Cowdray Entertainment. 1591
1591. The Speeches and Honorable Entertainment giuen to the Queenes Maiestie in Progresse, at Cowdrey in Sussex, by the right Honorable the Lord Montacute. Thomas Scarlet, sold by William Wright.
1591. The Honorable Entertainment.... Thomas Scarlet, sold by William Wright. [A different text, with a fuller description, but without the words of the songs, and inaccurately dated.]
Editions by J. Nichols, Eliz.2 iii. 90 (1823), and R. W. Bond, Lyly, i. 421 (1902).
The host was Anthony Browne, first Viscount Montague. Gascoigne’s mask of 1572 was also written for him. Bond assigns the present entertainment, conjecturally, to Lyly. McKerrow, 20, records that William Barley, the stationer, was brought before the High Commission for selling at Cowdray, on some date before 1598, a twopenny book relating to Her Majesty’s progress.
The diary is as follows:
14 Aug. 1591. Speech by a Porter at the bridge on arrival at night.
15 Aug. Sunday: a day of rest.
16 Aug. Hunting in Park, and delivery of bow with a ditty by a Nymph.
17 Aug. Dinner at the Priory, where Lord Montague lodged, and speeches in the walks by a Pilgrim and a Wild Man, at an oak hung with Sussex escutcheons, and a ditty before hunting.