CHAPTER XI. AY DI ME GRENADA



"In sooth it was a thing to weep
If then as now the level plain
Beneath was spreading like the deep,
The broad unruffled main.
If like a watch-tower of the sun
Above, the Alpuxarras rose,
Streaked, when the dying day was done,
"With evening's roseate snows."

ARCHBISHOP TRENCH.


When Mary Tudor, released by death from her first dreary marriage,
contracted for her brother's pleasure, had appeased his wrath at her
second marriage made to please herself, Henry VIII. was only too
glad to mark his assent by all manner of festivities; and English
chroniclers, instead of recording battles and politics, had only to
write of pageantries and tournaments during the merry May of the
year 1515--a May, be it remembered, which, thanks to the old style,
was at least ten days nearer to Midsummer than our present month.

How the two queens and all their court had gone a-maying on
Shooter's Hill, ladies and horses poetically disguised and labelled
with sweet summer titles, was only a nine days' wonder when the
Birkenholts had come to London, but the approaching tournament at
Westminster on the Whitsun holiday was the great excitement to the