A Letter

Kenilworth!The princely pleasures of Kenilworth Castle!Of all the manor house shows with which Queen Elizabeth was entertained, none was more magnificent that the Earl of Leicester's in 1575 at Kenilworth.His entertainment was the prototype, including as it did the various kinds of divertissement characteristic of the manor house shown as a dramatic form.It is informed by a strong sense of the place, as are less lavish but more congenial shows at Theobalds in the 1 5 90' s, for it celebrates the beauty and the amenity of Kenilworth while transforming the natural advantages (and disadvantages) of the estate by the appearance of pre- ternatural, legendary, and allegorical figures.Just as the feasting and the festivities were portrayed as manifestations of the approbation of the gods, local and Olympian, thrilled by the visit of the Queen, so inclement weather was turned to compliment by supposing that the same deities felt grief and shed tears at her departure.The grandeur of the estate, before and after its transformation into a kind of fantasyland by the appearance of fictive characters, bespoke, of course, the worth of the lord of the manor.As Robert Langham put it, coming out of "poeticaliteez," "What a magnificent lord may we justly account him that coold so highli cast order for such a Jupiter and all hiz Gods besyde" (68-9).The Kenilworth festivities went beyond the person of the host and the beauty of his place, however, because a royal visit provided an opportunity for proud locals and penurious poets, would-be civil servants, to express their goodwill and their readiness to serve the monarch.Like the reception of the Queen at Cowdray, which went beyond the concerns of the Catholic Montague family to include a chivalric tree symbolising the patriotism of all Sussex, the entertainment at Kenilworth expressed a broader base of loyalty by including a country bridal and the Coventry Hock Tuesday play.And though Robert Langham names not one of the artists whom Leicester hired for the occasion, his entertainment, like later shows at Harefield and Cecil House for Sir John Davies, gave Gascoigne, Ferrers, Goldingham, and Hunnis a splendid opportunity to win royal preferment.Indeed Gascoigne' s farewell, delivered ex tempore while jogging along beside Elizabeth's coach, remains if not the most memorable, surely the most energetic of all such suits.Given the importance of the entertainment at Kenilworth Castle more important because the observed of all observers were no less than Elizabeth and Leicester-R.J. P. Kuin' s new edition ofA Letter by Robert Langham, one of the two chief sources of information about the event, prompts some excitement This new edition also brings some relief to someone who has worried about

Historical Art and Culture Studies · History · Literature: history, themes, analysis · Scottish History and National Identity