upon to don their rich gowns and chains and give a torchlight welcome.[1] The date was no doubt determined, partly by the approach of winter, partly by that of Accession Day or, as it was often but incorrectly called, Coronation Day, on 17 November. This anniversary, from 1570 onwards, was kept with a solemn celebration, which appears to have originated spontaneously in or near Oxford, to have been adopted throughout the country, to have been revived during the next reign as an indication of popular discontent with James, and to have been still traceable in the form of a holiday at the Exchequer and at the schools of Westminster and Merchant Taylors in 1827.[2] It was on this day that the tilt-yard of Westminster blazed with the pageantry and rang with the spears of the manhood of England, gathered under the leadership of Sir Henry Lee to do honour to the virgin Queen. The Earl of Essex gave the final touch of flattery to the occasion in 1592 by appearing in his collar of SS, 'a thing unwonted', except on days of the most solemn ceremony.[3] In 1588, after the Armada, Elizabeth ordered a renewal of the tilting upon 19 November, which happened
- ↑ Stowe, 787, 789, 791; Von Wedel in 2 R. Hist. Soc. Trans. ix. 256; P. P. Laffleur de Kermaingant, Mission de Jean de Thumery, i. 368, both describing the procession at length; Mission de Christophe de Harlay, 252, 'la coustume a tousjours esté, et mesmes du temps de la feue Royne de trés heureuse memoire, que les ambassadeurs residens en Angleterre sont priez d'accompagner les roys, lorsqu'ilz retournent en leur ville de Londres, après leur progrès'; Goodman, i. 164, 'The Queen's constant custom was a little before her coronation-day to come from Richmond to London, and to dine with my lord Admiral at Chelsea, and to set out from Chelsea at dark night, where the Lord Mayor and the Aldermen were to meet her'. Precepts by the Lord Mayor and other records of civic expenditure on the receptions are in Arber, i. 510; v. lxxvii; Kitto, 538; Young, Barber Surgeons, 108; Welch, Pewterers, ii. 33.
- ↑ Camden, 191, 'Anno iam regni Elizabethae duodecimo feliciter exacto, in quo aureum ut vocarunt diem creduli Pontificii sibi ex ariolorum predictione expectabant, boni omnes per Angliam laetanter triumphabant et xvii Novembris Anniversarium regni inchoati diem, gratiarum actionibus, concionibus per Ecclesias, votis multiplicatis, laetisona campanarum pulsatione, hastiludiis, et festiva quadam laetitia celebrare coeperunt, et in obsequiosi amoris testimonium, dum illa viveret, non destiterunt'; La Mothe, v. 204; Arber, i. 561, 566, 578; Sydney Papers, i. 371, 'the Triumphes of her Coronation'; Ellis, II. iii. 160, citing Pauls Cross Sermon of T. Holland on 17 Nov. 1599, published 1601, with a Defence of the Church of England for keeping Queen's Day, for the origin at Oxford under Vice-Chancellor Cooper, which is perhaps confirmed by the records of the tilt (cf. ch. iv). But the City churches rang their bells on the day before 1570; cf. Westminster, 18 (1568), 'ringing for the prosperous reign of the eleventh year of Queen Elizabeth'; Kitto, 248, 'ringing for the quene the xvij of November 1569', 269 (1572), 'ringing at the quenes maties chaunginge of her raign', &c. The Chamber Accounts for 1595-6 use the term 'Raigne day'. Goodman, i. 98, notes the Jacobean revival.
- ↑ Birch, Eliz. i. 92.
