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"Simply," answered Laneham, "that your lordship would be, as heretofore, my good lord, and procure me license to attend the Summer Progress unto your lordship's most beautiful and all-to-be-unmatched Castle of Kenilworth." "To what purpose, good Master Laneham?" replied the Earl; "bethink you, my guests must needs be many."
It is by no means our purpose to detail minutely all the princely festivities of Kenilworth, after the fashion of Master Robert Laneham, whom we quoted in the conclusion of the last chapter.
"Oh, she is well attended, madam," replied the dame whom she addressed, who, from her jolly and laughter-loving demeanour, might have been the very emblem of the Wife of Bath; "and my gossip Laneham thinks as little of these matters as any one. By the ninth day, an the revels last so long, we shall have her with us at Kenilworth, even if she should travel with her bantling on her back."
We should have Ascham inveighing against the ancients and their idle and blind way of living: 'in our father's time, he says, 'nothing was read but books of feigned chivalry'; but Captain Cox would come forth to meet him, attired as in the tournament at Kenilworth, or in the picture which Dibdin has extracted from Laneham.
A perpetual blush, which occupied rather the sharp nose than the thin cheek of this personage, seemed to speak more of "good life," as it was called, than of modesty; and the manner in which he approached to the Earl confirmed that suspicion. "Good even to you, Master Robert Laneham," said Leicester, and seemed desirous to pass forward, without further speech.
But as reinforcements came up on either side, the encounter grew from a skirmish into a blazing battle. They rushed upon one another, as Master Laneham testifies, like rams inflamed by jealousy, with such furious encounter that both parties were often overthrown, and the clubs and targets made a most horrible clatter.
"Methinks you have found out a fly-blown comparison for the honourable council, Master Laneham," said the Earl; "but seek not about to justify it. Come to Kenilworth, if you list; there will be store of fools there besides, and so you will be fitted."
"We can ill afford to spare any of our actors." "GAUDET NOMINE SIBYLLAE," said the first speaker; "she is called Sibyl Laneham, wife of Master Robert Laneham " "Clerk to the Council-chamber door," said Varney; "why, she is inexcusable, having had experience how to have ordered her matters better. But who were those, a man and a woman, I think, who rode so hastily up the hill before me even now?
At the same time that the Queen was about to enter the Castle, that memorable discharge of fireworks by water and land took place, which Master Laneham, formerly introduced to the reader, has strained all his eloquence to describe.
"I have a suit to your noble lordship," said the figure, boldly following him. "And what is it, good master keeper of the council-chamber door?" "CLERK of the council-chamber door," said Master Robert Laneham, with emphasis, by way of reply, and of correction. "Well, qualify thine office as thou wilt, man," replied the Earl; "what wouldst thou have with me?"