Only a very few roads were paved and those located in front
of the University church before which Elizabeth would be officially
welcomed. Orders had gone out for wagons
full of sand, as well, to fill the smelly ditches and prevent getting mud and
muck on the hems of fine gowns. Wagonloads of rushes were arriving to be laid
down on the day before the Queen’s arrival as a temporary pavement in order to
prevent choking dust clouds from the many horse hooves and strewn in room and
church spaces to freshen the floors. Crews
of day laborers were hard at work laying it all down.
A succession of platforms were being built all along the
route the Queen would take from the city limits to the place where she would
receive her official welcome. On these the lesser officials of the town, of the
trade guilds, officers of the various parishes
and other chartered groups, and children from upper-class families would
wait for her to pass. She would stop at
each to hear their songs and orations of welcome, their cries of “God save the Queen,” and to accept their gifts of gloves, silver
cups filled with coins, etc., and to collect the texts from which they’d
recited and hand them along to footmen to be packed for the trip back.
Houses along the main route were being painted. Every soul
in the town and university that could afford it was at the tailor’s or
seamstress’s having their clothing mended or new clothing made. Shop-stalls
were being made as festive as possible for appearances and in order to
attract guests to stop back to make a
purchase or two. More ale, still, was being shipped in by the ale houses to
serve the celebratory citizens and the downstairs servants with the Royal
progress. More such houses were being outfitted as the local authorities always
issued additional temporary licenses when a progress was to pass through.
The college and town stables were being cleared and cleaned.
Hay and fodder (a.k.a. “horse meat”) was being laid in for the company’s many mules
and horses. Rooms were being set aside, nearby, for the Royal grooms. Local
blacksmiths were making themselves ready to provide the services that always
proved necessary when traveling for such distances.
Chamber servants were vigorously cleaning spaces appointed
to house the august guests soon to arrive. Hundreds of beds were being
commandeered from the college and town. Bedding had to be fumigated to assure
the party did not leave with a gift of
vermin. The quality of the furniture and accessories was carefully assessed by
university and/ or Royal grooms such that the higher ranking the guest the
finer the accommodations.
A special traveling staff called the “harbingers” arrived a
day or two before the Queen trailed by drovers and carts. She traveled with her
own accoutrements which were now assembled in the colleges’ most
impressive private chamber together with furniture and wall hangings blazoned with the
royal arms. In the kitchens, a clerk of the Royal kitchen was providing the
Queen’s favorite recipes to the Clerk of the Cambridge facility and checking to assure that only the
finest the ingredients were at hand. All of the above preparations were closely
inspected and directions given to bring them up to snuff.
The local constabulary were combing the city to strictly
isolate even the tiniest likelihood of a plague case. The local riff-raff were
being escorted to the city limits with orders to make haste to distant parts.
Should they fail to obey they might be marched off to the local prison.
For their part, the prize students and fellows of the
colleges were busily writing their own Latin orations to impress the guests,
and, perhaps, even to make introductions that would lead to their own lives in
service to the Court. Those who excelled at poetry would recite their poems or
kiss the pages and hand them to the Queen to be preserved in the official
record or tack them on the doors of the chambers of the lords. This might be
followed up by having them published shortly afterwards as works that had been
worthy to be presented in a “great entertainment” of the Queen herself. Others
with designs for future fellowships were writing and rehearsing Latin plays to
be performed in the evenings.
Thomas Draunt, a young fellow of St. John's College, was
also writing poems for the occasion in English which he would later publish,
together with his Latin poems, in a volume dedicated to William Cecil’s wife,
Mildred, who had been in attendance.
A prince extract from haughtie howse,
A prince of pompouse port,
Approchethe here, whose auncestours
Triumphe in glorious sort.
Come, noble lustie poete, come,
Strike up in regall rate;
To pennes, to pennes, pursue the chase,
Ye have a game of state.
If wit maye winne a woorthie name,
Yf vertue purchase prayse,
If heavenly hughe deserve an hire,
Her brute then let us blase….
His work would impress the 14 year old Earl of Oxford, who
was in the Queen’s company, and was a member of Cecil’s household, as evidenced
by the fact that it influenced his style in the 1584 play Ulysses & Agamemnon[1]
as I have pointed out in my variorum edition of that play.
[1] Ulysses
and Agamemnon (1584). https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JD7KM1T
The play was later incorporated into Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida.
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
- Sir Henry Bedingfeld’s Notes Regarding Princess Elizabeth in The Tower. February 7, 2021. “Itm, hir grace to have lib'tee to walke in the Gardeyn when so ever she doth comaunde, forenoone and afternoone,…”
- Gutenberg, proto-Hack Writers and Shakespeare. May 26, 2020. “A less well known effect of the Reformation was that many young Catholic men who had taken religious orders in order to receive an education began to lead lives at large from monastic discipline. Like Erasmus and Rabelais they took up the pen.”
- Gossip as History: The Murder of Amy Robsart. February 17, 2020. "The first sudden death Leicester was rumored to have caused was that of his wife, Amy Robsart, in 1560. In that year, it was still not clear whether the Queen would marry. But certainly not her beloved Leicester if he were married."
- Gossip as History: Anne Boleyn, Part 1. November 8, 2019. “This is more than just gossip, I submit. It is a vital part of the historical record.”
- Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
- Check out the Letters Index: Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford for many letters
1 comment:
How long did the Queen stay at Cambridge?
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