More cats gathered on the second night of our Revel than on the first.  I did not know if they came to make merrie, or because they were ear-lickers of Picker and Stealer.

First, Picker and Stealer spake very high of the wondrous gift Queen Puss sent to the Emperor of the Turks.

They sayt, “It’s a mechanickal device that chimes the hours as a clock do.  After it chimes, bells make a din. 

“Two little painted toys that stand on this device raise silver trumpets to their mouths and give sound.  Then the device makes musick, very good to hear.

“Best is a holly bush that sits atop the thing.  When the musick stops a multitude of birds in the bush flap their wings and sing.

“These are not birds to eat.  They’re pretty toys.  The rude and barbarous cats of Constantinople will never have seen the like.”

Then Picker and Stealer sayt that they hoped the men who carried this device to the Emperor would come safe home again.

“We heard tell that this Emperor caused all his brothers to be strangled, and he had more brothers than most cats have claws.  Say now, Kettie, can this be this true?”

“I believe it were done for the safety of the realm,” sayt Kettie the Turkey cat.  “But who can account for the doings of great folks?  I heard tell that your old King Harry cut the head off his wife the mother of your Queen.  And Her Majestie is so far from bearing her father any malice that she loves to be told how like to him she is.”

“Who hasn’t wished to strangle a brother or sister?” called Onix.  “I have, and were I an Emperor I might have done.”

That set all screeching.

Next, Picker and Stealer told of the learned doctor’s prognostickation for the Earl of Essex.  This doctor had gone, as all London did, to see Essex leave for Ireland.  Then he hasted home to make an astrologick chart.

“What awaits our noble Earl and his friends in Bogland?  Treason, hunger, sickness and death.  He’ll do little good there, and on his return much treachery will be wrought against him by his enemies.  He’s like to be imprisoned and have great loss of his goods and honour.”

Picker and Stealer looked right pleased with theirselves.

“So far,” sayt Linkin, “so Ireland.  I don’t need no stars to tell me that.  What I do know is that after a most horrid crossing of the sea our Earls and their friends made safe landfall.  And Queen Puss has waxed wroth because another Earl, Lord Rutland, went with them.  He’ll be punished for it.  But that’s a report for parlement, not our Revel.”

“Tower, Tower,” sang a cat. “Take him to the Tower.”

“There let him rot,” sang another, “and be clean forgot.”

“A most excellent song,” sayt I, untruthful, “for to end our Revel.”

Then the scabbed villain that keeps the wall by Essex House came forward.  He swore he’d liked our Revel so well he would grant safe passage to any among us who wished to pass that way.

And he sang most poetick.

Am I so base, that I might not aspire
Unto those high joys which she holds from me?
As walls are high, so high is my desire:
If she this deny, what can granted be?

Scabface knew I sought the freedom not only of that wall, but of Essex House itself.

Oh, the things we queen cats do to make our ways in this wicked world.

---

Most poetick, indeed.  It’s a verse from a poem attributed to the Earl of Essex, and set to music by John Dowland.  Scabface must have heard it sung at Essex House, and tweaked the wording slightly to impress Tricks.

The gift for Sultan Mehmet III was an elaborate mechanical organ made by Thomas Dallam (1575 – c1630).  Another gift was a handsome coach for the Sultan’s powerful mother Safiye.

The organ was 16 feet/4.8 metres high.  Queen Elizabeth viewed it at Whitehall Palace, then it was taken apart for shipping to Constantinople.  The voyage took about 6 months.  There, Dallam and the men he refers to as his mates – an ‘ingener’ (engineer), a joiner, and a painter – reassembled it.

The organ was set to play mechanically before the Sultan.  Then he asked if anyone present could play it manually.  Thomas Dallam was called in.  At first he refused, explaining to a court official that to play he would have to sit with his back to the Sultan – a serious breach of protocol.

He was urged on, even though to reach the organ he had to brush past the Sultan – another serious breach.  When the Sultan stood up to get a better look at Dallam’s hands on the keys, Dallam thought he was drawing his sword to cut off his head, but played on.

Astrologer/medical practitioner Simon Forman’s prediction for Essex was extraordinarily accurate, but as Linkin said, “so Ireland.”

I’ll be taking a break, but Tricks and friends will be back in the New Year.  Happy Christmas!