¹ Robert Dudley's most recent biographer has remarked on the confusion regarding the date of Dudley's release from the Tower (Wilson, D., Sweet Robin (London, 1981), note 31, p. 316)Google Scholar. Unfortunately, Wilson adds to it by mixing up his primary sources. Arthur Collins (not Stow, as Wilson contends) states that Ambrose and Robert were released on 18 October 1554 along with their dying brother John, (Letters and memorials of state (London, 1746), 1, 36 and 44)Google Scholar. Wilson disputes this early date, arguing that the pardons issued to the three surviving brothers, the patents for which are dated 22 January 1555, constituted an order for release (p. 69). In fact, the two procedures were not the same and do not necessarily coincide; a pardon could often post-date the release from prison by some time.

² Letters and memorials of state, ed. A. Collins, 1, 35.

³ The tournament lists and score cheques in the College of Arms have recently been bound in a single volume, with this cheque numbered folio 17 and miscatalogued as one of a series of cheques dated 21 April 1560. Sydney Anglo, who examined these materials earlier, when they were still in box 37, had dated it tentatively as 18 December 1554; see his ‘Archives of the English tournament: score cheques and lists’, Journal of the Society of Archivists, II (1962), 160, appendix 1, 3bGoogle Scholar.

⁴ Roy Strong's work on Elizabethan chivalry powerfully illuminates the role assumed by men like Essex and Dudley in chivalric pageantry, but, in his view, chivalry is essentially royal propaganda, ‘an integral part of the official ‘image’ projected by sixteenth century monarchs’, The cult of Elizabeth (London, 1977), pp. 161–2Google Scholar.

⁵ College of Arms MS M. 6. Anglo calls this ‘the parent volume’ of two later manuscript collections, British Museum MSS Harleian 69 and Additional 33,735. ‘Financial and heraldic records of the English tournaments’, Journal of the Society of Archivists, 11 (1962), 192Google Scholar.

⁶ Calendar of State Papers, Spanish XIII, Philip, and Mary, (July 1554-November 1558), ed.Tyler, R. (London, 1954), p. 33 and pp. 49–50Google Scholar; hereafter cited in the text as CSP, Sp.

⁷ See Anglo, Sydney, Spectacle, pageantry, and early Tudor policy (Oxford, 1969)Google Scholar and Kipling, Gordon, The triumph of honor (The Hague, 1977)Google Scholar.

⁸ The chronicle and political papers of King Edward VI, ed. Jordan, W. K. (London, 1966), p. 61Google Scholar.

⁹ The names of Sir George Howard, Sir William Howard, and Sir John Perrot appear on both the tilt lists of Edward's reign and the prize list for the 14 December barriers. See the Chronicle…of King Edward, p. 103 and p. 106, and SirSegar, William, Honor, military and civil (1602), ed. Bornstein, Diane (New York, 1975), pp. 93–194Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Machyn, Henry, Diary, ed. Nichols, J. G. (London, 1848), p. 79Google Scholar.

¹¹ Machyn, pp. 80, 84 and 83.

¹² Yates, Frances A., The Valois tapestries (London, 1959; rpt. 1975), p. 54Google Scholar.

¹³ Yates, p. 52.

¹⁴ Wilson, p. 73. As Wilson points out, Dudley managed to be friendly with both the members of Philip's entourage and opponents of the regime.

¹⁵ Chronicle…of King Edward, pp. 31–2, 97, 103, 105, 106. See also Anglo's discussion of Northumberland's use of court spectacle to divert the king and the people from the execution of Somerset and the political problems ensuing in Spectacle, pageantry, and early Tudor policy, pp. 303–4

¹⁶ College of Arms tournament cheques, fos. 17, 19–20, 22–23V. Dudley may have been replaced in the April tournament by Sussex; see fo. 23V. The folio numbers in the volume are out of sequence and several are repeated twice, making clear reference difficult. Also the 5 November 1559 tournament has been misdated as 28 April 1560. See Anglo ‘Score cheques’ p. 160, appendix I, 5.

¹⁷ SirWagner, Anthony, Heralds of England (London, 1967), p. 105Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Axton, Marie, ‘Robert Dudley and the Inner Temple revels’, Historical Journal, XIII (1970), 368–73Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, 1, Elizabeth (1558–1567), ed. Hume, Martin A.S. (London, 1892), p. 404Google Scholar.

²⁰ Strong, R. C. and van Dorsten, J. A., Leicester's triumph (Leiden, 1964)Google Scholar.

²¹ The contents of MS M. 6 are described in the Catalogue of the Heralds' commemorative exhibition, 1484–1934 (1936; rpt. London, 1970), p. 65.

²² The first and last illustrations are reproduced in the Heralds' Catalogue, plates xin and XIV.

²³ An attaint is a blow in which the lance does not shatter. See Anglo's discussion of scoring methods in ‘Score cheques’, pp. 154–9.

²⁴ SirBurke, Bernard, General armory, (London, 1884)Google Scholar and Fox-Davies, A. C., Heraldic badges (London, 1907)Google Scholar.

²⁵ Halle, Edward, The union of the two noble families of Lancaster and York, ed. Ellis, H. (1809), 688Google Scholar.

²⁶ College of Arms MS, M. 6, fos. 59V. The original is included among the Tournament cheques, fo. 67.

²⁷ Godfrey, W., Wagner, A. and Stanford, H. London, Sixteenth monograph of the London survey committee (London, 1963), 84Google Scholar. See also Wagner, Heralds of England, p. 209.

²⁸ On the increase in genealogical activity under Elizabeth, see Wagner, A., The records and collections of the College of Arms (London, 1952), 15Google Scholar. Leicester and his father were each defensive about their parvenu status, and both employed several heralds to tone up their genealogy. The charges regarding their lack of ‘ancient nobility’ were most effectively formulated in ‘Leicester's Commonwealth’. See Orwen, SWilliam R., ‘Spenser's ‘Stemmata Dudleiana”’, Motes and Queries, CXC (1946), 9–11Google Scholar.

²⁹ Orwen, pp. 10–11.

³⁰ On royal and ecclesiastical opposition to medieval tournaments see Clepham, R. C., The tournament (London, 1919), 11–13Google Scholar and Barber, Richard, The knight and chivalry (New York, 1975), p. 293Google Scholar.

³¹ Strong and van Dorsten, Leicester's triumph, p. 48.

³² Strong and van Dorsten, p. 50 and pp. 56–8.

³³ The obelisk and vine are the first of Whitney's, Geoffrey emblems in A choice of emblems and other devises, published in 1586 and dedicated to Leicester ([Amsterdam, 1969], p. 1)Google Scholar. There the device is glossed as a symbol of the English church's dependence on the queen. The emblem appears before this in Claude Paradin's Devises herotques, in 1551 and 1557, as the device of the cardinal of Lorraine, and its gloss is subtly ambiguous, with a suggestion of the vine overtopping the support (Paradin, Claude, Devises herotques (1557), ed. Horden, John (Menston, England, 1971), 72–3)Google Scholar. I am grateful to Professor Margaret McGowan for calling the latter source to my attention.