraged preparation of continental recipes, such as 'olios' from Spain, a dish made with stewed meat taken with a fork as opposed to mashed food eaten from the blade of a knife. Because the average family owned a limited number of forks, historians suggest that the service of sherbet midway through a meal gave the servants time to wash the forks used earlier on.
The first dinner forks were made with two flat prongs. The earliest two-prong fork to bear an English hallmark and engraved with a coat of arms dates to 1632 and is attributed to the Earl of Rutland. It can be seen today in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. In the seventeenth century, fork tines were made of case-hardened steel and were fast to wear down. To promote utensils with longevity, early fork tines were extra long in length and made with sharp pointed