the steel-clad knights and esquires, with their tiltings and joustings,
amid the smiles and favours of youth and beauty, have given place to the
struggles of the weaver and the winder in their weary battle of life, for
the guerdon of daily bread. Where, Edward and Phillippa held their
Easter tournament, and their gallant son, the brave Black Prince,
displayed his knightly prowess amid splendours that might rival the
"field of the cloth of gold," poverty, hard labour, and penury now rear
their gaunt limbs; and the tale of the "Paramatta weaver" is breathed
forth to the listening ear of humanity from its precincts.

But the tournament demands attention, inwrought as it is with every
conception we may form of the days of chivalry; and, thanks to the
patient researches of many chroniclers, we have not much difficulty in
learning all we may desire to know concerning these glories of an age
gone by. Fiction has given life and vigour to these features of past
history. Ivanhoe lives and breathes before us at the mention of a
tournament, and plain prose facts may not vie with the glowing pictures,
painted with imagination's rainbow hues. The tournament was not
altogether the play-ground of full-grown knights and esquires, as romance
would sometimes tend to show it;--it was the theatre on which many an
important drama of life was played; it was a grand field for introduction
into military life, then the only life deemed worthy the ambition of a
gentleman; and the laws and regulations to which all who presented
themselves as candidates for honours became subject, bespeak the
importance attached to the favours it conferred.

The mode of conducting a tournament was established by law. It was
preceded always by a proclamation; one worded thus, is given by Strutt:
"Be it known unto you, lords, knights, and esquires, ladies and
gentlewomen," (they did not in those days of chivalry commence ladies, my
lords and gentlemen) "you are hereby acquainted, that a superb
achievement in arms, and a grand and noble tournament, will be held in
the parade of Clarencieux king at arms, on the part of the most noble
baron, lord of I. C. B., and on the part of the most noble baron the lord
of C. B. D., in the parade of Norreys king at arms." The regulations
that follow are these: "The two barons on whose part the tournament is
undertaken shall be at their pavilions two days before the commencement
of the sports, when each of them shall cause his