The Second Woodstock Entertainment, 20 Sept. 1592, and Other Fragments
[MSS.] (a) Ferrers MS., a collection made by Henry Ferrers of Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire (1549–1633).
(b) Inner Temple Petyt MS. 538, 43, ff. 284–363.
[A collection of verses by Lady Pembroke, Sir John Harington, Francis Bacon (q.v.) and others, bound as part of a composite MS.]
(c) Viscount Dillon kindly informs me that a part of the entertainment, dated ‘20 Sept.’, is in his possession.
Editions (Ferrers MS. only) by W. Hamper, Masques: Performed before Queen Elizabeth (1820), and in Kenilworth Illustrated (1821), Nichols, Eliz.2 iii. 193 (1828), and R. W. Bond, Lyly, i. 412, 453 (1902).
The Ferrers MS. seems to contain ten distinct pieces, separated from each other only by headings, to which I have prefixed the numbers.
(i) ‘A Cartell for a Challeng.’
Three ‘strange forsaken knightes’ offer to maintain ‘that Loue is worse than hate, his Subiectes worse than slaues, and his Rewarde worse than naught: And that there is a Ladie that scornes Loue and his power, of more vertue and greater bewtie than all the Amorouse Dames that be at this day in the worlde’. This cannot be dated. Sir Robert Carey (Memoirs, 33) tilted as a ‘forsaken knight’ on 17 Nov. 1593 (not 1592, as stated by Brotanek, 60), but he was not a challenger, and was alone. The tone resembles that of Sir Henry Lee, and if he took part, the date must be earlier than 1590.
(ii) ‘Sir Henry Lee’s challenge before the Shampanie.’