This time it was hung with rich tapestries and ornamented with gold plate, not tables but also piled ostentatiously upon sideboards, for a plate cupboard was a significant means of displaying a Tudor nobleman’s wealth and status. For the disguisings, new mobile stages of a type not previously used in England had been built. William Cornish, a gentleman Chapel Royal, had played a leading part in arranging the lavish spectacle. Pageant after pageant rolled in, bearing musicians and entertainers. The scene painters and carpenters had excelled in special effects. A castle filled with choristers was pulled by four heraldic beasts. At the front two lions, one silver, one gold, were made up of 'two men, one in the forepart, one in the hinder part', with their legs disguised. A ship in sail glided effortlessly by on hidden wheels. Eight knights disembarked to dance with the ladies who descended from the castle. Then the court dances began. Ever chivalrous, Arthur led out his aunt, Lady Cecily of York. Katherine performed a Spanish dance with one of her ladies, but the climax of the merrymaking came when the young Duke of York, 'having with him the Lady Margaret, his sister in hand came down and dances two bass dances', but 'perceiving himself encombered with his clothes, suddenly he cast off his gown and danced in his jacket'. This extrovert feat delighted the King and Queen, but there is no record of how Margaret reacted.
The grand finale was still to come. At a banquet in the Parliament Chamber a great white lantern was brought in to sound of trumpets. Its windows were covered with fine lawn and it was lit from inside by 100 tapers, so that twelve beautiful ladies were visible through the gauze. Even this spectacle was surpassed on the last day of feasting. A pageant two storeys appeared, drawn by three sea-horses. It was built to represent a chapel and was filled with children sweetly singing. Eight knights jumped down from the lower storey, setting free baby rabbits, which ran about among the guests, while from above eight ladies released a flock of white doves, which flew around the hall causing 'great laughter and disport'.
Maria Perry, The Sisters of Henry VIII, 1998
The following day a new star of the tiltyard emerged in the person of Charles Brandon. The dashing young nephew of the Master of the Horse took third prize amid a field of highly accomplished challengers.' Margaret, on the advice of all the ladies present, gave first prize to Lord William Courtenay, an established champion, son of the Earl of Devonshire and married to the Queen's sister, Lady Katherine. Dancing and feasting followed. Diligently chronicling the entertainments, John Yonge evidently did not realize that the props from Arthur's wedding had been shipped up the Thames from Westminster. The lantern pageant, which had been such a success in November, was used again, beautifully lit from inside as before but disgorging this time, instead of twelve elegant ladies, a troupe of Morris dancers, calculated to impress the Scots with their bucolic vigour. Before the ambassadors left, costly presents were exchanged. The King gave a golden goblet, six silver standing cups, twenty-four silver bowls and a basin and ewer to the Archbishop of Glasgow, and another set of equally magnificent plate to the Earl of Bothwell. He also rewarded the Scottish herald, Lyon King of Arms, with a satin gown and a purse containing 100 gold crowns. The Earl had given a similar purse to the English heralds and also the cloth of gold gown he had worn to represent James IV in the betrothal ceremony.
Maria Perry, The Sisters of Henry VIII, 1998
Two hundred Scottish knights led by James’ cousin, Lord Hamilton, escorted the pair through the city. There were many pageants. The royal procession passed through a wooden gate with painted turrets filled with choristers dressed as angels ‘singing joyously for the coming of so noble a lady’. In the centre of the city a fountain ran with wine. On a scaffold, Paris was deliberating over the golden apple he was to award to the most beautiful of three goddesses. At Margaret's approach, he chose Venus. Further on, the angel Gabriel saluted Mary, and four Virtues enthroned, with Temperance trampling upon Epicurus and Prudence rather mysteriously subduing Sardanapalus. A unicorn and a greyhound supported a great shield upon which a thistle in full flower was intertwined by a red rose.
These two emblems were famously embraced by the court poet, William Dunbar, who composed a wedding ode, urging the amorous James to be faithful to his bride.
Nor hold no other flower in such dainty
As the fresh rose of colour red and white
For if thou dost, hurt is thine honesty
Considering that no flower is so perfite
So full of virtue pleasance and delight.
Maria Perry, The Sisters of Henry VIII, 1998
After Margaret's pilgrimage to Whithorn, the King and Queen celebrated the birth of her firstborn by arranging a tournament at Edinburgh Castle. James, ever interested in the latest artillery, had just installed new bronze cannon on the walls. Lists were set up in the courtyard and 'Black Ellen', a Moorish girl who had been brought to Scotland by Robert Barton, one of the King's sea captains, was made Lady of Honour. She was something of a novelty among Margaret's attendants. Dunbar, who had never before seen anyone of African descent called her the 'lady with the muckle lips'.
The dark-skinned beauty made her entrance in a golden chariot, wearing a damask gown trimmed with green and yellow taffeta. She was rescued from a terrible melée by a 'Wild Knight', accompanied by 'wild men' dressed in shaggy goat skins with antlers upon their helmets. When the Wild Knight removed his helmet after vanquishing all his opponents, he proved to be James himself. The spectators feigned complete astonishment and the spectacle was considered an unqualified success. According to Dunbar, the victors were allowed to claim a kiss from Ellen's desirable lips.
Who for her sake with spear and shield
Proves most mightily in the field
Shall kiss and with her go in grips
And from thenceforth her love shall wield
My lady with the muckle lips.
Things grew more boisterous later in the day, and it seems the losers were required to kiss her backside.
And who in field receiveth shame,
And tarnish there his knightly name
Shall come behind and kiss her hips
And never to other comfort claim
My lady with the muckle lips.
Maria Perry, The Sisters of Henry VIII, 1998
Despite the November weather the Parisians had excelled themselves. The whole town was decorated with lilies and roses. Some were silk, some were painted upon arras, others were represented on the giant scaffolds which stood at intervals along the processional route. A series of tableaux vivants had been devised to welcome Mary with a wonderful mixture of heraldry, allegory and pantomime verse. The first was at St Denis, which at that time was still the main gate of the walled medieval town. A gigantic ship, complete with real sailors climbing the rigging, bore figures of Ceres, Bacchus and, at the helm, Paris herself, symbolizing the corn, wine and commerce of the city. The four winds puffed energetically into the sails, while a choir sang songs of welcome. As most of these had been composed by the court poet, Pierre Gringoire, he presented Mary with a handwritten souvenir programme of the event with beautiful pictures, lavishly illuminated with gold leaf.
Passing through the gate, she came to the second tableau, in which a marble fountain played against a background of celestial blue, while three Graces danced in a garden. Lilies and roses grew in the fountain bowl and a poem celebrated the miraculous entwining of the two flowers. The third pageant showed Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, a flattering allusion to Louis's wisdom and his title 'Father of the people'. At the fourth stop a two-tier scaffold had been erected in front of the Church of the Holy Innocents. God the Father, dressed in the best traditions of the medieval Mysteries, held a huge pasteboard heart and a bouquet of red roses over the figures of a king and queen, robed in gold and ermine, but to the romantic Parisians steeped in the love stories of Guillaume de Loris, familiar even to the illiterate from the lyrics of popular ballads, it was surely the fifth pageant which had most significance. By an ingenious feat of scene-painting, a walled city had been created, enclosing a garden with a rose bush growing centre stage. Out of the bush sprouted an enormous rosebud, which ascended by means of concealed machinery towards a balcony where a lily grew before a golden throne, sheltered by a rich pavilion. Four Virtues, clad in the fashions of the day, gazed out across golden trelliswork, while outside the city walls Peace vanquished a villainous figure of Discord. When the rose had completed its ascent, the petals opened before the astonished spectators to disclose a live maiden, who recited the most complimentary of Gringoire's verses. He likened Mary to the fragrant 'rose vermeille', the symbol of peace, the fabled blossom which had grown in the gardens of Jericho and which bloomed in the margins of a thousand romances. To the Parisians their King's beautiful bride was love incarnate.
The procession moved on to the Chastellet de Paris, where Justice and Truth sat enthroned beneath a vast replica of the French crown, amid a pageant of worthies. Phoebus, Diana, Minerva, Stella Maris and Concord posed in a meadow listening to an orator speaking a long ode comparing Louis to the Sun and Mary to the Moon. The Queen, whose public duties had begun at nine in the morning, must have been exhausted when, at about five-thirty, she reached the Palais Royale. There on another double stage the Angel of the Annunciation addressed the Virgin Mary and beneath the arms of France, supported by a porcupine and a lion hung above yet another representation of a king and a queen. At the bottom of the stage rustically clad shepherds and shepherdesses sang an anthem, celebrating Mary in Heaven and Mary on Earth, and still the long day went on, for the dignitaries of the Sorbonne wished to greet her, so that it was six o'clock before the earthly Mary finally escaped into the quiet of Notre-Dame.
Maria Perry, The Sisters of Henry VIII, 1998
After a short stay at Westminster, where he transacted the last business of the old year, Henry went to spend Christmas at Greenwich. On the Feast of the Epiphany 1517 there was a lavish entertainment. When the King, accompanied by Katherine and Margaret, had come into the hall and the royal party were seated, a great pageant was wheeled in called 'the Garden of Esperance'. This garden, wrote Hall 'was towered at every corner and railed with rails of gilt'. It was decorated with banks of artificial flowers with leaves of green satin and silken petals, glittering with gold, but so exquisitely made that they seemed like real summer flowers. In the middle of the garden stood an antique pillar, set with gold and pearls. We should more probably have called it a wide plinth, for according to the chronicler, it was six foot square and on top of it was an arch within which stood a bush of red and white roses for England and a pomegranate tree for Spain. Katherine's father, Ferdinand of Aragon, had died and the young Prince Charles had at last come into his Spanish possessions. If the French ambassador was present, the heraldic symbolism was loud and clear. The nine-month-old Princess Mary, sleeping in the royal nursery, was the living proof of an enduring union.
In the garden of silken flowers six knights and six ladies walked about in rich clothes. They descended from the pageant, danced before the King and the two Queens, returned to the garden and were wheeled out of the chamber. Then, well satisfied with life, Henry VIII 'was served a great banquet'.
Maria Perry, The Sisters of Henry VIII, 1998
On 19February, Edward VI made his ceremonial entry into London prior to his coronation, wearing robes of cloth of silver embroidered with gold thread and a belt and cap which glittered with rubies, pearls and diamonds. His horse was caparisoned in crimson satin, and as he rode through the crowded streets his subjects hailed him as a ‘young king Solomon' come to restore ancient truth and do away with ‘heathen rites and detestable idolatory'. As was customary on such occasions, lavish pageants marked the. various stages of the royal progress through the City of London. One portrayed a phoenix - representing Jane Seymour, whose badge had been this mythical bird - descending from Heaven to mate with the crowned lion, representing Henry VIII. Then a young lion stepped forth to be crowned by angels, as the phoenix and the old lion retired. One spectacle that particularly impressed Edward was the Aragonese tight-rope walker in St Paul's Churchyard, who ‘ran on his breast from the battlements to the ground'. The King, we are told, ‘laughed right heartily' and was reluctant to drag himself away and proceed on his way to Whitehall Palace, where he spent the night.
Alison Weir, The Children of Henry VIII, 1996
On 30 September, Mary was attired in blue velvet and ermine with a glittering trellised tinsel and pearl caul on her head so weighty that she was frequently to resort to supporting her head with her hands. To gasps of admiration she went in procession in a chariot upholstered in cloth of gold through the streets of London to Whitehall, past cheering crowds, children singing and making pretty speeches, and fountains running with free wine. There had been some concern for her safety, after a plot by Protestants to murder Gardiner had been discovered, and even though a fruitless search was made in the city for concealed arms the Queen was still nervous.
Behind Mary came another chariot, in which rode Elizabeth with Anne of Cleves; preceding the Queen were the new Knights of Bath, with Courtenay foremost among them, Gardiner, Winchester, Norfolk, Oxford bearing the sword of state, and the Lord Mayor and aldermen. Forty-six gentlewomen brought up the rear of the procession.
The solemnities began at ten in the morning and ended at five in the afternoon, when a magnificent coronation banquet was served in Westminster Hall. The Queen, seated beneath a canopy of estate, feasted on wild boar sent by Mary of Hungary amongst other delicacies; she was offered 312 dishes out of the 7112 prepared for the occasion; 4900 were uneaten and were afterwards distributed to the poor. Whilst the company ate, Derby, Norfolk and Arundel rode about the hall on horses, trapped in cloth of gold, ensuring that everything ran smoothly, and after the second course had been served, Sir Edward Dymoke, the Queen's Champion, rode into the hall and challenged any man to dispute her title, throwing down his gauntlet as he did so.
Alison Weir, The Children of Henry VIII, 1996
The City had made great efforts, the Mayor and aldermen commissioned and spent large sums on a series of five ‘stately pageants [and] sumptuous shows and devices' at strategic points along the route which was packed with sightseers, many of whom had camped out overnight to get a good view of the Queen. Behind wooden rails draped with painted cloths and tapestries stood the members of the City guilds, important in their fur-lined gowns and company liveries. The City was a bastion of Protestantism, and its pageants and tableaux all incorporated meaningful references to the bad days of Queen Mary that were now past and the good things that were hoped for from her successor. Chief among them was the establishment of true religion, and when the Queen heard references to this, she raised her eyes and hands heavenwards and called upon her subjects to repeat ‘Amen'.
The City's celebrations began at Fenchurch Street, where a little child attempted to recite welcoming verses against the roar of the crowd. The Queen begged for quiet, and listened `with a perpetual attentiveness in her face and a marvellous change of look, as if the child's words touched her person'.
The first pageant, `The Pageant of the Roses', was in Gracechurch Street, and it displayed, on a three-tiered platform, persons representing the Tudor dynasty, supported by Unity and Concord. On the lowest tier were shown - together for the first time in twenty-five years Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and on the highest tier Elizabeth herself appeared.
Next to the conduit in Cornhill, a child representing the Queen sat enthroned on the Seat of Worthy Governance, supported by four allegorical figures of the Virtues, including one called Good Religion who trod the Vices, among them Superstition and Ignorance underfoot.
Cheapside was noisy with fanfares of trumpets and the singing of the City waits, who stood beside the Eleanor Cross, which had been decorated for the occasion. Here, as custom decreed, the City Recorder, presented the Queen with 1000 gold marks (£666) in a purse of crimson satin. She accepted it graciously, saying,
I thank my Lord Mayor, his brethren and you all. And whereas your request is that I should continue your good lady and queen, be ye assured that I will be as good unto you as ever queen was to her people. And persuade yourselves that for the safety and quietness of you all, I will not spare, if need be, to spend my blood. God thank you all.
Her speech prompted a `marvellous shout and rejoicing' from the bystanders, who were `wonderfully ravished' by it.
The pageant at Little Conduit had as its centrepiece Time. The Queen gazed at it and mused, `Time! And Time hath brought me hither.' The pageant depicted two pastoral scenes representing a flourishing commonwealth and a decayed one. A figure representing Truth emerged from between the two, led by Time, and received from Heaven an English Bible. A child explained in pretty verses that the Bible taught how to change a decayed state into a flourishing empire. Truth presented the Bible to the Queen, who kissed it and held it to her heart, thanking the City most warmly for it and `promising to be a diligent reader thereof’.
Outside St Paul's Cathedral, a scholar of St Paul's School made a speech in Latin extolling Elizabeth's wisdom, learning and other virtues. Music played as she passed through Ludgate into Fleet Street, where she watched the final pageant, which portrayed Deborah, `the judge and restorer of the House of Israel', who had been sent by God to rule His people wisely for forty years. Deborah was depicted wearing Parliament robes and sitting on a throne, consulting with the three estates of the realm as to how best to provide good government. A poem was presented to the Queen reminding her how Deborah had restored Truth in place of Error.
Elizabeth exhibited great interest and delight in the pageants, and constantly expressed her gratitude to her subjects, being genuinely touched by the welcome afforded her. When the crowds cheered, she waved at them with `a merry countenance', repeating again and again, `God save them all!' Several times along the way she demonstrated her humanity by stopping her litter to speak in the most `tender and gentle language' to humble folk, or accept small gifts, such as posies of flowers offered by poor women. She kept a spray of rosemary, given by a woman supplicant at Fleet Bridge, beside her in the litter all the way to Westminster. Some foreign observers felt that she was over-familiar with her subjects and exceeded the bounds of decorum that preserved a monarch's dignity, but Elizabeth knew her people better. They were responding to her common touch, and if this was the way to win and retain their favour, then she would follow her instincts. Her father had had such a way with him, and one person, seeing the resemblance, cried out, `Remember old King Harry the Eighth?' Elizabeth was seen to smile at this.
`Be ye well assured, I will stand your good Queen. I wish neither prosperity nor safety to myself which might not be for our common good,' she declared to her people, and they knew she meant it. An old man turned away, but not before she had espied him weeping. `I warrant you it is for gladness,' she told those close by.
At Temple Bar, which was surmounted for the occasion by two huge statues of figures from London mythology - Gogmagog the Albion and Corineus the Briton - the City authorities formally took their leave of Elizabeth, and a little child recited a poem, `Farewell, O worthy Queen!’ A pamphlet describing the events of the day came off the publisher Richard Tothill's press ten days later, and was much sought after as a souvenir of the occasion, running into three editions.
There followed the traditional lavish coronation banquet in Westminster Hall, a custom that ended with George IV in 1821. This lasted from three in the afternoon until one o'clock the next morning, and during it, as was customary, the Queen's Champion, Sir Edward Dymoke, rode into the Hall in full armour, daring any to challenge her title. The Queen presided from the high table, beneath a canopy of estate, having changed into yet another gown, this one of purple velvet. Music played throughout, and a delicious variety of dishes were served 'on bended knee by her great-uncle, Lord William Howard, and the Earl of Sussex. The nobility were permitted to keep their coronets on during the feasting, only uncovering when the Queen rose to drink their health, thanking them for all the trouble they had taken-on her behalf.
Alison Weir, The Life of Elizabeth I, 1998