ballets of Christmastide
introduced from France at this period.

[Illustration: ROYAL PARTY DINING IN STATE.]

Henry the Third's most splendid Christmas was in the twentieth year of
his reign, when he welcomed Eleanor, daughter of the Count of
Provence, to whom he was married on January 14, 1236. The youthful
princess left Provence amidst the rejoicings of the whole kingdom.
She was accompanied by Henry's ambassadors and a grand cavalcade, in
which were more than three hundred ladies on horseback. Her route lay
through Navarre and France. On reaching England, at Dover, the
princess and her train proceeded to Canterbury, where Henry awaited
their coming. It was in that ancient city that the royal pair were
married by the Archbishop Edmund and the prelates who accompanied
Eleanor. From Canterbury the newly-wedded king and queen set out for
London, attended by a splendid array of nobles, prelates, knights and
ladies. On the 20th of January, Eleanor was crowned at Westminster
with great splendour. Matthew Paris, the historian, gives an
interesting description of the royal procession, and the loyal welcome
of the citizens of London: "There had assembled together so great a
number of the nobility of both sexes, so great a number of religious
orders, so great a concourse of the populace, and so great a variety
of players, that London could scarcely contain them in her capacious
bosom. Therefore was the city adorned with silk hangings, and with
banners, crowns, palls, tapers, and lamps, and with certain marvellous
ingenuities and devices; all the streets being cleaned from dirt, mud,
sticks and everything offensive. The citizens of London going to meet
the king and queen, ornamented and trapped and wondrously sported
their swift horses; and on the same day they went from the City to
Westminster, that they might discharge the service of butler to the
king in his coronation, which is acknowledged to belong to them of
ancient right. They went in well-marshalled array, adorned in silken
vestments, wrapped in gold-woven mantles, with fancifully-devised
garments, sitting on valuable horses refulgent with new bits and
saddles: and they bore three hundred and sixty gold and silver cups,
the king's trumpeters going before and sounding their trumpets; so
that so wonderful a novelty produced a laudable astonishment in the
spectators." The literary monk of St. Albans also describes the
splendour of the feast, and the order of the servic