Knight of the crown, in rich embroidery,
And costly fair caparison charged with crowns,
O'ershadowed with a withered running vine,
As who would say, 'My spring of youth is past',
In corselet gilt of curious workmanship.
Strange entered 'in costly ship', with the eagle for his device; Essex
In stately chariot full of deep device,
Where gloomy Time sat whipping on the team,
Just back to back with this great champion.
Blount's badge was the sun, Carey's a burning heart, Cooke's a hand and heart,
And Life and Death he portray'd in his show.
The three Knowles brothers bore golden boughs. A final section of the poem describes how, after the running, Sir Henry Lee, 'knight of the Crown', unarmed himself in a pavilion of Vesta, and petitioned the Queen to allow him to yield his 'honourable place' to Cumberland, to whom he gave his armour and lance, vowing to betake himself to orisons.
Segar gives a fuller account of Lee's fantasy. He had vowed, 'in the beginning of her happy reigne', to present himself yearly in arms on the day of Elizabeth's accession. The courtiers, incited by his example, had yearly assembled, 'not vnlike to the antient Knighthood della Banda in Spaine', but in 1590, 'being now by age ouertaken', Lee resigned his office to Cumberland. The ceremony took place 'at the foot of the staires vnder her gallery-window in the Tilt-yard at West-*minster', where Elizabeth sat with the French ambassador, Viscount Turenne. A pavilion, representing the Temple of the Vestal Virgins, arose out of the earth. Within was an altar, with gifts for the queen; before the door a crowned pillar, embraced by an eglantine, and bearing a complimentary inscription. As the knights approached, 'M. Hales her maiesties seruant' sang verses beginning:
My golden locks time hath to siluer turned.
The vestals then gave the Queen a veil and a cloak and safeguard, the buttons of which bore the 'emprezes' or 'badges' of many nobles, friends of Lee, each fixed to an embroidered pillar, the last being 'like the character of &c.' Finally Lee doffed his armour, presented Cumberland, armed and horsed him, and himself donned a side-coat of black velvet and a buttoned cap of the country fashion. 'After all these ceremonies, for diuers dayes hee ware vpon his cloake a crowne embrodered, with a certaine motto or deuice, but what his intention therein was, himselfe best knoweth.'
The Queen appointed Lee to appear yearly at the exercises, 'to see, suruey, and as one most carefull and skilfull to direct them'. Segar dwells on Lee's virtues and valour, and concludes by stating that the annual actions had been performed by 1 Duke, 19 Earls, 27 Barons, 4 Knights of the Garter, and above 150 other Knights and Esquires.
On 20 Nov. 1590 Richard Brakinbury wrote to Lord Talbot (Lodge,
