In the Lord Mayor’s Pageant for 1673 the giants came out again. This
pageant was designed by Thomas Jordan. It appears to have been their
first appearance after the Fire.
“I must not omit to tell you, that marching in the van of these five
pageants, are two exceeding rarities to be taken notice of; that is,
there are two extreme great giants, each of them at least fifteen foot
high, that do sit and are drawn by horses in two several chariots,
moving, talking, and taking tobacco as they ride along, to the great
admiration and delight of all the spectators; at the conclusion of
the show they are to be set up in Guildhall, where they may be daily
seen all the year, and I hope never to be demolished by such dismal
violence as happened to their predecessors; which are raised at the
peculiar and proper cost of the city.” (_Ibid._)
It would seem that in many of the pageants it was not thought necessary
to set down the fact that the giants formed part, for in Henley’s
Orations (1730–1755) there is one on the Lord Mayor’s Show which
contains the following passage: “On that day, the two giants have the
priviledge, if they think it proper, to walk out and keep holiday; one
on each side of the great horse would aggrandize the solemnity, shew
consisting often in bulk.” (_Ibid._)
In Stow’s description of the setting of the watch on Midsummer’s Eve,
he says: “The Mayor had, beside his giants, three pageants, whereas
the Sheriffs had only two, besides their giants.” In Marston’s _Dutch
Courtezan_, acted 1605, an allusion is made to the giants: “yet all
will scarce make me so high as one of the gyant’s stilts that stalks
before my Lord Mayor’s Pageants.”
George Wither (1661) calls the giants “Big-boned Colbrant and great
Brandsmore.”
“The giants at Guildhall ...
• • • • •
Where they have had a place to them assigned
At public meetings, now time out of mind.”
The last appearance of the giants in a procession was in 1837, when
they graced the Lord Mayor’s Show.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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