On special occasions, cathedrals witnessed extraordinary processions--as when Judges, with the Sheriffs and their officers, attended at Assize sermons; or when a Mayor and Aldermen, clothed in municipal robes, with their gold chains, marched or rode thither, through streets of quaint architecture, to celebrate festivals civic or sacred. A Royal visit eclipsed all mere annual pageants; and it is related that when Charles II., in the year 1671, visited the City of Norwich, as the guest of Lord Henry Howard, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, His Majesty went to the grand old Norman temple in the Close--the pride of the City--and was “sung into the church with an anthem; and when he had ended his devotion at the east end of the church, where he kneeled on the hard stone, he went to the Bishop’s palace [then occupied by Reynolds], and was there nobly entertained.”[267] St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, became the scene of peculiar solemnities. The Feast of St. George was there celebrated in 1662; and the knights elect were constrained to receive their investiture below, in the choir, yet directly under their proper stalls, because of “the great concourse of people which at that time had flocked to Windsor (greedy to behold the glory of that solemnity, which for many years had been intermitted), and rudely forced not only into and filled the lower row of stalls, but taken up almost the whole choir.” Two years afterwards, at the Feast of St. George, there was an anthem, composed for the solemnity, accompanied by the organ and other instrumental music; this was the first time that instrumental music was introduced into the Royal chapel.[268] Pompous funerals had taken place during the Commonwealth, particularly in Westminster Abbey. Funerals more pompous still occurred in the same national edifice, with a splendour surpassing what might be exhibited elsewhere. Monk, Duke of Albemarle, in 1670, was conveyed “by the King’s orders, with all respect imaginable,” in a long procession; and within the sacred walls the remains were met by the Dean and Prebendaries, who wore copes; and, in connection with the service, offerings were made at the altar.[269] On Easter Day, at the Royal Chapel, when the Bishop of Rochester preached before the King, and the sacrament followed, “there was perfume burnt before the office began.”[270]