These verses and other pretie sentences were drawen in voide places
of thys Pageant, all tending to one ende, that quietness might be
mainteyned, and all dissention displaced, and that by the Quenes
Majestie, heire to agrement and agreing in name with her, which tofore
had joyned those Houses, which had been th’occasion of much debate and
civill warre within thys Realme, as may appeare to such as will searche
Cronicles, but be not to be touched in thys treatise, openly declaring
her Graces passage through the Citie, and what provisyon the Citie
made therfore. And ere the Quenes Majestie came wythin hearing of
thys Pageaunt, she sent certaine, as also at all other Pageauntes, to
require the People to be silent. For her Majestie was disposed to heare
all that shoulde be sayde unto her. When the Quenes Majestie had hearde
the chylde’s oration, and understoode the meanyng of the Pageant at
large, she marched forward toward Cornehill, alway received with lyke
rejoysing of the People: and there, as her Grace passed by the Conduit,
which was curiously trimmed agaynst that tyme with riche banners
adourned, and a noyse of loude instrumentes upon the top thereof, she
espyed the seconde Pageant: and because she feared for the People’s
noyse that she shoulde not heare the child which dyd expound the same,
she enquired what that Pageant was ere that she came to it: and there
understoode that there was a chylde representing her Majesties person,
placed in a seate of Government, supported by certayn vertues, which
suppressed their contrarie vyces under their feete, and so forthe.”...
“Against Soper Lane ende was extended from th’one side of the streate
to th’other a Pageant, which had three gates, all open. Over the
middlemost whereof wer erected three severall stages, whereon sate
eight children, as hereafter followeth: On the uppermost one childe,
on the middle three, on the lowest foure, eche having the proper name
of the blessing that they did represent written in a table, and placed
above their heades. In the forefront of this Pageant, before the
children which did represent the blessings, was a convenient standing,
cast out for a chylde to stand, which did expownd the sayd Pageant
unto the Quenes Majestie as was done in th’other tofore. Everie of
these children wer appointed and apparelled according unto the blessing
which he did represent. And on the forepart of the sayde Pageant was
written, in fayre letters, the name of the said Pageant, in this maner
following:—
‘The eight Beatitudes expressed in the V chapter of the Gospel of
St. Matthew
applyed to our Soveraigne Lady Quene Elizabeth.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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