[Bards] "The Queen's Champion Retires"--George Peele

[Peter Schorn]

Had a conversation at the Coronation post-revel (thank you, Your Majesties!)
with some old friends of an old friend about an Elizabethan poem known as
"The Queen's Champion Retires."  Did a bit of searching, and I found it:
apparently it's by George Peele 1558-1597 (though there seems a bit of doubt
about the authorship) and not Campion, as I'd thought.

Anyway, first the lyric:

His golden locks Time hath to silver turned.
O Time too swift! Oh swiftness never ceasing!
His youth 'gainst Time and Age hath ever spurned,
But spurned in vain; youth waneth by increasing.
Beauty, strength, youth are flowers but fading seen;
Duty, faith, love are roots and ever green.

His helmet now shall make a hive for bees,
And lover's sonnets turn to holy psalms.
A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees,
And feed on prayers which are Age's alms.
But though from Court to cottage he depart,
His Saint is sure of his unspotted heart.

And when he saddest sits in homely cell,
He'll teach his swains this carol for a song:
"Blest be the hearts that wish my Sovereign well.
Curst be the soul that think her any wrong."
Goddess, allow this aged man his right
To be your bedesman now, that was your knight.

(You can find the text online here, at The Lied: 
http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=9884 )

Lovely, isn't it?  But the context is even better.  I had thought this poem
was set to music by someone, and it was, but that's not how it was
originally performed:

'Next came John Dowland, a great traveller, who, at one time, was lutenist
to the king of Denmark...witness his setting of the poem, probably by Peele,
“His golden locks time hath to silver turned,” which was spoken before
Elizabeth by Sir Henry Lee, when he resigned the office of champion in 1590,
and is quoted by Thackeray in _The Newcomes_.'

--The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes
(1907–21). Volume IV. Prose and Poetry: Sir Thomas North to Michael Drayton.
Chapter VI. The Song-Books and Miscellanies. § 2. William Byrd; Musical
Composers

So it WAS performed before Elizabeth I upon the retirement of her champion
in 1590, **but as a spoken piece**, not as a song.  It was indeed set to
music, but afterwards, by John Dowland, and published with that music in his
_First Book of Songs_ in 1597, according to The Lied (supra).

Oh, and what about Sir Henry Lee, Queen's Champion to fabled Gloriana and,
though we know him but little, the rightful model of that Office in These
Current Middle Ages?

On the website of the Worshipful Company of Armorers (yes they have a
website-- http://www.armourersandbrasiers.co.uk/history_hall.htm ), I found
the following:

"Sir Henry Lee became Queen Elizabeth I’s champion in 1570 and was appointed
Master of the Royal Armouries in 1580 until his death. He resigned his
office of Queen’s Champion in November 1590, aged 57, when the annual
Accession Day tilts were held at Westminster, acknowledging that his ‘golden
locks time hath to silver turned’. He was made a Knight of the Garter in
1597, one of very few commoners to have enjoyed that honour. The portrait of
Sir Henry was painted by Marcus Gheeraerts in 1602.

"Anne Vavasour was appointed a Gentlewoman of the Queen’s Bedchamber in 1580
and got to know Sir Henry Lee who was Queen Elizabeth I’s Champion. She
became his mistress, although they used the rather quaint term ‘reading
lady’. Sir Henry’s wife died in 1590 and Anne moved into the Lee home at
Ditchley to keep house for him. Together, they entertained the Queen at
Ditchley in September 1592.

'Anne outlived Sir Henry, but both were buried at Quarrandon, near
Aylesbury, in a chapel of which only a remnant of the outer wall now
remains. Sir Henry’s monument showed him lying down in armour with an effigy
of Anne kneeling at his feet.'

That's his picture, there in the lower left-hand corner:  Sir Henry Lee, the
original Queen's Champion.

("Reading lady."  Oh, that's a good one...)

--Cadfan