he city nigh
choked with the torrents that set in from every quarter.

From the windows of the houses, where lodged the knights appointed to
the encounter, hung their several coats, richly emblazoned, rousing
forth many a shout and hurrah, as one and another symbol was recognised
to be the badge of some favourite chief; but more than all, was the
young Stanley's escutcheon favoured by the fickle breath of popular
opinion, which made it needful that a double guard should be mounted
near his dwelling,--a precaution, moreover, rendered needful by the many
tumults among the different partisans and retainers, not always ending
without bloodshed. The arrival of the king, however, soon changed the
current of the wondering multitude. Edward was now in his sixty-fourth
year, and the fiftieth of his reign. Though the decline of his life did
not correspond with the splendid and noisy scenes which had illustrated
the earlier periods of his history, yet he still manifested the same
restless and undaunted spirit, ever considered as the prevailing
attribute of his character. Towards the close of his career he had the
mortification to endure the loss of his foreign possessions, having been
baffled in every attempt to defend them. He felt, too, the decay of his
authority at home, from the inconstancy and discontents of his subjects.
Though his earlier years had been spent amid the din and tumult of war
and the business of the camp, yet was he, at this period, almost wholly
given up to pleasure and the grossest of sensual indulgences. Alice
Pierce, to whom he was immoderately attached, had gained an ascendancy
over him so dangerous that the parliament remonstrated, with a courage
and firmness worthy of a more enlightened era, and in the end he was
obliged to remove her from court. Sometimes the spirit of his youth
awoke; the glory of past ages was stirred up within him; and, like the
aged war-horse neighing to the shrill note of the trumpet, he greeted
the approaching tournament with something of his wonted ardour,--though
now but an expiring flash, brightening a moment ere it was extinguished.

The day rose calm and unclouded. The thin haze of the morning had
disappeared, and an atmosphere of more than common brilliancy succeeded.
Through a great part of the preceding night the armourers had been
busily employed altering and refitting the equipments, and the dawn had
already commenced ere their labours were suspended. The lists were
ca