The chariot in which she rode was
"... an imperial triumphal car of Roman form, elegantly adorned with variety of paintings, commixed with richest metals, beautified and embellished with several embellishments of gold and silver, illustrated with divers inestimable and various-coloured jewels of dazzling splendour, adorned and replenished with several lively figures bearing the banners of the kings, the lords mayor, and companies."
Upon a throne sits the virgin in great state, "hieroglyphically attired" in a robe of white satin, richly adorned with precious stones, fringed and embroidered with gold, signifying the graceful blushes of virginity; on her head a long dishevelled hair of flaxen colour, decked with pearls and precious gems, on which is a coronet of gold beset with emeralds, diamonds, sapphires, and other precious jewels of inestimable value. Her buskins are of gold, laced with scarlet ribbons, adorned with pearls and other costly jewels. In one hand she holds a sceptre; in the other, a shield with the arms of the right honourable the Company of Mercers.
Such is the gorgeous being who presides over the maiden's chariot. But she rides not in solitary state. Fame perched on a golden canopy blows her trumpet; Vigilance, Wisdom, Charity, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance, Faith, Hope, Charity, Loyalty, and the nine muses, attend upon her. She has eight pages of honour dressed in cloth of silver walk by her side, and Triumph acts as charioteer. The whole machine is drawn by nine white Flanders horses, each horse ridden by some emblematical personage—such as Victory, Fame, Loyalty, Europe attended by Peace and Plenty, Africa, Asia and America. The foot attendants are numerous—eight grooms, forty Roman lictors in crimson garb, twenty servants to clear the way, and twenty "savages" or green men throwing squibs and fireworks to keep off the crowd, and a crowd of workmen ready to repair any part of the cumbersome chariot which might, as was not unlikely, get out of order during its progress through the city.
Beside such magnificent pageants, our present Lord Mayors' processions seem poor and insignificant. We might go back to an earlier day and see Henry V. returning from his victorious campaign in France, and being greeted by his loyal subjects at Blackheath, the mayor and brethren of the City Companies wearing red gowns with hoods of red and white, "well mounted and gorgeously horsed with rich collars and great chains, rejoicing in his victorious returne." The river, too, was often the scene of their splendour, as when Elizabeth, the Queen of King Henry VII., was crowned. At her coming forth from Greenwich by water
"... there was attending upon her then the maior, shrifes, and aldermen of the citie, and divers and many worshipful comoners, chosen out of evry crafte, in their liveries, in barges freshly furnished with banners and streamers of silke, rechly beaton with the arms and bagges of their craftes; and in especiall a barge, called the bachelors' barge, garnished and apparelled, passing all other, wherein was ordeyned a great redd dragon, spowting flames of fyer into the Thames; and many other gentlemanlie pagiaunts, well and curiously devised, to do Her Highness sport and pleasure with."
Charity and Religion
But pleasure, pomp, and pageantry were not the sole uses of these guilds in olden days. A study of the preamble to their numerous charters shows that to maintain the poor members of their companies was one of their chief objects. The Fishmongers had a grant of power to hold land "for the sustentation of the poor men and women of the said commonalty." The Goldsmiths' charter recites that
"... many persons of that trade, by fire and the smoke of quicksilver, had lost their sight, and that others of them by working in that trade became so crazed and infirm that they were disabled to subsist but of relief from others; and that divers of the said city, compassionating the condition of such, were disposed to give and grant divers tenements and rents in the said city to the value of twenty pounds per annum to the company of the said craft towards the maintenance of the said blind, weak and infirm."