Last weekend 4th/5th August most of the team had the weekend off. The Knights' Tourney of Foote went Oop North To Richmond Castle in North Yorkshire. This intrepid reporter, took the weekend off from being the Knight of The North (can't get away with my accent up there) and did a 500 mile round trip to take all the kit up and back again.
The Tourney was at Richmond Castle, in the middle of Richmond, a smashing venue. One of the perks of this tour is getting to stay in some of the coolest places in the country and this is one of them. The Knights this weekend were supplied by Feat of Armes and everyone else by The Clarences Household. I acted as armourer for the weekend, which was good really cos the broke some of our toys.
Saturday went well. The Knights were Sir Martin of the Forest (Blue) Sir Edward de Middleton, (Green) Sir Michael de Vere (Gold) and Sir Tancred von Uberwald?! (Red) The crest melees were convincingly won by Sir Martin. He intimidated the others into defeat and there was no mistake where we were the North pennants and voices out numbered all the others many times over. Sir Tancred had problems with his crest, one of the magnets had gone missing (which was found the next day attached to the top of his thigh armour, hmmm?)
The Club Melees were not as brutal as the southern ones, so I thought, but they did break three clubs!! With squires tumbling and Knights crashing out Sir Martin once again came out on top. Immediately after the Club Melee the knights and squires were each joined by a Man At Arms and clubs were swapped for steel and they went at again in a 'capture a flag' combat. This was great fun, if a tad hard to follow. At the end of all Sir Robert of Richmond, the Host revealed himself to be one of the Men At Arms, and although he was pleased with Sir Martin's performance he awarded bonus points to Sir Tancred as he had fought so valiantly.
The casting point, then went to the crowd. Did I mention we were in the North? Sir Martin won the popular vote. The crowd roared his approval. He was the clear winner.
Saturday night we were treated to an awesome display of Thunder and Lightning as a storm sat on us for 2 and half hours. I sat under the awning of my tent frantically mending kit broken during the day. Note the photo below was taken during the day, NOT in a thunder storm.
Sunday started with a light shower during the archery contest, The squires shot pretty well. Sir Martin's Squire shot well and gave his master the lead. We had a little more rain before the Crest Melee but it stopped as the knights entered the lists. This contest was keenly fought this day. All the knights acquitted themselves well, both Sir Michael and Sir Tancred found success where they had not on the previous day. However Sir Martin emerged undefeated from this contest and he took a commanding lead.
And there, is where it all finished I am afraid, just like at Headingley Rain stopped play.. The previous night's storm returned and boy did we get a lot of rain. Living History continued. I talked to lots of stout British tourists who were determined to get their money's worth. Trovere, Peterkin and Simon Kirk entertained many more in the keep of the castle, but sadly there was no more combat that day. Sir Martin was declared the winner as he was leading by a good margin.
So many thanks go to the members of Feat of Armes: Sir Martin, Sir Edward, Sir Michael & Sir Tancred. And also to the Clarences for making me so welcome and not breaking too much of the kit.
Next weekend we are back in the south at Framlingham Castle in Suffolk hoping for better weather. On the other hand the Scores are now very close, check out the Tourney Results page for the latest standings, it couldn't be much closer.
Sir Edward
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