THE

PROGRESSES

PROCESSIONS, AND MAGNIFICENT FESTIVITIES

OF

KING JAMES THE FIRST
HIS ROYAL CONSORT, FAMILY AND COURT

COLLECTED FROM

Driginal Manuscripts, Scarce Pamphlets, Corporation Records, Parochial Registers, ec. ec.

COMPRISING

FORTY MASQUES AND ENTERTAINMENTS; TEN CIVIC PAGEANTS

NUMEROUS ORIGINAL LETTERS

AND ANNOTATED LISTS OF THE PEERS, BARONETS, AND KNIGHTS, WHO RECEIVED THOSE
HONOURS DURING THE REIGN OF KING JAMES

Mlustrated with Rotes, Historical, Topographical, Biographical, and Bibliographical
BY JOHN NICHOLS, F.S.A. LOND. EDINB. & PERTH

VOLUME I

Burt Franklin: Research and Source Works Series #118

PUBLISHED BY

BURT FRANKLIN 235 EAST 44TH ST.

NEW YORK, N. Y. 10017

FIRST PUBLISHED

LONDON 1828

PRINTED IN U.S.A.

PREFACE.

MORE than forty years have elapsed since, at the suggestion, and by the assistance, of my kind friend and relation Bishop Percy, I began to collect the various Pamphlets and Manuscripts which detail the Progresses, &c. of the illustrious Queen Elizabeth. Two volumes of that work were submitted to the Publick in 1788, and were so favourably received, that in 1804 I ventured to produce a Third Volume, which, by a calamitous accident, became scarce not long after its first appearance.

The materials which were contained in those volumes having been printed, at various times, as the several articles were acquired, and most of them being separately paged, it was scarcely possible to form any thing like a regular Index to them; but in 1823, when I undertook a new edition, the whole Work was chronologically arranged, and, with various additions and the necessary Indexes, (some Latin complimentary Poems only being omitted,) it formed three uniform and handsome volumes.

During the long period in which the Elizabethan Progresses were passing through my hands, many valuable materials relative to the succeeding reign were gradually assembled. With the view of permanently preserving these collections, I commenced printing the present Work,-unaware, I must own, of the length to which it has extended. In the quantity of its contents it much exceeds the former publication; and I entertain no apprehension that those contents will be considered less valuable.

The numerous Tracts re-printed in these Volumes may mostly be classed as either poetical panegyrics; descriptions of various solemnities and festivities; or dramatic performances. "Sorrowes Joy," and four others written on the King's Accession or Coronation, are of the first description. But it was soon found necessary to desist from inserting those multitudinous productions, a bare enume