Accession Day tilt

George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland attired as the Knight of Pendragon Castle for the Tilt of 1590, by Nicholas Hilliard. His pageant shield leans against the tree. The Queen's "favour", a glove, is attached to his hat.

The Accession Day tilts were a series of elaborate festivities held annually at the court of Elizabeth I of England to celebrate her Accession Day, 17 November, also known as Queene's Day.[1] The tilts combined theatrical elements with jousting, in which Elizabeth's courtiers competed to outdo each other in allegorical armour and costume, poetry, and pageantry to exalt the queen and her realm of England.[2]

The last Elizabethan Accession Day tilt was held in November 1602; the queen died the following spring. Tilts continued as part of festivities marking the Accession Day of James I, 24 March, until 1624, the year before his death.[3]

  1. ^ which was elevated into a Protestant feast day by adding it to the Anglican Church calendar: "All over England the Queen's subjects expressed their joy in her Government by prayers and sermons, bell-ringing, bonfires and feasting", notes Roy C. Strong, "The Popular Celebration of the Accession Day of Queen Elizabeth I" Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 21.1/2 (January 1958:86-103) p 87; see also, whereon sttod a lyon and a dragon, supporters Strong (1984):19 and Hutton 1994:146-151
  2. ^ Strong 1977, p. 129-133
  3. ^ Strong (1987):137-138; Young, p. 208