London and Its Environs Described, vol. 6 (of 6): Containing an Account of Whatever is Most Remarkable for Grandeur, Elegance, Curiosity or Use, in the City and in the Country Twenty Miles Round ItAnonymous
History
London and Its Environs Described, vol. 6 (of 6): Containing an Account of Whatever is Most Remarkable for Grandeur, Elegance, Curiosity or Use, in the City and in the Country Twenty Miles Round It
Anonymous
London (England) -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; London (England) -- Gazetteers -- Early works to 1800
11. The droll figure of Will Somers, who, as the warders tell you, was
King Henry the Eighth’s jester. They add, “He was an honest man of a
woman’s making—he had a handsome woman to his wife, who made him a
cuckold; and he wears his horns on his head, because they should not
wear holes in his pockets.——He would neither believe King, Queen,
nor any about the court, that he was a cuckold, till he put on his
spectacles to see, being a little dim sighted, as all cuckolds should
be:” in which antic manner he is here represented.
12. What your conductors call, a collar of torments, which say they,
“used formerly to be put about the womens necks that cuckolded their
husbands, or scolded at them when they came home late, but that custom
is left off now-a-days, to prevent quarrelling for collars, there not
being smiths enough to make them, as most married men are sure to want
at one time or other.”
You now come to the line of Kings, which your conductor begins by
reversing the order of chronology; so that in following them we must
place the last first.
1. His late Majesty King George I. in a complete suit of armour,
sitting with a truncheon in his hand on a white horse richly
caparisoned, having a fine Turky bridle gilt, with a globe, crescent
and star; velvet furniture laced with gold, and gold trappings.
2. King William III. dressed in the suit of armour worn by Edward the
Black Prince son to Edward III. at the glorious battle of Cressey.
He is mounted on a sorrel horse, whose furniture is green velvet
embroidered with silver, and holds in his right hand a flaming sword.
3. King Charles II. dressed in the armour worn by the champion of
England, at the coronation of his present Majesty. He sits with a
truncheon in his hand, on a fine horse richly caparisoned, with crimson
velvet laced with gold.
4. King Charles I. in a rich suit of his own armour gilt, and curiously
wrought, presented to him by the city of London when he was Prince
of Wales, and is the same that was laid on the coffin at the funeral
procession of the late great Duke of Marlborough, on which occasion a
collar of SS was added to it, and is now round it.
5. James I. who sits on horseback dressed in a complete suit of figured
armour, with a truncheon in his right hand.
6. King Edward VI. dressed in a curious suit of steel armour, whereon
are depicted in different compartments a great variety of scripture
histories. He sits like the rest on horseback, with a truncheon in his
hand.
7. King Henry VIII. in his own armour, which is of polished steel with
the foliages gilt or inlaid with gold. He holds a sword in his right
hand.
8. King Henry VII. who also holds a sword. He sits on horseback in a
complete suit of armour finely wrought, and washed with silver.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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