And so the party resolved to join in the Christmas revels at Kenilworth.
CHAPTER LXIII.
WHICH ENDS THIS STRANGE EVENTFUL HISTORY.
The festival held at Kenilworth on occasion of Christmas-tide, was not on such an extended scale as on former occasions had been customary there, when Norman kings feasted and kept wassail, and when "kettle-drum and trumpet brayed out the triumph of their pledge."
In Elizabeth's reign, however, when a noble held a festival in his own halls, the entertainment was sufficiently magnificent, and conducted with all the observances of older times.
The late demise of the dark Earl, of necessity curtailed the hospitalities: yet, still the enjoined rites of the period gave the Countess an excuse for some circumstance, some little pageantry of the season. Her brilliant son, too, "the glass of fashion and the mould of form," was to be with her. And, albeit the party she invited to meet him was but small, still it was composed of some of the élite of the country round. Almost all entertainments of this period partook of the dramatic character, the taste for such was universal; and it seemed, indeed, as if he who was in reality to create the drama in England, had sprung up just at this period to supply the want of that which wan so imperfect, to substitute his own brilliant conceptions for those heavy long-winded stupid exhibitions then in vogue.
With all her power of persuasion, the Countess had not been able to persuade her friend, Clara de Mowbray, to promise her presence and participation during the intended festivities. All she could obtain being a promise, that, as that lady's departure was fixed to take place in a few days, she would remain over Christmas-eve; as on that night the Countess had invited Shakespeare to be present.
The fair Clara had before taken leave of her friend the poet in Stratford; but still, to see him at Kenilworth, and during the gaieties enacted there, would, she felt, be a great treat.
The Countess resolved to receive her son in the great hall of the Castle, an apartment which, those who have carefully perused the building will doubtless remember,—eighty-six feet long by forty-five in width. It had, some few years before, beheld those fierce vanities, what time Leicester, "with pomp, with triumph, and with revelling," entertained the Queen and her followers for seventeen successive days; and now, all in that lighted hall was green with holly and winter ornaments. The large bow window was festooned with "rarest mistletoe," the various arms and trophies were covered with green boughs, whilst the white-hall, the presence-chamber, and other rooms of which nothing now remains but the fragments of walls and the staircases which led to them, were lighted up and ornamented for the nonce. There is ever something cheering in the aspect of all around at this period of the year; something bright and joyous in the country, when old Hymns "with his icy crown," seems to wield his severe sceptre and pervade the scene; when cottage and castle, lake and forest,—all are bound down by the sharp and biting frost. The good fellowship of the world seems then more rife, and Christian feeling and brotherly love to prevail. Perhaps, the good cheer enjoyed, and expectation of more to be enjoyed, openeth the heart of men. At Kenilworth, all was hospitality. The Countess was soon to give up possession to Ambrose, Earl of Warwick, her late husband's brother; and she resolved to quit the neighborhood in no niggardly fashion. Butts of ale were broached for the poor in the villages and hamlets around, and oxen and sheep were roasted. The young Earl was expected on the eve of Christmas-day, and his popularity was just then so great, especially in that neighbourhood, that the coming of royalty itself could scarce have made a greater sensation.