and particularly those festivities inaugurated for the entertainment of
royalty, he led a great concourse of devoted patriots through the forests
of Arden, blooming parks of Warwick Castle on to the grand surroundings of
Kenilworth, where the people _en masse_ camped, sang, danced, took part in
country plays, feasted and went wild for eighteen days, over the
illustrious daughter of Henry the Eighth.

William and myself were among the enthusiastic revelers, and for boys of
twelve years of age, we felt more cheer than any of the lads and lasses
from Stratford, because our parents furnished us with milk white ponies, to
pay tribute, and typify the virtue and chastity of the "Virgin Queen!" We
did not particularly care about virtue or virginity, so we shared in the
cakes and ale that were lavished in profusion to the rural multitude.

A high grand throne made out of evergreens and wild flowers was erected in
the central park of Kenilworth, rimmed in by lofty elms, oaks and
sycamores.

There, through the fleeting days and nights, the Queen and her royal suite
of a thousand purpled cavaliers and bejeweled maids of honor, held court
and viewed the ever-changing, living panorama evolved for their
entertainment. The Queen looked like a wilderness of lace and variegated
velvet, irrigated with a shower of diamonds.

On the 9th of July Queen "Bess" and her illuminated suite entered the
Castle of Kenilworth, and the hands of the clock in the great tower pointed
to the hour of two, where they remained until her departure, as invitation
to a continual banquet.

The Earl expended a thousand pounds a day for the fluid and food
entertainment of his guests, while woodland bowers and innumerable tents
were scattered through the royal domain generously donated to man and maid
by night and day. We boys and girls seldom went to bed.

Companies of circus performers, and theatrical artists, from London and
other towns were brought down to the heart of Old Albion to swell the
pleasure of the reigning Queen. Continual plays were going on, while horn,
fife, bugle and drum lent music to the kaleidoscopic revel.

Dancing, hunting, hawking and archery parties, through the day, lent their
antics to the scene, and when night came with bright Luna showing her
mystic face, forest fires, rockets and illuminated balloons filled the air
with celestial wonder, vieing with the stars in an effort to do universal
honor to the "Virgin Queen!" That's what