The Girls' Book of Famous QueensFarmer, Lydia Hoyt
History
The Girls' Book of Famous Queens
Farmer, Lydia Hoyt
Queens -- Biography -- Juvenile literature
“Against this mountain on the north side was ordained a standing for
the king and his friends; and upon the south side was erected another
standing, which was occupied by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London.
“Then, upon the fourteenth of November, being Sunday, Prince Arthur
and the Infanta Catharine, both clad in white satin, ascended the
mountain, one on the north and the other on the south side, and were
there married by the Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by nineteen
bishops and abbots. The king and the queen and the king’s mother stood
in the place aforenamed, where they heard and beheld the solemnization,
which, being finished, the archbishop and bishops took their way from
the mountain across the platform, which was covered under foot with
blue ray cloth, into the choir, and so to the high altar. The prelates
were followed by the bride and bridegroom. The Princess Cecily bore
the train of the bride, and after her followed one hundred ladies and
gentlewomen in right costly apparel. Then the Mayor, in a gown of
crimson velvet, and his brethren in scarlet, went and sat in the choir
whilst mass was said. The Archbishop of York sat in the dean’s place
and made the chief offering, and after him came the Duke of Buckingham.
The mass being finished, Arthur publicly dowered his bride, at the
church door, with one-third of his income as Prince of Wales; and
afterwards the prince and princess were conducted in grand procession
out of church into the bishop’s palace, where a grand feast was
prepared, to which the Lord Mayor and Aldermen were invited.
“The city functionaries were served with plate valued at one thousand
two hundred pounds, but the plate off which the princess dined was
of solid gold, ornamented with pearls and precious stones, and worth
twenty thousand pounds.
“It was wonderful to behold the costly apparel and the massive chains
of gold worn on that day. Sir Thomas Brandon, the master of the king’s
horse, wore a gold chain, valued at one thousand four hundred pounds.
Rivers, the master of the king’s hawks, wore a chain worth one thousand
pounds, and many of the other chains worn were worth from two to three
hundred pounds each. The Duke of Buckingham wore a robe of the most
beautiful needle-work, wrought upon cloth of gold tissue and furred
with sable, worth one thousand five hundred pounds; and Sir Nicholas
Vaux wore a gown of purple velvet, so thickly ornamented with pieces of
massive gold that the gold alone, independent of the silk and fur, was
worth one thousand pounds.”
In honor of this marriage, tournaments, and festivals, and most
gorgeous pageants, followed by banquets and grand balls, were
celebrated for many days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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