The Queen's band of gentlemen-pensioners formed a perfect illustration of the chivalric principle of the dignity of obedience, for it was the highest ambition of the nobility to be enrolled among them. Their tilts in Greenwich Park would have done honour to the brightest days of chivalry. But still more select were the knights-tilters, a fraternity founded on the gallant resolve of Sir Henry Lee to appear in the royal tilt-yard on the anniversary of the Queen's birth in honour of Her Majesty. Some of these knights were preux chevaliers indeed. The Queen's glove accidentally dropped from her hand during a tournament, and the Earl of Cumberland had the good fortune to recover it. Fancying herself some dame of chivalry, she desired the Earl to retain it; and he with a gallant spirit, regarding it as the favour of a lady, had it set in diamonds, and always wore it on festival occasions in the high crowned hats which had superseded the helmet. For so polite was the court of Elizabeth, that 'Ne any there doth brave or valiant seem, Unless that same gay mistress' badge he wear.'[120] [Sidenote: Sir Henry Lee.] From 1571 to 1590 Sir Henry Lee was the Queen's champion; and being then worn down with age and infirmity, he resigned his office to the Earl of Cumberland. The ceremony is admirably expressive of the romantic feeling of the time and the vanity of Elizabeth. It was partly a mask and partly a chivalric show. On the 17th of November, 1590, Sir Henry Lee and the Earl, having performed their services in arms, presented themselves to the Queen at the foot of the stairs under her gallery-window in the tilt-yard, Westminster, where Her Majesty was seated, surrounded by the French ambassador, her ladies, and the chief nobility. Soft music then saluted the ears of the Queen, and one of the royal singers chaunted these lines: "My golden locks time hath to silver turn'd, (Oh time too swift, and swiftness never ceasing!) My youth 'gainst age, and age at youth hath spurn'd; But spurn'd in vain, youth waneth by increasing: Beauty, strength, and youth, flowers fading been, Duty, faith, and love, are roots, and evergreen. "My helmet now shall make a hive for bees; And lovers' songs shall turn to holy psalms: A man at arms must now sit on his knees, And feed on prayers that are old age's alms. And so from court to cottage I depart: My saint is sure of mine unspotted heart. "And when I sadly sit in homely cell, I'll teach my swains this carol for a song: 'Blest be the hearts that think my sovereign well: Curs'd be the souls that think to do her wrong.' Goddess! vouchsafe this aged man his right, To be your beadsman now that was your knight."