knight, broke his spears, and departed in true romantic fashion without revealing his identity.[1] In 1587, when the tilting on Queen's Day was 'not so full of devises and so riche as I have seene', is a mention of books given 'for a token' to the spectators[2]; and to 1590 belongs such a book in the extant Polyhymnia of George Peele.[3] This was a notable occasion, for upon it Sir Henry Lee, now past his youth, resigned the post of challenger to the Earl of Cumberland. Peele describes the imprese of the tilters. But the principal device took place after the courses had been run. A Temple of Vesta rose out of the earth, and at its door Lee's emblem of the crowned pillar. An appropriate song was sung, the well-known
'My golden locks time hath to silver turned,'
and the Vestal Virgins presented the Queen with a veil and cloak and safeguard; after which Lee doffed his armour, put it on Cumberland as his successor, and himself assumed, as a sign of his retirement, a side coat of black velvet and a buttoned cap of the country fashion. He continued, however, by the royal direction, to attend the annual Queen's day, as a kind of Master of the Ceremonies. Cumberland, who took the name of the Knight of Pendragon Castle, probably remained knight of the crown until the end of the reign, but may have been rather overshadowed by the reputation, both as a courtier and a tilter, of the popular and magnificent Earl of Essex.[4] Robert Carey also claims to have played a considerable figure in the jousts, and tells us how in 1593 he appeared and made the Queen a present as 'the forsaken knight that had vowed solitarinesse' at a cost of £400.[5] To 1595 belongs the device of Eros and Philautia, in which Essex is believed to have had the assistance of no less a hand than that of Francis Bacon.[6] In 1598 it is noted that
- ↑ Cf. ch. xxiv.
- ↑ Gawdy, 25, sent his father 'ij small bookes for a token, the one of them was gyven me that day that they rann at tilt, divers of them being gyven to most of the lordes, and gentlemen about the court, and one especially to the Quene'. On 18 Nov. 1595, John Danter entered in S. R. (Arber, iii. 53) 'a new ballad of the honorable order of the Runnynge at Tilt at Whitehall the 17 of November in the 38 year of her Maiesties reign', but it does not appear to be extant.
- ↑ Cf. ch. xxiii (s.v. Lee).
- ↑ Gawdy, 67 (n.d. but ascribed by ed. to 1592), 'Uppon the coronation day at nyght ther cam two knightes armed vpp into the pryvy chamber videlicet my L. of Essex and my L. of Cumberland and ther made a challenge that vppon the xxvjth of ffebruary next that they will runn with all commers to mayntayn that ther M. is most worthiest and most fayrest Amadis de Gaule'.
- ↑ R. Carey, Memoirs, 32.
- ↑ Cf. ch. xxiii (s.v. Bacon).
