2 Oct. Music in garden, with speech by Old Gentleman, and letters containing jewels by messengers as from his sons in Ireland, Flanders, and France.
3 Oct. At departure, letter with jewel as from daughter in Jersey.
Between Sudeley and Rycote, the Queen was entertained at Oxford (cf. ch. iv) and Woodstock (cf. ch. xxiii, s.v. Sir Henry Lee).
Tilt-yard Entertainment. 17 Nov. 1595
See ch. xxiii, s.v. Peele, Anglorum Feriae. Harefield Entertainment. 1602
Elizabeth was at Harefield Place, Middlesex, the house of Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper, and his wife Alice, Countess Dowager of Derby, from 31 July to 2 Aug. 1602. At the same house Milton's Arcades was performed before Lady Derby in 1634. Seven fragments of the entertainment have been preserved, and are printed by Nichols, Eliz. iii. 570, 586, and Bond, Lyly, i. 491. Accounts of expenditure involved, and a list of the gifts in kind contributed by Egerton's friends on this occasion are in Egerton Papers, 340, but the account in 342-4 is a forgery (vide infra).
(i) Dialogue between a Bailiff and Dairymaid, and presentation of a rake and fork to the Queen, as she entered the demesne near the dairy house.
(ii) Dialogue at the steps of the house, and presentation of a heart, by Place 'in a partie-colored roobe, like the brick house' and Time 'with yeollow haire, and in a green roabe, with an hower glasse, stopped, not runninge'.
(iii) Verse petition accompanying gift of a robe of rainbows on behalf of St. Swithin by Lady Walsingham on Monday morning [2 Aug.].
(iv) Farewell of Place, 'attyred in black mourning aparell' on the Queen's departure, with presentation of an anchor.
(v) Verse 'Complaint of the Satyres against the Nymphes'.
(vi) Song and speech by a Mariner, who entered the 'presence' with a lottery box, 'supposed to come from the Carricke'.
(vii) 'The Severall Lottes', a list of gifts and blanks, with a poesy accompanying each, and the names of the ladies who drew them. These were the Queen, the Dowager Countess of Derby, the Countesses of Derby, Worcester, and Warwick, Lady Scroope, Mistresses Nevill, Thynne, Hastinges, and Bridges, Ladies Scudamore, Francis, Knevette, and Susan Vere, Mrs. Vavissour, Ladies Southwell and Anne Clifford, Mrs. Hyde, Ladies Kildare, Howard of Effingham and Paget, Mistresses Kiddermister and Strangwidge, the Mother of the Maids, Ladies Cumberland, Walsingham, and Newton, Mrs. Wharton, Ladies Digbye and Dorothy [Hastinges] and Mrs. Anselowe. One name, ending in 'liffe' is illegible. It may be Ratcliffe. One MS. adds three lots assigned to 'country wenches'. Most of these ladies were maids
