On January 30, King Charles’s Day, the Lords went in procession to Westminster Abbey and the Commons to St. Margaret’s, both Houses to hear the Service of Commemoration. Where is that service now?
On Easter Sunday the Royal Family attended Divine Service at St. James’s, and received the Sacrament.
On Easter Monday the Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, and Aldermen went in state to Christ Church, formerly the Church of the Grey Friars, and heard service. In the evening there was a great banquet, with a ball. A fatiguing day for my Lord Mayor.
Easter Monday was also the day of the Epping Hunt. Greenwich Fair was held on that and the two following days. And in Easter week the theatres played pieces for children.
EVENING IN SMITHFIELD
(From a Drawing made in 1858, at the gateway leading into Cloth Fair, the place of proclamation of Bartholomew Fair)
On the first Sunday in Easter the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs went in state to St. Paul’s, and had a banquet afterwards.
On May Day the chimney-sweeps had their annual holiday.
On Ascension Day they made a procession of parish functionaries and parochial schools, and beat the bounds, and, to mark them well in the memory of all, they beat the charity children who attended the beadle, and they beat all the boys they caught on the way, and they banged against the boundaries all the strangers who passed within their reach. When it came to banging the strangers, they had a high old time.