f a similar kind, both religious and military, which had been
instituted by different monarchs of Europe; and that those who were
admitted to the order were enjoined to exalt the religion of Christ
is evident from some lines which Chaucer addressed to the Lords and
Knights--

"Do forth, do forth, continue your succour,
Hold up Christ's banner, let it not fall."

And again--

"Ye Lordis eke, shining in noble fame,
To which appropered is the maintenance
Of Christ 'is cause; in honour of his name,
Shove on, and put his foes to utterance."

In imitation of King Arthur, Edward III. set up at Windsor a Round
Table, which was consecrated with feasts and tournaments, and baptized
with the blood of the brave. On New Year's Day, 1344, he issued his
royal letters of protection for the safe-coming and return of foreign
knights to the solemn jousts which he appointed to be held at Windsor
on St. Hilary's Day, in extension of the Christmas festivities. The
festival was opened with a splendid supper; and the next day, and
until Lent, all kinds of knightly feats of arms were performed. "The
queen and her ladies," says an old historian, "that they might with
more convenience behold this spectacle, were orderly seated upon a
firm ballustrade, or scaffold, with rails before it, running all round
the lists. And certainly their extraordinary beauties, set so
advantageously forth with excessive riches of apparel, did prove a
sight as full of pleasant encouragement to the combatants, as the
fierce hacklings of men and horses, gallantly armed, were a delightful
terror to the feminine beholders."

[Illustration: LADIES LOOKING FROM THE HUSTINGS UPON THE TOURNAMENT.]

In 1348 Edward III. kept a grand Christmas at Guildford. "Orders were
given to manufacture for the Christmas sports eighty tunics of buckram
of different colours, and a large number of masks--some with faces of
women, some with beards, some like angel heads of silver. There were
to be mantles embroidered with heads of dragons, tunics wrought with
heads and wings of peacocks, and embroidered in many other fantastic
ways. The celebration of Christmas lasted from All Hallow's Eve, the
31st of October, till the day after the Purification, the 3rd of
February. At the court a lord of misrule was appointed, who reigned
during the whole of this period, and was called 'the master of merry
disports.' He ruled over and organised all the games and sports, and
during the peri