The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England: Including the Rural and Domestic Recreations, May Games, Mummeries, Shows, Processions, Pageants, and Pompous Spectacles from the Earliest Period to the Present TimeStrutt, Joseph
History
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England: Including the Rural and Domestic Recreations, May Games, Mummeries, Shows, Processions, Pageants, and Pompous Spectacles from the Earliest Period to the Present Time
Strutt, Joseph
England -- Social life and customs; Games -- England -- History; Pageants -- England -- History; Popular culture -- England; Processions -- England -- History; Sports -- England -- History
In an old play, the Historie of Promos and Cassandra, part the second,
by George Whetstone, printed in 1578,[56] a carpenter, and others,
employed in preparing the pageants for a royal procession, are
introduced. In one part of the city the artificer is ordered "to set
up the frames, and to space out the rooms, that the Nine Worthies may
be so instauled as best to please the eye." The "Worthies" are thus
named in an heraldical MS. in the Harleian Library:[57] "Duke Jossua;
Hector of Troy; kyng David; emperour Alexander; Judas Machabyes;
emperour Julyus Cæsar; kyng Arthur; emperour Charlemagne; and syr
Guy of Warwycke;" but the place of the latter was frequently, and I
believe originally, supplied by Godefroy, earl of Bologne: it appears,
however, that any of them might be changed at pleasure: Henry VIII. was
made a "Worthy" to please his daughter Mary, as we shall find a little
farther on. In another part of the same play the carpenter is commanded
to "errect a stage, that the wayghtes[58] in sight may stand;" one
of the city gates was to be occupied by the fowre Virtues, together
with "a consort of music;" and one of the pageants is thus whimsically
described:
They have Hercules of monsters conquering;
Huge great giants, in a forrest, fighting
With lions, bears, wolves, apes, foxes, and grayes,
Baiards and brockes----
----Oh, these be wondrous frayes!
The stage direction then requires the entry of "Two men apparelled
lyke greene men at the mayor's feast, with clubbs of fyreworks;" whose
office, we are told, was to keep a clear passage in the street, "that
the kyng and his trayne might pass with ease."--In another dramatic
performance of later date, Green's Tu Quoque, or the City Gallant, by
John Cooke, published in 1614, a city apprentice says, "By this light,
I doe not thinke but to be lord mayor of London before I die; and have
three pageants carried before me, besides a ship and an unicorn." The
following passage occurs in Selden's Table Talk, under the article
Judge, "We see the pageants in Cheapside, the lions and the elephants;
but we do not see the men that carry them we see the judges look big
like lions; but we do not see who moves them."
XXIV.--PROCESSIONS OF QUEEN MARY AND KING PHILIP OF SPAIN IN LONDON.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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