which was to enliven her majesty’s riding excursion, was made up of nymphs playing in water, the space occupied for the same being a square of sixty feet, with a deep hole four feet square in some part of it, to answer for a cave. The ground was covered with canvas, painted like grass, with running cords through the rings attached to its sides, which obeyed another small cord in the centre, by which machinery, with two holes on the ground, the earth was made to appear to open and shut. In the cave, in the centre, was music, and the twelve water-nymphs, dressed in white silk with green sedges, so cunningly stitched on them, that nothing else could be seen. Each carried in her hand a bundle of bulrushes, and on her head a garland of ivy and a crop of moss, from whence streamed their long golden tresses over their shoulders. Four nymphs were to come forth successively and salute her majesty with a speech, then all twelve were to issue forth and dance with timbrels.
The show of Manhood and Desert, designed for the entertainment at Lord Surrey’s, was also placed close by. Manhood, Favour, Desert, striving for a boy called Beauty, who, however, was to fall to the share of Good fortune. A battle should have followed, between six gentlemen on either side, in which Fortune was to be victorious; during the combat, legs and arms of men “well and lively wrought”, were to be let
fall in numbers on the ground “as bloody as might be.” Fortune marcheth off a conqueror, and a song for the death of Manhood, Favour, and Desert, concluded the programme. But, alas! all this preparation was rendered of no avail, by reason of a drenching thunder-shower, which so “dashed and washed performers and spectators, that the pastime was reduced to the display of a dripping multitude, looking like half-drowned rats; and velvets, silks, tinsels, and cloth of gold, to no end of an amount, fell a sacrifice to this caprice of the weather.”
The evening entertainment at the guildhall was more successful, the casualties of rain and wind having no power there, to disturb the arrangements got up with so much labour and cost. After a magnificent banquet in the common council chamber, above the assize court, a princely masque of gods and goddesses, richly apparelled, was presented before her majesty.
Mercury entered first, followed by two torch-bearers, in purple taffeta mandillions, laid with silver lace; then the musicians, dressed in long vestures of white silk girded about them, and garlands on their heads; next came Jupiter and Juno, Mars and Venus, Apollo and Pallas, Neptune and Diana, and lastly Cupid, between each couple two torch-bearers. Thus they marched round the chamber, and Mercury delivered his message to the queen.
“The good-meaning mayor and all his brethren, with the rest, have not rested from praying to the gods, to prosper thy coming hither; and the gods themselves, moved by their unfeigned prayers, are ready in person to bid thee welcome; and I, Mercury, the god of merchants and merchandise, and therefore a favourer of the citizens, being thought meetest am chosen fittest to signify the same. Gods there be, also, which cannot come, being tied by the time of the year, as Ceres in harvest, Bacchus in wines, Pomona in orchards. Only Hymeneus denieth his good-will either in presence or in person; notwithstanding Diana hast so counter-checked him, therefore, as he shall hereafter be at your commandment. For my part, as I am a rejoicer at your coming, so am I furtherer of your welcome hither, and for this time I bid you farewell.”
All then marched about again, at the close of each circuit, stopping for the gods to present each a gift to her majesty; Jupiter, a riding wand of whalebone, curiously wrought; Mars, a fair pair of knives; Venus, a white dove; Apollo, a musical instrument, called a bandonet; Pallas, a book of wisdom; Neptune, a fish; Diana, a bow and arrows, of silver; Cupid, an arrow of gold, with these lines on the shaft—
“My colour joy, my substance pure,
My virtue such as shall endure.”
The queen received the gifts with gracious condescension, listening the while to the verses recited by the gods as accompaniments.
On Friday, being the day fixed for her majesty’s departure, the devisor prepared one last grand spectacle, water spirits, to the sound of whose timbrels was spoken “her majesty’s farewell to Norwich;” and thus terminated this season of rejoicing, but not with it the results of the royal visitation.