The greatest of these spectacular efforts were reserved for Royal visits
to the City. On the return of Edward I. from his Scottish victory in 1298,
Stow tells us "every citizen, according to their severall trades, made
their several shew, but specially the fishmongers, which in a solempne
procession passed through the citie, having amongst other pageants and
shews foure sturgeons gilt, carried on foure horses; then foure salmons of
silver on foure horses, and after them sixe and fortie armed knights
riding on horses, made like sluces of the sea; and then one representing
St. Magnus (because it was on St. Magnus's day) with a thousand horsemen,"
&c. At the Coronation procession of Henry IV., in 1399, there were seven
fountains in Cheapside running with red and white wine. The King was
escorted by a large number of gentlemen with their servants in liveries
and hoods; and the City Companies attended, clothed in their proper
liveries, and bearing banners of their trade. When Henry V. arrived at
Dover from France in 1415, the Mayor, Aldermen, and "craftsmen" rode to
Blackheath to meet the King on his road to Eltham with his prisoners. They
were attended by three hundred of the chief citizens, uniformly clad, well
mounted, and wearing rich collars and chains of gold.
Another picturesque ceremony was the Marching Watch, on the Eve of St.
John the Baptist and St. Peter's Eve, which developed at a later period
into a costly and sumptuous pageant. Elaborate dresses were worn both by
the citizens who attended in the procession and by the men who carried
cressets and other lights. The Mayor's household, from small beginnings,
came eventually to consist of nearly forty officers under the control of
the four esquires, who were the Sword-bearer, the Common Hunt, the Common
Crier, and the Water Bailiff. To these must be added the Lord Mayor's
Jester or Fool; the name of one who held this office, Kit Largosse, has
come down to us.
The office of Common Hunt recalls the hunting privileges of the Mayor and
citizens. Under the charter of Henry I., dated 1101, the citizens received
a grant and confirmation of their "chaces" to hunt "as well and fully as
their ancestors had" in the forests of Middlesex and Surrey, and on the
Chiltern Hills. This much-valued right has long since been commuted by
the grant of venison warrants, under which the Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, with
the Recorder and other officers, still receive deer from the Royal forests
to the total number of twelve bucks and twelve does annually.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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