Room!room!for my horse will wince If he comes within so many yards of a prince;For to tell you true,and in rhyme,He was foal'd in Queen Elizabeth's time;When the great Earl of Lester In his castle did feast her.
BEN JONSON,MASQUE OF OWLS.
The amusement with which Elizabeth and her court were next day to be regaled was an exhibition by the true-hearted men of Coventry,who were to represent the strife between the English and the Danes,agreeably to a custom long preserved in their ancient borough,and warranted for truth by old histories and chronicles.
In this pageant one party of the townsfolk presented the Saxons and the other the Danes,and set forth,both in rude rhymes and with hard blows,the contentions of these two fierce nations,and the Amazonian courage of the English women,who,according to the story,were the principal agents in the general massacre of the Danes,which took place at Hocktide,in the year of God 1012.
This sport,which had been long a favourite pastime with the men of Coventry,had,it seems,been put down by the influence of some zealous clergymen of the more precise cast,who chanced to have considerable influence with the magistrates.But the generality of the inhabitants had petitioned the Queen that they might have their play again,and be honoured with permission to represent it before her Highness.And when the matter was canvassed in the little council which usually attended the Queen for dispatch of business,the proposal,although opposed by some of the stricter sort,found favour in the eyes of Elizabeth,who said that such toys occupied,without offence,the minds of many who,lacking them,might find worse subjects of pastime;and that their pastors,however commendable for learning and godliness,were somewhat too sour in preaching against the pastimes of their flocks and so the pageant was permitted to proceed.
Accordingly,after a morning repast,which Master Laneham calls an ambrosial breakfast,the principal persons of the court in attendance upon her Majesty pressed to the Gallery-tower,to witness the approach of the two contending parties of English and Danes;and after a signal had been given,the gate which opened in the circuit of the Chase was thrown wide to admit them.On they came,foot and horse;for some of the more ambitious burghers and yeomen had put themselves into fantastic dresses,imitating knights,in order to resemble the chivalry of the two different nations.However,to prevent fatal accidents,they were not permitted to appear on real horses,but had only license to accoutre themselves with those hobby-horses,as they are called,which anciently formed the chief delight of a morrice-dance,and which still are exhibited on the stage,in the grand battle fought at the conclusion of Mr.Bayes's tragedy.The infantry followed in similar disguises.The whole exhibition was to be considered as a sort of anti-masque,or burlesque of the more stately pageants in which the nobility and gentry bore part in the show,and,to the best of their knowledge,imitated with accuracy the personages whom they represented.The Hocktide play was of a different character,the actors being persons of inferior degree,and their habits the better fitted for the occasion,the more incongruous and ridiculous that they were in themselves.Accordingly their array,which the progress of our tale allows us no time to describe,was ludicrous enough;and their weapons,though sufficiently formidable to deal sound blows,were long alder-poles instead of lances,and sound cudgels for swords;and for fence,both cavalry and infantry were well equipped with stout headpieces and targets,both made of thick leather.
Captain Coxe,that celebrated humorist of Coventry,whose library of ballads,almanacs,and penny histories,fairly wrapped up in parchment,and tied round for security with a piece of whipcord,remains still the envy of antiquaries,being himself the ingenious person under whose direction the pageant had been set forth,rode valiantly on his hobby-horse before the bands of English,high-trussed,saith Laneham,and brandishing his long sword,as became an experienced man of war,who had fought under the Queen's father,bluff King Henry,at the siege of Boulogne.
This chieftain was,as right and reason craved,the first to enter the lists,and passing the Gallery at the head of his myrmidons,kissed the hilt of his sword to the Queen,and executed at the same time a gambade,the like whereof had never been practised by two-legged hobby-horse.Then passing on with all his followers of cavaliers and infantry,he drew them up with martial skill at the opposite extremity of the bridge,or tilt-yard,until his antagonist should be fairly prepared for the onset.
This was no long interval;for the Danish cavalry and infantry,no way inferior to the English in number,valour,and equipment,instantly arrived,with the northern bagpipe blowing before them in token of their country,and headed by a cunning master of defence,only inferior to the renowned Captain Coxe,if to him,in the discipline of war.The Danes,as invaders,took their station under the Gallery-tower,and opposite to that of Mortimer;and when their arrangements were completely made,a signal was given for the encounter.
