to weep
If then as now the level plain
Beneath was spreading like the deep,
The broad unruffled main.
If like a watch-tower of the sun
Above, the Alpuxarras rose,
Streaked, when the dying day was done,
With evening's roseate snows."
Archbishop Trench.

When Mary Tudor, released by death from her first dreary marriage,
contracted for her brother's pleasure, had appeased his wrath at her
second marriage made to please herself, Henry the Eighth was only too
glad to mark his assent by all manner of festivities; and English
chroniclers, instead of recording battles and politics, had only to
write of pageantries and tournaments during the merry May of the year
1515--a May, be it remembered, which, thanks to the old style, was at
least ten days nearer to Midsummer than our present month.

How the two queens and all their court had gone a-maying on Shooter's
Hill, ladies and horses poetically disguised and labelled with sweet
summer titles, was only a nine days' wonder when the Birkenholts had
come to London, but the approaching tournament at Westminster on the
Whitsun holiday was the great excitement to the whole population, for,
with all its faults, the Court of bluff King Hal was thoroughly genial,
and every one, gentle and simple, might participate in his pleasures.

Seats were reserved at the lists for the city dignitaries and their
families, and though old Mistress Headley professed that she ought to
have done with such vanities, she could not forbear from going to see
that her son was not too much encumbered with the care of little Dennet,
and that the child herself ran into no mischief. Master Headley himself
grumbled and sighed but he put himself into his scarlet gown, holding
that his presence was a befitting attention to the king, glad to gratify
his little daughter, and not without a desire to see how his
workmanship--good English ware--held out against "mail and plate of
Milan steel," the fine armour brought home from France by the new Duke
of Suffolk. Giles donned his best in the expectation of sitting in the
places of honour as one of the family, and was greatly disgusted when
Kit Smallbones observed, "What's all that bravery for? The tilting-
match quotha? Ha! ha! my young springald, if thou see it at all, thou
must be content to gaze as thou canst from the armourers' tent, if
Tibble there chooses to be cumbered with a useless lubber like thee."

"I always sat with my mother when ther