The revels were renewed for Candlemas (2 Feb.) and for Shrovetide, either at the Christmas head-quarters or at some other palace to which the Court had meanwhile removed. Some part of the early spring was nearly always spent away from Westminster, and during her later years Elizabeth not infrequently left part of the household behind her and made a short 'by progress' to the house of Lord Burghley at Theobalds or that of Sir Thomas Gresham at Osterley or some other favoured courtier. The rest of the spring and summer was divided between Westminster and the river palaces, to and from which the Queen went by land or water, dining on the way, often at Chelsea or at the house of one John Lacy at Putney, and breaking the long journey from Greenwich to Richmond or Hampton Court by a night's rest, generally at the archiepiscopal abode of Lambeth. It was customary to ring the church bells as she entered or left a parish, and the entries of payments to ringers in the accounts of churchwardens serve as a convenient clue to her comings and goings. Easter, with the distribution of alms and washing of feet on Maundy Thursday, and Whitsuntide were kept as ecclesiastical, rather than secular, feasts. On 23 April, St. George's Day, the Queen went in procession about the Court with the Knights of the Garter and the Chapel in their copes. This was the occasion for the choosing of new knights, but their subsequent installation at a Garter feast took place without the Queen at Windsor, whither they rode in great and costly splendour.[1] During the summer there might be another tilt, and the Queen is recorded to have kept 'Mayings' on 1 May and to have taken part from time to time in other survivals of the ancient folk festivals.[2] About July she started for her 'progress', which might occupy from one to two months, according to her fancy, or if there was to be no regular progress, departed for one of the more sequestered houses, Windsor or Reading, Oatlands or Nonsuch, where she delighted to spend the autumn. During this period fell her birthday, on 7 September.[3]
- ↑ Machyn, 195, 232, 257, 280, 305; V. P. vii. 74; Hawarde, 74, 109; Sydney Papers, ii. 44; cf. E. Ashmole, The Institution of the Order of the Garter (1672); N. H. Nicolas, Orders of Knighthood (1841); G. F. Beltz, Memorials of the Order of the Garter (1841). Henri IV was installed by proxy in Apr. 1600, and the attendance of the Admiral's men perhaps implies a play (Hatfield MSS. x. 118, 269; Henslowe, i. 120). There are Garter allusions in Merry Wives of Windsor.
- ↑ Cf. Appendix A. The Chamber Accounts show an annual payment for a bonfire on Midsummer Day.
- ↑ Westminster, 19 (1579), &c., and Kitto, 364 (1584), &c., record the ringing of London bells. It can hardly have been a day for tilting (cf. p. 19) as the Court was usually in progress.
