ABSTRACT
From five-act plays at the Theatre and royal masques at court to pageants at manor houses and tournaments in tiltyards, Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester and his descendants shared patronage and participation in the public and private entertainments for three generations. Sir Philip Sidney’s participation in The Four Foster Children of Desire and the authorship of Astrea by his sister Mary, Countess of Pembroke, are only two examples of such entertainments from an incomparable Sidney family legacy. Other entertainments supervised for Queen Anne by Robert Sidney and masques and tilts with his nephews William and Philip Herbert centered on Prince Henry from 1609 until his unexpected death in 1612, and thereafter on Prince Charles. Under both elizabeth and James there were Accession Day tilts annually, but throughout the decade such chivalric remnants took various forms: there was the tilt, in which combatants rode against each other with lances separated by a palisade; the tourney, where mounted knights fought with rebated swords; and the barriers, often fought inside on foot with sword or pike. Annual Twelfth night celebrations at court meant splendid feasting, dancing, and masques. Robert’s daughter, Mary Wroth, brought them into the realm of fiction. Cumulatively, their involvement was unrivaled.
