Treading out sweetness from the bay leaves strewed among the rushes on the floor, and with step as stately as the peacock's own, the queen of beauty for the nonce, bearing in both her hands the splendid charger with the bird—the symbol of herself—slowly paced the hall. Halting on a sudden, she set it down before the knight who, by general accord, had borne him best throughout that tournament; such was the ladies' token of their praises. To carve well at table was one of the accomplishments of ancient chivalry; and our own King Arthur was so able in that gentle craft, that on one occasion he is said to have cut up a peacock so cleverly that every one among the one hundred and fifty guests had a morsel of the fowl. To show himself as good a knight at a feast as at a passage of arms, the lady bade him carve the bird. What the lances of his antagonists could not do, this meed of praise from the ladies did—it overcame him. With deference, he humbly pleaded that many a doughty knight there present was more worthy of the honour: all his words were wasted. The queen of beauty would brook no gainsaying to her behest. He therefore bowed obedience, and she went away. Ere applying himself to his devoir, outstretching his right hand on high above the dish before him, amid the deepest silence, and in a ringing voice, so as to be well heard by all that noble presence, the knight vowed his vow of the peacock. Almost always this vow was half religious, half military; and he who took it bound himself to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and, on his road thither or homeward, to join, as he might, any crusade against the Paynim.
Hardly had the words of such a plight been uttered, when other knights started up at every table, and bound themselves by his or some like vow.
The dinner done, the feast was not quite over. Plucking from its tail the best and brightest of the peacock's feathers, the beauty-queen wove them into a diadem; the minstrel who had long distinguished himself, was summoned by a pursuivant and brought before her; and she crowned him as he knelt lowly down. Ever afterwards, at festival or tournament, this music king wore this crown about his hat as blithely as did the knight his lady's glove or favour on his helmet, at a joust. Such was—
Vowis of Pecok, with all ther proude chere.
Sometimes a pheasant, on account of its next beautiful plumage, used to be employed, instead of the larger, grander peacock.
With these facts set before him, any visitor to this collection will take a much more lively interest in so precious a piece of English embroidery
