This was a tilt, before François of Bourbon, dauphin of Auvergne, Artus de Cossé, marshal of France, and other commissioners from France, for the treaty of marriage between Elizabeth and the Duke of Anjou. The challenge was delivered by a boy in red and white, as the Queen came from Chapel on 16 April 1581. The tilt, first fixed for 24 April, was put off to 1 May, 8 May, and finally 15 May. The gallery at the end of the tilt-yard was named the Castle or Fortress of Perfect Beauty, and the challengers, the Earl of Arundel, Lord Windsor, Philip Sidney, and Fulke Greville, called themselves the Four Foster Children of Desire. They entered from the stable, with trains of followers and a Rowling Trench of printed canvas, to besiege the fortress. From this boys spoke and sang, and cannonades of perfumes were shot off, while flowers and other fancies were flung from scaling ladders. Then came twenty-one defendants, each with his 'invention' and speech. They were Henry Grey, Sir Thomas Perot, Anthony Cooke, Thomas Ratcliffe, Henry Knolles, William Knolles, Robert Knolles, Francis Knolles, Rafe Bowes, Thomas Kelwaie, George Goring, William Tresham, Robert Alexander, Edward Dennie, Hercules Meautus, Edward Moore, Richard Skipwith, Richard Ward, Edward Digbie, Henry Nowell, Henry Brunkerd. Perot and Cooke were 'both in like armour, beset with apples and fruit, the one signifying Adam and the other Eve, who had haire hung all down his helmet'. Their page was an Angel. Ratcliffe was a Desolate Knight, with a page who presented his shield. The four Knolles brothers were Sons of Despair, with Mercury for a page. The speeches of the pages are given. Each defendant ran six courses with the challengers. 'In the middest of the running came in Sir Henrie Leigh, as unknowne, and when he had broken his six staves, went out in like manner againe.' At the end of the first day the boy who gave the challenge announced a second on the morrow.
On the second day the challengers entered in a chariot 'forewearied and half overcome' with a lady representing Desire, and a consort of music. A herald made a speech for them. The defendants entered, and the tournay and barriers followed. At the end a boy clad in ash colour and bearing an olive-branch made submission of the challengers to the Queen.
Foulkes, lxiii. 49, says that a set of blank cheques for this tilt are in Ashm. MS. 845, f. 166. Tilbury Visit. 1588
There are or were three accounts:
A
S. R. 1588, Aug. 10. 'The quenes visitinge the campe at Tilberye and her enterteynement there the 8 and 9 of August 1588, with condicon yat yt may be aucthorised hereafter.' John Wolf (Arber, ii. 495).
N.D. The Queenes visiting of the Campe at Tilsburie with her
