Nov 9.]
LORD MAYOR’S DAY.
The office of Chief Magistrate of London was held for life till about 1214, nor was it until more than a hundred years afterwards that the title of Lord was given to the Mayor. This arose in the time of Richard II., on occasion of Walworth, the Mayor of the day, basely murdering Wat Tyler in Smithfield.
That which in later days has been called the Lord Mayor’s Show was but a degenerate copy of the old Pageant or Triumph, which assumed a variety of forms at different times, blending Paganism, Christianity, and chivalry in marvellous confusion. This, however, was not always the case, for at one time it became the fashion for the city to employ dramatists of note upon these matters; and there are yet extant certain pageants by Decker, Middleton, Webster, and others, though perhaps inferior writers.—Soane’s Curiosities of Literature.
With the processions, &c., of late years, most readers are sufficiently well acquainted from the newspapers of the day. Fully to describe those of former ages would require, however, a volume of no mean size; but some idea of their general character may be formed from the following brief sketch:—The first account of this annual exhibition known to have been published, was written by George Peele for the inauguration of Sir Wolstone Dixie, Knight, on the 29th of October (Old Style), 1585. On that occasion, as was customary to the times, there were dramatic representations in the procession of an allegorical character. Children were dressed to personify the city, magnanimity, loyalty, science, the country, and the river Thames. They also represented sailors, soldiers, and nymphs, with appropriate speeches. The show opened with a Moor mounted on a lynx. On Sir Thomas Middleton’s mayoralty, in 1613, the solemnity is described as unparalleled for the cost, art, and magnificence of the shows, pageants, chariots, morning, noon, and night triumphs. In 1655 the city pageants, after a discontinuance of about fourteen years, were revived. Edmund Gayton, the author of the description for that year, says that “our metropolis, for these planetary pageants, was as famous and renowned in foreign nations as for their faith, wealth, and valour.” In the show of 1659, an European, an Egyptian, and a Persian were personated. On Lord Mayor’s Day, 1671, the King, Queen, and Duke of York, and most of the nobility being present, there were “sundry shows, shapes, scenes, speeches, and songs in part;” and the like in 1672 and 1673, when the King again graced the triumphs. The King, Queen, Duke and Duchess of York, Prince Rupert, the Duke of Monmouth, foreign ambassadors, the chief nobility, and Secretary of State, were at the celebration of Lord Mayor’s Day in 1674, when there “were emblematical figures, artful pieces of architecture, and rural dancing, with pieces spoken on each pageant.”—See Hone’s Every Day Book, vol. i. p. 1445.
Nov. 11.] ST. MARTIN’S DAY.
Nov. 11.]
ST. MARTIN’S DAY.
The festival of St. Martin, happening at that season when the new wines of the year are drawn from the lees and tasted, when cattle are killed for winter food, and fat geese are in their prime, is held as a feast day over most parts of Christendom. On the ancient clog almanacs, the day is marked by the figure of a goose, our bird of Michaelmas being, on the continent, sacrificed at Martinmas. In Scotland and the north of England, a fat ox is called a mart[84] clearly from Martinmas, the usual time when beeves are killed for winter use.—Book of Days, vol ii. p. 568.