“You must, doubtless, recollect that in November 1501, Arthur, Prince of Wales, and son to King Henry VII., was married to Katherine, daughter of Ferdinand V., King of Spain, and that on Friday, the 12th of that month, the young Princess was conveyed from Lambeth, through London, to witness the pageants which had been prepared by the Citizens to do honour to her nuptials. The whole City was full of triumph and splendour; and Stow, in his ‘_Annals_,’ page 482, says that on London Bridge there was ordained a costly pageant of St. Katherine and St. Ursula, with many virgins. ‘I passe ouer,’ says Hall, in a very brilliant paragraph, folio, liii a, and using that most powerful oratorical figure called Paralepsis, or Omission, which declares that of which it denies saying any thing:--‘I passe ouer,’ says the old Chronicler,--‘the wyse deuises, the prudent speches, the costly woorkes, the conninge portratures practised and set foorth in vij goodly beautifull pageauntes erected and set vp in diuers places of the Cite. I leaue also the goodly ballades, the swete armony, the musicall instrumentes, which sounded with heavenly noyes on every side of the strete. I omit farther the costly apparel both of goldsmythes woorke and embraudery, the riche jewelles, the massy cheynes, the styrrynge horsses, the beautifull bardes and the glytteryng trappers bothe with belles and spangles of golde. I pretermyt also the ryche apparell of the Pryncesse, the straunge fasshion of the Spanishe nacion, the beauty of the Englishe ladyes, the goodly demeanoure of the young damoselles, the amourous countenaunce of the lusty bachelers. I passe ouer also the fyne engrayned clothes, the costly furres of the Citizens standing on skaffoldes, rayled from Gracechurche to Paules. What should I speake of the oderiferous skarlettes, the fyne veluet, the plesaunt furres, the massye chaynes, which the Mayre of London with the Senate, sitting on horseback, at the Litle Condyte in Chepe, ware on their bodyes, and about their neckes. I will not molest you with rehersyng the ryche arras, the costly tapestry, the fyne clothes bothe of golde and syluer, the curious veluettes, the beautiful sattens, nor the pleasaunt sylkes, which did hang in every strete wher she passed, the wyne that ranne continually out of the condytes, the graueling and rayling of the stretes nedeth not to be remembered.’ I have given you the whole of this fine, but certainly extended, extract, that you may derive from it some general idea of the pageantry of this festival, concerning which our Bridge historians are, in general, altogether silent.