Pageantry.—In the 15th century the tournament had the as pect of a pageant. The great meeting at Bruges, when the jousting of the Knights of the Fleece was part of the pageant of the Golden Tree, the Giant and the Dwarf, may stand as a magnificent ex ample of many such gay gatherings. When Henry VIII. was scattering his father's treasure the pageant had become an elaborate masque. For two days after the crowning of the king at Westminster, Henry and his queen viewed from the galleries of a fantastic palace set up beside the tilt-yard a play in which deer were pulled down by greyhounds in a paled park, in which the Lady Diana and the Lady Pallas came forward, embowered in moving castles, to present the champions. Such costly shows fell out of fashion after the death of Henry VIII.; and in England the tournament remained, until the end, a martial sport. In France it degenerated to the carrousel, which became an unmartial display.
The tournament was, from the first, held to be a sport for men of noble birth, and on the Continent, where nobility was more exactly defined than in England, the lists were jealously closed to all combatants but those of the privileged class. In the German lands, questions as to the purity of the strain of a candidate for admission to a noble chapter were often settled by appeal to the fact that this or that ancestor had taken part in a tournament. Konrad Grunenberg's famous heraldic manuscript shows us the Helmschau that came before the German tournament of the 15th century—the squires carrying each his master's crested helm, and a little scutcheon of arms hanging from it, to the hall where the king of arms stands among the ladies and judges each blazon.
The Eglinton Tournament.—An attempt to revive the tour ney was made at Eglinton castle, Ayrshire, in 1839. The incep tion of the idea was due to Archibald, 13th Earl of Eglinton, who found an ideal setting for his tournament in the grounds of Eglin ton castle. On Aug. 28, 1839, the lists were dressed in the park.
Each knight, with his esquires and attendants, had a separate pavilion. The lists were splendidly decorated and richly hung, and temporary adornments of Westminster Abbey at the then recent coronation were again used. At Lord Eglinton's request many of the ladies wore the costume of the i4th and 15th centuries. The marquess of Londonderry was "King of the Tournament" and Lady Seymour, afterwards duchess of Somerset, was "Queen of Love and Beauty." The official list contained the names of 15 knights earl of Eglinton, the marquess of Waterford, the earl of Craven, the earl of Cassilis, Viscount Alford, Viscount Glenlyon, the hon. Capt. Gage, the hon. Mr. Jerningham, Capt. Fairlie, Sir Frederick Johnstone, Sir Francis Hopkins, Capt. Beresford, Charles Lamb, C. Boothby and Mr. Lechmere. They were in armour and carried lances. The crown of victory was bestowed upon Lord Eglinton. The second day there was a series of mimic tilts on foot and under cover between Prince Louis Napoleon, afterwards Napoleon III., and Charles Lamb, both of whom were in armour. On the third day there was a series of "tourneys" in which eight knights, armed with swords, were en gaged. A good description of the Eglinton tournament will be found in Chapters 59 and 6o of Disraeli's famous novel, Endymion.
When Prince Humbert, afterwards Humbert I., King of Italy, was married at Turin in 1868 to Princess Margherita of Savoy, the festivities included a tournament. The Royal Naval and Military Tournament which has been held annually in London since 188o consists of a series of displays of skill in arms, in the largest sense of the phrase, but differs widely from the mediaeval tourney.