London pageants Author:John Gough Nichols Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: sion, paraded through the streets, having, among other pageants and shows, four sturgeons gilt, carried on four horses; then four salmons, of silver, carried on ... more »four horses; and after, six and forty knights, armed, riding on horses made like " luces of the sea: " and then St. Magnus, the patron saint of the day, with a thousand horsemen. There were, in early times, several occasions on which public pageantry was customary in London, ( particularly on May-day, and probably on the great festivals of the Church. At the setting forth of the two divisions of the City Watch, en the Eves of St. John the Baptist (June 23) and of St. Peter and St. Paul (June 28), the Mayor, besides his giant, had three pageants; and each of the Sheriffs, besides their giants, had two pageants. Ih 1510, King Henry the Eighth is said to have come in disguise, attracted by the reputation which the annual festivity of the Midsummer Watch bore as " a good sight." He is stated to have repaired to the King's Head in Cheap, in the livery of one of his own Yeomen of the Guard, with a halbert on his shoulder, and there beheld the procession pass. So gratified was his Majesty on this occasion, that on St. Peter's eve, when the second division of the watch was set, he and the Queen came royally riding to the same place, and there, with their nobles, beheld the watch of the city, and returned in the morning4 This ceremonial fell into disuse towards the end of Henry the Eighth's reign.ij A luce was the old name for a pike; the English name for the raer- lucius or sea pike is, it is believed, the hake. f To notice all the more private festivities on which Pageants are found to have been introduced, would be to enter on too extensive a topic for this place. They were a favourite ingredient of the mummings of ...« less