and blue and green and white.  As yet the King and Queen had not come, but all the other benches were full of people, rising head above head high aloft till it made the eye dizzy to look upon them.  Eightscore yards distant from the mark from which the archers were to shoot stood ten fair targets, each target marked by a flag of the color belonging to the band that was to shoot thereat.  So all was ready for the coming of the King and Queen.

At last a great blast of bugles sounded, and into the meadow came riding six trumpeters with silver trumpets, from which hung velvet banners heavy with rich workings of silver and gold thread.  Behind these came stout King Henry upon a dapple-gray stallion, with his Queen beside him upon a milk-white palfrey.  On either side of them walked the yeomen of the guard, the bright sunlight flashing from the polished blades of the steel halberds they carried.  Behind these came the Court in a great crowd, so that presently all the lawn was alive with bright colors, with silk and velvet, with waving plumes and gleaming gold, with flashing jewels and sword hilts; a gallant sight on that bright summer day.

Then all the people arose and shouted, so that their voices sounded like the storm upon the Cornish coast, when the dark waves run upon the shore and leap and break, surging amid the rocks; so, amid the roaring and the surging of the people, and the waving of scarfs and kerchiefs, the King and Queen came to their place, and, getting down from their horses, mounted the broad stairs that led to the raised platform, and there took their seats on two thrones bedecked with purple silks and cloths of silver and of gold.

When all was quiet a bugle sounded, and straightway the archers came marching in order from their tents.  Fortyscore they were in all, as stalwart a band of yeomen as could be found in all the wide world.  So they came in orderly fashion and stood in front of the dais where King Henry and his Queen sat.  King Henry looked up and down their ranks right proudly, for his heart warmed within him at the sight of such a gallant band of yeomen.  Then he bade his herald Sir Hugh de Mowbray stand forth and proclaim the rules governing the game.  So Sir Hugh stepped to the edge of the platform and spoke in a loud clear voice, and thus he said: 

That each man should shoot seven arrows at the target that belonged to his band, and, of the fourscore yeomen of each band, the three that shot the best should be chosen.  These three should shoot three arrows apiece, and the one that shot the best should again be chosen.  Then each of these should again shoot three arrows apiece, and the one that shot the best should have the first prize, the one that shot the next best should have the second, and the one that shot the next best should have the third prize.  Each of the others should have fourscore silver pennies for his shooting.  The first prize was to be twoscore and ten golden pounds, a silver bugle horn inlaid with gold, and a quiver with ten white arrows tipped with gold and feathered with the white swan’s-wing therein.  The second prize was to be fivescore of the fattest bucks that run on Dallen Lea, to be shot when the yeoman that won them chose.  The third prize was to be two tuns of good Rhenish wine.