Look forward to herring from you

When a passing reference to unusual or even perfectly ordinary food in a discursive historical essay tickles me to the extent that the details before and after dissolve in hopeless mirth, it's a sure sign that I am really too trivial to be reading history books in the first place. One such instance owes itself to the 'Norwich herring pie render', a duty thought to predate the Norman Conquest which the king would have collected annually as recently as 1816 when, presumably, the prince regent got drunk and tried to abolish Norwich - or so I like to think. The render is a fantastic concept in itself and an example of the sort of creative taxation which the Post-Newt would back to the hilt. Nevertheless, one wonders what was really vexing Charles I when his house-servants sat down to pen this series of irritable complaints: