AN OLD CORONATION CUSTOM.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7436, 24 June 1902, Page 2

AN OLD CORONATION CUSTOM.

THE KOYAL PROGRESS FROM THE TOWER. An English paper recently put in a plea for the revival of an ancient Coronation custom, long since fallen into desuetude — the Royal progress from the Tower to Westminster, usually on the day preceding the actual coronation. The custom continued for the space of three hundred years — that is| from the reign of Richard 11. to the reign of Charles 11., who "dined" at nine o'ciock in the morning and spent the rest of the day showing himself to the people. The description of the first such Royal progress, that of Richard 11, on July 15, 13"?7, is calculated to make later and more prosaic generations envious. The young Sovereign, clothed in white robes, rode forth, attended by a multitude of nobles, knights and esquires ; the conduits in the streets flowed with wine, and at the principal thoroughfares the procession was delayed to witness the exhibition of pageants. The Goldsmiths' Company, in particular, shone in this part of the festivities. We can hardly hope that the Guild will emulate its example of 1377, when it erected, a castle at the upper end of Cheap, with four towers, on two sides of which ran wine. In these towers four beautiful damsels, with white vestures, blew on the King's face leaves of gold, and threw before him arid his horse counterfeit golden sovereigns — an offence in itself against the laws regulating the coinage. When Richard reached the castle, the four young ladies tooks cups of gold, and filling them with wine from the spouts of the castle, presented the same to the King and his nobles. On the top of the castle, between the towers, stood a golden angel, holding a crown in- his hand/and so contrived that, when the King came, this angel bowed down and gave him the crown. RAN WITH; WHITE AND RED WINES. ' ' The gratuitous circulation .of alcoholic beverages on these occasions would seem to have inaile most impression on the old chroniclers. . Thus Froissart, in his account of the progress of Henry IV. — the " welcome Bolingbroke!" of Shakespeare, relates how the Duke of Lancaster left the Tower " this Sunday" after dinner, on his return, to Westminster. He was bare-headed,- and had round his neck the Order of the King of France. His dress comprised a jacket of the German fashion, of cloth of gold, whit* hose with a blue garter on his left leg. Mounted on a white horse, and accompanied by the Prince of Wales and a multitude of horsemen (dukes, noblea and their servants, and the different companies of London) amounting to some 6000 in. number, the new King 1 passed through the streets of London, which weTe all handsomely decorated with tapestries and other rich hangings. There were nine fountains in Cheapside, and. other streets he passed through, which perpetually ran with white and red wines. The ■Goldsmiths are to the fore i again when it comes to the progress of Henry Vm. and Catharine of Aragon, the first of his multitudinous queens. The streets were railed and barred on the one side, from Gracechurch to Bread Street in Oheapside, "where every occupacioa stode in their liveries in ordre, beginnyng with base and meane occupations, and so ascendyng to the worshipfull crafts; highest and lastly, stode the maior with the aldermen." The goldsmiths' stalls, at the end of Old Change, "beeing replenished with virgins in white, with braunches of white waxe." At Edward Vl. 's progress an attempt was made to amuse this poor little lad of ten. Instruction was, however, mingled. A representation of "Valentine and Orson" — a, younger generation can remember it .at Drury Lane not so many years ago-— was given in Cheapside. Near by stood Sapience and the Several Liberal Sciences, who "declared certain good speeches" for the edification, of the young King. Various other allegorical personages harangued him by the way. THE PROGRESS OF' ELIZABETH. But the grandest of them all was " The Passage of our most drad Soveraigne Lady Quene Elizabeth" through -the City of London to Westminster, on Saturday, Jan. 13, 1558, the day before her coronation. Her Majesty entered the City, drawn in a sumptuous chariot preceded "by trumpeters in &caiiet gowns, and heralds in their coat armour, bhe was surrounded by the principal nobility and gentlemen of the realm, and attended ■by a train, of ladies, all habited in crimson velvet. Along the streets were place 4 railings covered with rich drapery, within which stood in close ranks the Trades', Companies, bearing the ensigns of their "mysteries." Above their heads floated banners and pennons with loyal inscriptions in letters of gold, while festoons of rare needlework, cloth of gold, embroidered silks and costly hangings were tastefully arranged in awnings, or suspended from the windows and balconies of thfr houses. . . , The Queen was enthusiastically greeted, on her leaving the Tower. On approaching Fenchurch Street she was saluted by strains of merry music,, and a beautiful child stationed' on a sort of triumphal arch bade her welcome in a "goodly speech, which was neither tetter nor worse than the literature that adorns similar national festivals at. the present day. There was another stop presently in Gratious (Gracechurch) Street, where a number of children were arranged upon an arch in a series of "tableaux vivants," to illustrate the Queen's ancestry, Henry VHI. being represented as side by side with Ann Boleyn. More symbolical arches delayed the Queen on her way to the Standard in Cheapside. Here a 'band of musicians were stationed, to mark, no doubti the termination of the procession of the trades, which had lined the streets all the way from Fenchurch Street. The Aldermen and Recorder of the City at this; point presented her Majesty with an embroidered crimson purse containing a thousand marks in gold. "AND TIME HAS BROUGHT ME HERE." » One more arch, and we must leave this \jtale of the richest progress any English Sovereign 'has ever made. At the little Conduit was-/ an allegorical device which displayed, in? lively contrast, the images of a decayed and of a flouishing republic. From a cave beneath this pictorial representation issued forth an old anan with wings and a scythe, conducting a young female arrayed in spotless white, who held a book in her hand, on which was written in Latin, " The Word of Truth." Her Majesty asked the name of the old man, and come one answered "Time." "Time," repeated the Queen, " and time has brought me here." And- time has taken iher away, but not the might of the great England •which she helped to mould through the spacious years of her most memorable reign. * So the ceremony continued until it came to the turn of James 11., who, having ordered an estimate to be made of the cost of such a procession, and found it would amount to about 'half as much as he meant to spend in covering his wife with trinkets, decided that ths Progress should be discontinued. More than a hundlred thousand pounds was laid out in dressing the Queen, and the procession from the Tower was omitted. That fifty thousand pounds, spent and not saved, might conceivably have preserved his throne. \