Part 15 (1/2)

But wide as is the range of the Romances of the ”Round Table,” they form but a portion of those which solaced our ancestors. Charlemagne and his Paladins were, so to speak, the solar system round which another circle revolved; Alexander furnished the radiating star for another, derived chiefly perhaps from the East, where numbers of fict.i.tious tales were prevalent about him; and many Romances were likewise woven around the mangled remains of cla.s.sic heroes.

”The mightiest chiefs of British song Scorn'd not such legends to prolong; They gleam through Spenser's elfic dream, And mix in Milton's heavenly theme; And Dryden in immortal strain, Had raised the 'Table Round' again.”

The Stories of the Tapestry in the Royal Palaces of Henry VIII. are preserved in the British Museum.[94]

These are some of them re-copied from Warton:--

In the tapestry of the Tower of London, the original and most ancient seat of our monarchs, there are recited, G.o.dfrey of Bulloign; the Three Kings of Cologne; the Emperor Constantine; St. George; King of Erkenwald; the History of Hercules; Fame and Honour; the Triumph of Divinity; Esther and Ahasueras; Jupiter and Juno; St. George; the Eight Kings; the Ten Kings of France; the Birth of our Lord; Duke Joshua; the Riche History of King David; the Seven Deadly Sins; the Riche History of the Pa.s.sion; the Stem of Jesse; Our Lady and Son; King Solomon; the Woman of Canony; Meleager; and the Dance of Maccabee.

At Durham Place were the Citie of Ladies (a French allegorical Romance); the Tapestrie of Thebes and of Troy; the City of Peace; the Prodigal Son; Esther, and other pieces of Scripture.

At Windsor Castle the Siege of Jerusalem; Ahasueras; Charlemagne; the Siege of Troy; and Hawking and Hunting.

At Nottingham Castle, Amys and Amelion.

At Woodstock Manor, the tapestrie of Charlemagne.

At the More, a palace in Hertfords.h.i.+re, King Arthur, Hercules, Astyages, and Cyrus.

At Richmond, the arras of Sir Bevis, and Virtue and Vice fighting.

Among the rest we have also Hannibal, Holofernes, Romulus and Remus, aeneas, and Susannah.

Many of these subjects were repeated at Westminster, Greenwich, Oatlands, Bedington in Surrey, and other royal seats, some of which are now unknown as such.

FOOTNOTES:

[84] Warton.

[85] Arras, a very common anachronism. After the production of the arras tapestries, arras became the common name for all tapestries: even for those which were wrought before the looms of Arras were in existence.

[86] Moynes--nun. Lady Werburg

[87] _Spyre_--twig, branch.

[88] _Youre_--burnt.

[89] _Hallynge_--Tapestry.

[90] _Faythtes_--feats, facts.

[91] _Brothered_--embroidered.

[92] Epistolae Ho-Elianae.

[93] ”Fifteen acres were covered with the bodies of slaughtered Saracens; and so furious were the strokes of Sir Guy, that the pile of dead men, wherever his sword had reached, rose as high as his breast.”--Ellis, vol. ii.

[94] Harl. MSS. 1419.

CHAPTER XIII.