Baiards and brockes——
——Oh, these be wondrous frayes!
The stage direction then requires the entry of "Two men apparelled lyke greene men at the mayor's feast, with clubbs of fyreworks;" whose office, we are told, was to keep a clear passage in the street, "that the kyng and his trayne might pass with ease."—In another dramatic performance of later date, Green's Tu Quoque, or the City Gallant, by John Cooke, published in 1614, a city apprentice says, "By this light, I doe not thinke but to be lord mayor of London before I die; and have three pageants carried before me, besides a ship and an unicorn." The following passage occurs in Selden's Table Talk, under the article Judge, "We see the pageants in Cheapside, the lions and the elephants; but we do not see the men that carry them we see the judges look big like lions; but we do not see who moves them."
XXIV.—PROCESSIONS OF QUEEN MARY AND KING PHILIP OF SPAIN IN LONDON.
In the foregoing quotations, we have not the least necessity to make an allowance for poetical licence: the historians of the time will justify the poets, and perfectly clear them from any charge of exaggeration; and especially Hall, Grafton, and Holinshed, who are exceedingly diffuse on this and such like popular subjects. The latter has recorded a very curious piece of pantomimical trickery exhibited at the time that the princess Mary went in procession through the city of London, the day before her coronation:—At the upper end of Grace-church-Street there was a pageant made by the Florentines; it was very high; and "on the top thereof there stood foure pictures; and in the midst of them, and the highest, there stood an angell, all in greene, with a trumpet in his hand; and when the trumpetter who stood secretlie within the pageant, did sound his· trumpet, the angell did put his trumpet to his mouth, as though it had been the same that had sounded." A similar deception but on a more extensive scale, was practised at the gate of Kenelworth Castle for the reception of queen Elizabeth. [59] Holinshed, speaking of the spectacles exhibited at London, when Philip king of Spain, with Mary his consort, made their public entry in the city, calls them, in the margin of his Chronicle, "the vaine pageants of London;" and he uses the same epithet twice in the description immediately subsequent; "Now," says he, "as the king came to London, and as he entered at the drawbridge, [on London Bridge,] there was a vaine great spectacle, with two images representing two giants, the one named Corineus, and the other Gog-magog, holding betweene them certeine Latin verses, which, for the vaine ostentation of flatterye, I overpasse." [60] He then adds: "From the bridge they passed to the conduit in Gratious-street, which was finely painted; and, among other things," there exhibited, "were the Nine Worthies; of these king Henry VIII. was one. He was painted in harnesse, [61] having in one hand a sword, and in the other hand a booke, whereupon was written Verbum Dei. [62] He was also delivering, as it were, the same booke to his sonne king Edward VI. who was painted in a corner by him." This device, it seems, gave great offence; and the painter, at the queen's command, was summoned before the bishop of Winchester, then lord chancellor, where he met with a very severe reprimand, and was ordered to erase the inscription; to which he readily assented, and was glad to have escaped at so easy a rate from the peril that threatened him; but in his hurry to remove the offensive words, he rubbed out "the whole booke, and part of the hand that held it." [63]
The Nine Worthies appear to have been favourite characters, and were often exhibited in the pageants; those mentioned in the preceding passage were probably nothing more than images of wood or pasteboard. These august personages were not, however, always degraded in this manner, but, on the contrary, they were frequently personified by human beings uncouthly habited, and sometimes mounted on horseback. They also occasionally harangued the spectators as they passed in the procession.
XXV.—CHESTER PAGEANTS.
The same species of shows, but probably not upon so extensive a scale, were exhibited in other cities and large towns throughout the kingdom. I have now before me an ordinance for the mayor, aldermen, and common councilmen of the city of Chester, to provide yearly for the setting of the watch, on the eve of the festival of Saint John the Baptist, a pageant, which is expressly said to be "according to ancient custome," consisting of four giants, one unicorn, one dromedary, one luce, [64] one camel, one ass, one dragon, six hobby-horses, and sixteen naked boys. This ordinance among the Harleian MSS. [65] is dated 1564. In another MS. in the same library, it is said, "A. D. 1599, Henry Hardware, esq. the mayor, was a godly and zealous man;" he caused "the gyauntes in the midsomer show to be broken," and "not to goe; the devil in his feathers," alluding perhaps to some fantastic representation not mentioned in the former ordinance, "he put awaye, and the cuppes and cannes, and the dragon and the naked boys." In a more modern hand it is added, "And he caused a man in complete armour to go in their stead. He also caused the bull-ring to be taken up," &c. But in the year 1601, John Ratclyffe, beer-brewer, being mayor, "sett out the giaunts and midsommer show, as of oulde it was wont to be kept." [66] In the time of the Commonwealth this spectacle was discontinued, and the giants, with the beasts, were destroyed. At the restoration of Charles II. it was agreed by the citizens to replace the pageant as usual, on the eve of the festival of St. John the Baptist, in 1661; and as the following computation of the charges for the different parts of the show are exceedingly curious, I shall lay them before the reader without any farther apology. We are told that "all things were to be made new, by reason the ould modells were all broken." The computist then proceeds: "For finding all the materials, with the workmanship of the four great giants, all to be made new, as neere as may be lyke as they were before, at five pounds a giant the least that can be, and four men to carry them at two shillings and six pence each." The materials for the composition of these monsters are afterwards specified to be "hoops of various magnitudes, and other productions of the cooper, deal boards, nails, pasteboard, scaleboard, paper of various sorts, with buckram, size cloth, and old sheets for their bodies, sleeves, and shirts, which were to be coloured." One pair of the "olde sheets" were provided to cover the "father and mother giants." Another article specifies "three yards of buckram for the mother's and daughter's hoods;" which seems to prove that three of these stupendous pasteboard personages were the representatives of females. There were "also tinsille, tinfoil, gold and silver leaf, and colours of different kinds, with glue and paste in abundance." Respecting the last article, a very ridiculous entry occurs in the bill of charges, it runs thus: "For arsnick to put into the paste to save the giants from being eaten by the rats, one shilling and fourpence." But to go on with the estimate. "For the new making the city mount, called the maior's mount, as auntiently it was, and for hireing of bays for the same, and a man to carry it, three pounds six shillings and eight pence." The bays mentioned in this and the succeeding article was hung round the bottom of the frame, and extended to the ground, or near it, to conceal the bearers. "For making anew the merchant mount, as it aunciently was, with a ship to turn round, the hiring of the bays, and five men to carry it, four pounds." The ship and new dressing it, is charged at five shillings; it was probably made with pasteboard, which seems to have been a principal article in the manufacturing of both the moveable mountains; it was turned by means of a swivel attached to an iron handle underneath the frame. In the bill of charges for "the merchant's mount," is an entry of twenty pence paid to a joyner for cutting the pasteboard into several images. "For making anew the elephant and castell, and a Cupid," with his bow and arrows, "suitable to it," the castle was covered with tinfoil, and the Cupid with skins, so as to appear to be naked, "and also for two men to carry them, one pound sixteen shillings and eightpence. For making anew the four beastes called the unicorne, the antelop, the flower-de-luce, and the camell, one pound sixteen shillings and fourpence apiece, and for eight men to carry them, sixteen shillings. For four hobby-horses, six shillings and eightpence apiece; and for four boys to carry them, four shillings. For hance-staves, garlands, and balls, for the attendants upon the mayor and sheriffs, one pound nineteen shillings. For makinge anew the dragon, and for six naked boys to beat at it, one pound sixteen shillings. For six morris-dancers, with a pipe and tabret, twenty shillings."
The sports exhibited on occasions of solemnity did not terminate with the pageants and processions: the evening was generally concluded with festivity and diversions of various kinds to please the populace. These amusements are well described in a few lines by an early dramatic poet, whose name is not known; his performance is entitled A pleasant and stately Morall of the Three Lordes of London, black letter, no date: [67]—
————Let nothing that's magnifical,