[401] Peck, Desiderata Curiosa, 25.

[402] Thomas Tooke to John Hubbard (Goodman, ii. 20).

[403] Egerton Papers, 340. The second of the documents there printed is one of Collier's forgeries. On 27 April 1603 Sir Robert Cecil wrote to Egerton (Egerton Papers, 369) to borrow some plate, 'because of my self I am not able to furnish my house at Theobalds of all such necessarys as are convenient for his Maiestys reception without the helpe of my frends'.

[404] La Mothe, vi. 478. Gossip said that Leicester's magnificence was in return for an 'octroy de quelques vaquanz' worth 200,000 crowns.

[405] V. P. xii. 409.

[406] Northumberland to Cobham (S. P. D. cclxxxiv. 97).

[407] Wright, i. 370; Hawarde, 311.

[408] Nichols, i. 601, prints from Lansd. MS. 16, 'The Q. Prayer after a Progress, Aug. 15 [1574] being then at Bristow'. It contains a thanksgiving for 'preseruinge me in this longe and dangerus jorneye'.

[409] Kelly, Progresses, 301, from Harl. MS. 6996. The letter is undated, but as the court was going to Kenilworth, it may belong to 1575.

[410] Wright, ii. 16.

[411] 'I am old, and come now evil away with the inconveniences of progress. I followed her Majesty until my man returned and told me he could get neither fit lodging for me nor room for my horse,' writes Sir Henry Lee in 1591 (Hatfield MSS. iv. 136).

[412] Sydney Papers, ii. 210.

[413] Walsingham wrote to Shrewsbury from Oatlands on 2 Sept. 1584 (Lodge, ii. 245), that the Privy Council was divided 'by reason of a little by progress her Majesty hath made for her recreation'.

[414] Chamberlain, 166, 169, 'All is to entertain the time, and win her to stay here if may be'.... 'These feastings have had their effect to stay the Court here this Christmas, though most of the cariages were well onward on theire waye to Richmond.'

[415] Harington, i. 314: 'Her Highness hath done honour to my poor house by visiting me, and seemed much pleased at what we did to please her. My son made her a fair speech, to which she did give most gracious reply. The women did dance before her, whilst the cornets did salute from the gallery; and she did vouchsafe to eat two morsels of rich comfit cake, and drank a small cordial from a gold cup. She had a marvelous suit of velvet borne by four of her first women attendants in rich apparel; two ushers did go before, and at going up stairs she called for a staff, and was much wearied in walking about the house, and said she wished to come another day. Six drums and six trumpets waited in the court, and sounded at her approach and departure. My wife did bear herself in wondrous good liking, and was attired in a purple kyrtle, fringed with gold; and my self, in a rich band and collar of needle-work, and did wear a goodly stuff of the bravest cut and fashion, with an under body of silver and loops. The Queen was much in commendation of our appearances, and smiled at the ladies, who in their dances often came up to the stepp on which the seat was fixed to make their obeysance, and so fell back into their order again. The younger Markham did several gallant feats on a horse before the gate, leaping down and kissing his sword, then mounting swiftly on the saddle, and passed a lance with much skill. The day well nigh spent, the Queen went and tasted a small beverage that was set out in divers rooms where she might pass; and then in much order was attended to her palace, the cornets and trumpets sounding through the streets.'

[416] Lodge, iii. 38.

[417] Winwood, ii. 155.

[418] Many of the numbers in the song-books of the madrigalists and lutenists probably had their origin in entertainments. The Triumphs of Oriana (1601), for example, may have been written as a whole for a royal birthday or maying; cf. also examples in Fellowes, 121, 328, 434, 464, 485.

[419] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 154.

[420] Cf. ch. xxiv.

[421] Cf. ch. xxiv.

[422] M. N. D. 11. i. 148:

On the chronology, cf. Sh. Homage, 154.

[423] On the débat, cf. Mediaeval Stage, i. 79, 187; ii. 153, 201.

[424] V. P. x. 25. Leicester left the Queen by will in 1588 (Sydney Papers, i. 71) a 'Jewel with three great Emrodes with a fair large Table Diamond in the middest, without a foyle, and set about with many Diamonds without foyle, and a Roape of fayre white Pearl, to the number six Hundred, to hang the said Jewel at; which Pearl and Jewel was once purposed for her Majesty, against a Coming to Wansted'. Rowland Whyte says of the visit to Lord Keeper Puckering at Kew in 1595 (Sydney Papers, i. 376), 'Her Intertainment for that Meale was great and exceeding costly. At her first Lighting, she had a fine Fanne, with a Handle garnisht with Diamonds. When she was in the Midle Way, between the Garden Gate and the Howse, there came Running towards her, one with a Nosegay in his Hand, deliuered yt vnto her, with a short well pened speach; it had in yt a very rich Iewell, with many Pendants of vnfirld Diamonds, valewed at 400l at least. After Dinner, in her Privy Chamber, he gaue her a faire Paire of Virginals. In her Bed Chamber, presented her with a fine Gown and a Juppin, which Things were pleasing to her Highnes; and, to grace his Lordship the more, she, of her self, tooke from him a Salt, a Spoone, and a Forcke, of faire Agate'. Of the visit to the Earl of Nottingham in 1602, Chamberlain, 169, writes, 'The Lord Admiralls feasting the Quene had nothing extraordinarie, neither were his presents so precious as was expected; being only a whole suit of apparell, whereas it was thought he wold have bestowed his rich hangings of all the fights with the Spanish Armada in eightie-eight'. These hangings were bought by James at the Princess Elizabeth's wedding in 1613 (Abstract, 15; V. P. xii. 499) for £1,628, and were long preserved in the House of Lords.

[425] Cf. ch. vi, p. 172.

[426] Cf. p. 116.

[427] Cf. ch. xxiv.

[428] Nichols, ii. 673; V. P. xiii. 36; Hist. MSS. i. 107.

[429] There are four narratives: (a) MS. by Matthew Stokys, the University Registrary, printed by Nichols, Eliz. i. 151, and from a transcript in Harl. MS. 7037 (Baker MS. 10) and with a wrong ascription to N. Robinson, by Peck, Desiderata Curiosa, ii. 259; (b) Anon. in Camb. Univ. Library MS., Ff. v. 14, f. 87, printed by Nichols, i. 183; (c) Abraham Hartwell (of King's), Regina Literata (1565), reprinted by Nichols, Eliz.¹ (1788), i; (d) Nicholas Robinson (of Queen's), Commentarii Hexaemeri Rerum Cantabrigiae actarum, printed by Nichols, Eliz.¹ iii. 27. The ascription of Dido to Halliwell is due to Hatcher's biographies of King's men in Bodl. Rawl. MS. B. 274. Hartwell gives some analysis both of Dido and of Ezechias.

[430] I borrow from Boas, 383, De Silva's description to the Duchess of Parma as given in Froude's transcript (Addl. MS. 26056 A, f. 237) of the original in the Simanças archives. There is a translation in Sp. Papers, i. 375. Froude, vii. 205, paraphrases the story. After premising that during the Queen's visit 'they wished to give her another representation, which she refused in order to be no longer delayed', and that, 'those who were so anxious for her to hear it followed her to her first stopping-place, and so importuned her that at last she consented', De Silva continues, 'Entráron los representantes en habitos de algunos de los Obispos que estan presos; fué el primo el de Londres [Bonner] llevando en las manos un cordero como que le iba comiendo, y otros con otras devisas, y uno en figura de perro con una hostia en la boca. La Reyna se enojó tanto segun escriben que se entró á priesa en su camara diciendo malas palabras, y los que tenian las hachas, que era de noche, los dexáron á escuras, y assí cesó la inconsiderada y desvergonçada representaçion.' Of course, there is nothing about this in the academic narratives. It was an indecent proceeding, but in view of the character of the farsa or mummery which enlivened Elizabeth's first Christmas (cf. ch. v), the misunderstanding of her taste is perhaps explicable.

[431] There are five narratives: (a) Twyne MS. xvii, f. 160, in the University archives, by Thomas Neale, Professor of Hebrew, used by A. Wood, Hist. of Oxford, ii. 154, and Boas, 98; (b) Richard Stephens, A Brief Rehearsall, a summary of (a), printed by Nichols, Eliz.¹ i. 95, and C. Plummer, Elizabethan Oxford, 193; (c) Twyne MS. xxi. 792, by Miles Windsor of Corpus; (d) Nicholas Robinson (of Queens', Cambridge), Of the Actes done at Oxford, printed from Harl. MS. 7033, f. 142, by Nichols, i. 229, and Plummer, 173; (e) John Bereblock (of Exeter), Commentarii de Rebus Gestis Oxoniae, printed by T. Hearne (1729) and Nichols, Eliz.¹ i. 35, and from Bodl. Addl. MS. A. 63, by Plummer, 113, and translated by W. Y. Durand in M. L. A. xx. 502. Bereblock gives full analyses of the plays. Boas, 106, adds extracts from a Christ Church account of the expenditure.

[432] Bereblock (Plummer, 128) says, 'Hoc malum quamvis potuit communem laetitiam contaminare, nihilominus tamen eandem commaculare non potuit. Ad spectacula itaque omnes, alieno iam periculo cautiores, revertuntur'.

[433] Cf. Boas, 106, 390.

[434] Sp. Papers, i. 578; cf. Boas, 385.

[435] Sometimes the Chancellor brought distinguished foreign visitors, who were entertained with plays. In May 1569 Thomas Cooper, Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Christ Church, wrote to Leicester (Pepys MSS. 155), proposing 'a playe or shew of the destruction of Thebes, and the contention between Eteocles and Polynices for the governement therof', for a projected visit on 15 May by Odet de Coligny, Cardinal de Châtillon, and asking help 'for provision for some apparaile' (not 'apparaiti', as the Hist. MSS. report on the Pepys MSS. has it). It is not certain that the visit actually took place (Boas, 158). But in 1583 Leicester brought Albertus Alasco, Prince Palatine of Siradia in Poland, who saw the Rivales and Dido of William Gager (q.v.) on 11 and 12 June. The plays were given at Christ Church by men of that and other colleges, with the assistance of George Peele (Boas, 179, from Holinshed and academic archives). In Jan. 1585 Leicester came again, with Pembroke and Philip Sidney, and saw Gager's Meleager at Christ Church, and possibly also a comedy at Magdalen. Apparel was borrowed from John Lyly, who was then connected with the Blackfriars theatre (Boas, 192, from academic archives).

[436] There is only one narrative, by Philip Stringer (of St. John's, Cambridge), printed by Nichols, Eliz.¹, and Plummer, 245. Wood, Hist. of Oxford, ii. 248, follows an independent source. Boas, 252, makes some additions from academic archives, and cites from Twyne MS. xvii, f. 174, an order that 'the schollers which cannot be admitted to see the playes, doo not make any outcries or undecent noyses about the hall stayres or within the quadrangle of Christchurch, as usually they were wont to doo'. This was repeated at the visit of 1605. John Sanford's Apollinis et Musarum Eidyllia, reprinted by Plummer, 275, contains verses laudatory of the various guests.

[437] M. S. C. i. 198, from Lansd. MS. 71, f. 204.

[438] There are four narratives: (a) Anthony Nixon, The Oxford Triumph (1605, S. R. 19 Sept. 1605); (b) Isaac Wake, Rex Platonicus, sive Musae Regnantes (1607); (c) a Cambridge report, probably by Philip Stringer, printed from Harl. MS. 7044, by Leland, Coll. ii. 626, and Nichols, i. 530; (d) a letter from John Chamberlain in Winwood, ii. 140. F. S. Boas and W. W. Greg (M. S. C. i. 247) print schedules of the apparel and necessaries obtained from Kirkham and Kendall of the Queen's Revels, and from one Matthew Fox. They were partly for The Queen's Arcadia, partly, I think, for Ajax Flagellifer, and partly for Alba. Provision was made for a magician, and 'those scenes of the Magus', for which Robert Burton tells his brother (Nichols, iv. 1067) that he was thanked by Dr. King, Dean of Christ Church, were presumably in Alba. This is Stringer's name for the first play. Wake calls it Vertumnus, but it is clear from his analyses that it is distinct from Gwynne's, which he calls Annus Recurrens. Stringer's rather critical narrative contrasts with the self-complacency of the Oxford writers. He tells us how bored the King was and how the Queen and the ladies disliked the almost naked man in Alba.

[439] Goodwin's performance was made an excuse for securing the King's recommendation for his election as a Student of Christ Church (S. P. D. Addl. Jac. I, xxxvii. 66, 67, 70).

[440] Birch, i. 214; Winwood, iii. 441; Nichols, iv. 1087, from Hacket's Life of Williams.

[441] Birch, i. 303; Stowe, Annales (1631), 1023; Hardwicke Papers, i. 394; Truth Brought to Light, 64; Nichols, iii. 43. The names of the plays are given in a MS. penes Sir Edward Dering, printed by S. Pegge in Gent. Mag. (May 1756) and Hawkins, Ignoramus, xxx. I adopt the dates of this MS., which fit better into James's movements than the 12-15 March suggested by Chamberlain's letter in Birch, i. 303. The Vice-Chancellor ordered 'that noe Graduate of the Universitie under the degree of Master of Arts, or fellow-commoner, presume to come into the streets neare Trinity Colledge in the tymes the Comedyes are actinge; or after the Stage-Keepers be come forth; nor that any Schollar or Student, but those onely before excepted, by any meanes presume or attempte to come within the said Colledge or Hall to heare any of the said Comedyes'.

[442] Birch, i. 360, 361; Hawkins, Ignoramus, cxix, from a narrative by James Tabor, Registrary.

[443] Birch, i. 395, 397. Can the play have been Susenbrotus, for which there seems no room in the visit of 1615, although the MS. claims a performance before James and Charles at Trinity in '1615'?

[444] The term recalls the old use of the Camera as a treasury; cf. ch. ii. Similarly Bristol claimed to be the 'chamber' of a queen consort; cf. the patent to the Children of Bristol (ch. xii).

[445] Cf. ch. xxiv.

[446] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 172.

[447] V. P. x. 64, 67, 74; Birch, i. 8, 9. Chamberlain wrote to Carleton (10 July 1603), 'Our pageants are pretty forward, but most of them are such small timbered gentlemen that they cannot last long, and I doubt, if the plague cease not the sooner, they will rot and sink where they stand.' The double preparation must have cost the City something. There was a levy, amounting to £12 10s. on some of the guilds, in 1603, and in February 1604 another £400 had to be raised 'for the full performance and finishing of the pageants'. Towards this the Carpenters paid £2, but in all they had to pay an additional £8 3s. 4d. in 1604. There must have been protests, for the wardens of the Brewers were imprisoned for refusing to pay a levy of £50 (Jupp, The Carpenters, 68, 294; Young, The Barber-Surgeons, 110; Williams, The Founders, 222).

[448] Cf. ch. xxiv.

[449] Dekker sadly records that a great part of the speeches was left unspoken, lest they should be tedious to James.

[450] Machyn, 180.

[451] See ch. xxiv, s.v. Dekker, Coronation Entertainment. On 15 April 1605 the Spanish ambassador provoked a riot by 'joys and shews' to celebrate the birth of a Spanish prince (Lodge, iii. 147; Stowe, Annales, 862).

[452] V. P. x. 384; Nichols, iv. 1074.

[453] Clode, Early History of the Merchant Taylors, i. 276, gives many details from records of the company, including the item, 'To Mʳ. Hemmyngs for his direccion of his boy that made the speech to his Majesty 40s., and 5s. given to John Rise the speaker'.

[454] Cf. ch. xxiii. The entry of payments to Burbage and Rice, trumpeted as a discovery by C. W. Wallace in The Times for 28 March 1913, was in fact published by Halliwell-Phillipps in the Athenaeum for 19 May 1888; it is also in Stopes, Burbage, 108.

[455] Cf. ch. xxiv.

[456] Machyn, 191, 196, 201, 261, 273; cf. App. A (1559-1561).

[457] Cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 165, 382. Machyn, 287, records a watch with a 'castylle' at the Tower on 28 June 1562. There was another on 28 June 1564, which Elizabeth saw privately from Baynard's Castle (Sp. P. i. 366; cf. App. A). Puttenham, 165, speaks of 'these midsommer pageants in London, where to make the people wonder are set forth great and vglie Gyants marching as if they were aliue, and armed at all points, but within they are stuffed full of browne paper and tow, which the shrewd boys vnderpeering, do guilefully discouer and turne to a great derision'.

[458] Sharpe, Letter Book, L. 187, prints an order of 23 Oct. 1481 forbidding from thenceforth any 'disguysyng nor pageoun', when the Mayor went from his house to the water or the water to his house, 'as it hath been used nowe of late afore this time'. Halle, ii. 232, describes the reception of Anne Boleyn.

[459] Machyn, 47, 72, 96, 117, 155, 270, 294. In 1553 were a 'duyllyll' and 'ii grett wodyn, with ii grett clubes all in grene, and with skwybes bornyng'. For 1540, cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 166. A fragment of a Salters' pageant, printed by E. D. Adams in M. L. N. xxxii. 285, from T. C. C. MS. B. 15, 39, may belong to 1530 or 1542, when they had Mayors.

[460] Clode, ii. 262; Nicholl, Ironmongers, 84; cf. ch. xii (Westminster). The subject in 1566 is not recorded. Richard Baker, painter-stainer, had £18 for the pageant and everything except the children and their apparel; John Tailor 40s. to find six children 'as well for the speeches as songs'; James Pele 30s. 'for his devise and paynes in the paggent'; and Thomas Giles of Lombard Street (cf. chh. iii, v) £5 10s. for apparel. The company paid 5s. 'to the prynter for printing of poses speches and songs, that were spoken and songe by the children in the pagent'.

[461] Clode, Memorials, 115; Nicholl, Ironmongers, 97, 'Paid unto James Pele and Peter Baker, for the devise of a pageant, which tok none effecte, xxvjˢ. viijᵈ.'

[462] W. Smythe, A breffe description of London (1575); cf. Mediaeval Stage, ii. 165. Dramatic allusions are 2 Promos and Cassandra, i. 6, '[Enter] Two men, apparrelled lyke greene men at the Mayor feast, with clubbes of fyreworke'; Cobbler's Prophecy, 469, 'comes there a Pageant by, Ile stand out of the green mens way for burning my vestment'; Dutch Courtesan, iii. 1, 117, 'all will scarce make me so high as one of the giants' stilts that stalks before my Lord Mayor's pageant'; Northward Hoe, ii. 1, p. 195, 'Simon and Jude's gentlemen ushers'.

[463] 2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans. ix. 252, 'a representation in the shape of a house with a pointed roof painted in blue and golden colours and ornamented with garlands, on which sat some young girls in fine apparel, one holding a book, another a pair of scales, the third a sceptre. What the others had I forget.' He gives full details of all the installation ceremonies.

[464] Chamberlain, 93.

[465] Clode, Early History, i. 264, 390, cites payments for a ship, a pageant, a lion, and a camel, and to Mr. Haines, schoolmaster of the Merchant Taylors school, for a wagon and the apparel of ten scholars, who represented Apollo and the Muses before the Mayor in Cheapside. Young, Barber-Surgeons, 111, prints the Lord Mayor's letter of 22 Oct. 1603 directing that there should be no show that year. Felix Kingston entered 'a thing touching the pagent' in S. R. on 29 Oct. 1604 (Arber, iii. 273).

[466] Machyn, 261, 309.

[467] Stowe, Annales (1615), 887.

[468] Cf. ch. xxiii.

[469] John Taylor, Heaven's Blessing and Earth's Joy (Nichols, ii. 527). The use of fireworks at Kenilworth in 1575 and Elvetham in 1591, with a miniature sea-fight at the latter, has already been noted. An undated device for three days' fireworks by an Italian before the Queen, 'in the meadow', 'in the courtyard of the Palace', 'in the river' (Pepys MSS. 178) may belong to 1575, or possibly to the Warwick visit of 1572, at which a firework assault upon a fort in the meadow below the castle is recorded by La Mothe, v. 96.

[470] M. S. C. i. 89.

[471] Cf. ch. xxiv.

[472] Nichols, Eliz. ii. 529, from a MS. in private hands.

[473] Halle, i. 22, 189; Cripps-Day, 118 (misdated 1510). The illuminated roll of 1511 is engraved in Vetusta Monumenta, i, pll. xxi-xxvi. Some interesting documents on early Tudor tilting are given in Cripps-Day, xliii, from Harl. MS. 69 (The Book of Certaine Triumphes).

[474] The rules are extant in Heralds' College MSS. I. 26, M. 6; Harl. MSS. 69, 1354, 1776, 2358, 2413, 6064; Bodl. Ashm. MS. 763; versions are printed in Vetusta Monumenta, i; Grose and Astle, Antiquarian Repertory, i. 144; Meyrick, Antient Armor, ii. 179; Harington, i. 1; Cripps-Day, xxvii. Viscount Dillon prints (Arch. lvii. 29) an illuminated fifteenth-century collection of ordinances of chivalry which belonged to Prince Henry.

[475] Dillon, An Elizabethan Armourer's Album (Arch. Journal, lii. 113), Tilting in Tudor Times (A. J. lv. 296), Barriers and Foot-Combats (A. J. lxi. 276), Armour and Arms in Shakespeare (A. J. lxv. 270); C. ffoulkes. Jousting Cheques of the Sixteenth Century (Archaeologia, lxiii. 31), W. Segar, Honor, Military and Ciuill (1602), iii. 54, records a number of Elizabethan jousts, or, as he calls them, 'triumphs'. Dillon (A. J. lv. 303) reproduces drawings of a tilt, tourney, and barriers by William Smith (c. 1597).

[476] W. L. Spiers in L. T. R. vii. 62; Machyn, 269.

[477] E. Law, Hampton Court, i. 135, 206.

[478] Segar (Nichols, ii. 335) describes a tourney, presumably a foot-tourney, at Whitehall by night before the French ambassador, François de Montmorency, in June 1572, with the yeomen of the guard holding 'an infinite number of torches on the terrace and in the preaching place'.

[479] The play of Paris and Vienna on 19 Feb. 1572 included a triumph with hobby-horses 'where Paris wan the christall sheelde for Vienna at the turneye and barryers' (Feuillerat, 141). A barriers was also fought by Amazons and Knights in a mask of 11 Jan. 1579 (Feuillerat, 287).

[480] Cf. App. A.

[481] Cf. ch. xxiv. The date at which the annual tilt began is not clear. It cannot be earlier than the institution of Queen's Day itself (1570? cf. p. 18), but as that is said to have originated at Oxford, hard by Woodstock, the two may have come into existence together. Segar, who compares Lee's enterprise to 'the Knighthood della Banda in Spaine' assigns it to the beginning of the reign. On the other hand, I have not found any actual evidence for a tilt on 17 Nov. before 1581, although there is plenty afterwards. The references to the matter on Lee's tombstone and in the fragments of the Ferrers MS. do not help, unless fragment (iv) belongs to the Woodstock entertainment of 1575, in which case the vow 'not far from hence' must be before that date. Is it possible that the tilting at first took place at Oxford or Woodstock itself and was transferred to Whitehall about 1581? In 1593, perhaps owing to the plague, it was held at Windsor.

[482] Leland, Collectanea, ii. 666.

[483] Thus at a joust of 1494 (Kingsford, Chronicle, 201), 'iiij fayre ladyes ... ladde their Bridellis with iiij silkyn laces of white and blewe'. After a joust in May 1571, ladies led the armed victors to receive their prizes in the presence chamber (Nichols, ii. 334, from Segar).

[484] Cf. p. 52. Hunsdon and Dudley, as challengers, wore black and white in 1559; in 1560 the heralds were in black and white (Machyn, 216, 231).

[485] A galley on the waterside at Whitehall is described as hung with these shields by Von Wedel (2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans. ix. 236) in 1584 and by Hentzner in 1598, 'emblemata varia papyracea, clypei formam habentia, quibus, adiectis symbolis, nobiles in exercitiis equestribus & gladiatoriis uti sunt soliti, hic memoriae caussa suspensa', and Manningham, 3, describes 'certayne devises and empresaes taken by the scucheons in the Gallery at Whitehall' in 1602. The Shield Gallery was still extant in the time of Pepys. Aubrey, Wilts. 88, says that a similar collection of shields at Wilton were 'of pastboard painted with their devices and emblems, which was very pretty and ingenious'. Of course, these were not used in the actual encounter. On imprese, cf. F. Brie, Shakespeare und die Impresa-Kunst seiner Zeit (1914, Sh.-Jahrbuch, l. 9); G. F. Barwick, Impresas (2 Library, vii. 140); Lee, Shakespeare, 455. A contemporary treatise is Paolo Giovio, Dialogo dell' Imprese Militari et Amorose (1555). Good examples are afforded by Pericles, II. ii.

[486] Von Wedel (loc. cit. 258) describes the accession tilt of 1584: 'About twelve o'clock the queen with her ladies placed themselves at the windows in a long room of Whitehall palace, near Westminster, opposite the barrier where the tournament was to be held. From this room a broad staircase led downwards, and round the barrier stands were arranged by boards above the ground, so that everybody by paying 12d. could get a stand and see the play.... During the whole time of the tournament all who wished to fight entered the lists by pairs, the trumpets being blown at the time and other musical instruments. The combatants had their servants clad in different colours; they, however, did not enter the barrier, but arranged themselves on both sides. Some of the servants were disguised like savages, or like Irishmen, with the hair hanging down to the girdle like women, others had horse manes on their heads, some came driving in a carriage, the horses being equipped like elephants, some carriages were drawn by men, others appeared to move by themselves; altogether the carriages were of very odd appearance. Some gentlemen had their horses with them and mounted in full armour directly from the carriage.... When a gentleman with his servant approached the barrier, on horseback or in a carriage, he stopped at the foot of the staircase leading to the queen's room, while one of his servants in pompous attire of a special pattern mounted the steps and addressed the queen in well-composed verses or with a ludicrous speech, making her and her ladies laugh. When the speech was ended he in the name of his lord offered to the queen a costly present, which was accepted and permission given to take part in the tournament.'

[487] Nichols, ii. 335, from Segar.

[488] Lodge, ii. 146.

[489] Nichols, ii. 334, from Segar; M. S. C. i. 181, from Lansd. MS. 99, f. 259.

[490] Von Raumer, ii. 431, from a letter of M. Nellot of the French Embassy in Dupuy MS. xxxiii. I do not feel sure that the writer is really describing a distinct joust from that of Whitehall, although he certainly locates it at Hampton Court, and the French commissioners certainly visited Hampton Court, with Leicester and Pembroke, on 6 May (Walsingham's Journal). He gives Arundel and Windsor as challengers, and the two 'Irish youths' might be Perrot and Cooke. Tilney only charged in the Revels Account (Feuillerat, 341) for one challenge and two days' triumph.

[491] Cf. ch. xxiv.