Page 371 (1/2)

Room! room! for my horse ince

If he comes within so many yards of a prince;

For to tell you true, and in rhyreat Earl of Lester

In his castle did feast her

--BEN JONSON, MASQUE OF OWLS

The amusement hich Elizabeth and her court were next day to be

regaled was an exhibition by the true-hearted men of Coventry, ere

to represent the strife between the English and the Danes, agreeably

to a custoh, and warranted for

truth by old histories and chronicles In this pageant one party of the

townsfolk presented the Saxons and the other the Danes, and set forth,

both in rude rhymes and with hard blows, the contentions of these two

fierce nations, and the A to the story, were the principal agents in the general

massacre of the Danes, which took place at Hocktide, in the year of God

1012 This sport, which had been long a favourite pastime with the

men of Coventry, had, it seeymen of the more precise cast, who chanced to have

considerable influence with the enerality of the

inhabitants had petitioned the Queen that they ain, and be honoured with perhness And when the matter was canvassed in the little council which

usually attended the Queen for dispatch of business, the proposal,

although opposed by some of the stricter sort, found favour in the eyes

of Elizabeth, who said that such toys occupied, without offence, the