As Queen's Champion, Lee devised the Accession Day tilts held annually on 17 November, the most important Elizabethan court festival from the 1580s.

In Lee's picture, his sleeves are decorated with armillary spheres, a symbol of wisdom and also his device as queen's champion.

King James VI and I and Anne of Denmark visited Ditchley on 15 September 1603 with the French ambassador and a duke, who Arbella Stuart called the "Dutchkin.

"[10] Three suits of armour were made for Sir Henry Lee by the renowned Greenwich armoury, and are depicted in the album of drawings left behind by that workshop.

[13] After her death, Lee lived openly with his mistress, Anne Vavasour, formerly one of the Queen's Ladies in Waiting.

[15][16] He was the cousin of Captain Thomas Lee, a troublesome soldier on whose behalf he allowed himself to be bound over and who was put to death in 1601 for an involvement in the treason of the 2nd Earl of Essex.