II
The revival proved a tremendous success, although it did not reproduce the medieval conditions in their entirety.
The twelve old women were left out; it was not considered decent for the King to wash their feet in public and the Queen absolutely refused to do so. Instead they were invited to take tea at the Palace, and afterwards were all presented with foot-warmers.
In other directions also invidious distinctions were attempted, and a certain amount of controversy was raised. The Bishops made a scrambling and desultory fight for it that, as the steps of the Cathedral were to be used, all the washen beggars should be actual communicants of the Established Church; but the demand died down when it was found that such a breed did not exist; and a rush of undesirables to the altar in order to qualify could hardly be welcomed as a tolerable solution.
There was a tussle, too, among the Knights of the Thorn as to how many towel-bearers there should be (the towels remaining perquisites afterwards); but the King and his Master of Ceremonies—the delighted Max helping them—were able to settle matters to the general satisfaction, and, by allowing a towel to each foot and twelve cakes of soap, provided a sufficient number of souvenirs to go round.
And so the day came, the weather was fine, and the attendant crowd rapturous. The King and his Knights, in nodding plumes and robes of thorn-stamped velvet, made the show of their lives; organ music rolled from within, bands played without, and massed choirs sang like angels from the parapets and galleries above the west doors of the Cathedral.
And when their ordeal by water was over, then the twelve beggars—all of guaranteed good character although not actual communicants—received with delight each a new pair of shoes and stockings, which they were able to sell at fabulous prices, immediately the ceremony was over, to collectors of curiosities, chiefly Americans. And that same night twelve very happy beggars, all more or less drunk, made their appearance on the largest music-hall stage in the metropolis, where the whole scene was elaborately re-enacted in facsimile, followed by a cinematograph record of the actual event.
The King was a little disappointed at these modern developments, they seemed to take away from the penitential character of the performance, and rather to weaken than restore in the public conscience the due observance of Lent.
Max, however, assured his father that he had made the greatest hit of his life; his personal popularity had been greatly enhanced. What pleased him better was that in feeling for the public pulse, by the light of his own conscience, he had proved that he was right and the Prime Minister wrong.
Yet, though ostensibly in the wrong, the Prime Minister had really been right. He had reckoned that the move might prove a popular one—for the monarchy; and though a dull average of popularity for that ancient institution suited his book for the present, he did not wish, in view of certain eventualities, to see it greatly increased, and still less did he wish the King to discover that by acting in opposition to his ministers he might gain in popular esteem.
As one of the Knights of the Thorn he himself had been obliged to attend the ceremony; and by some it was noticed that, as he stood holding a golden ewer in his two hands, he looked very cross. But all the other Knights of the Thorn—those who had towels and soap as perquisites—enjoyed themselves thoroughly and were already looking forward to a repetition of the performance next year. Even in their case, then, the King had proved to be right,—forms and ceremonies accompanied by fine clothes were still popular things; the Order of the New Broom would not be yet.