re told Sir John Perrot to stay;
and at the proper crisis, some verses being recited by Truth, the book
descended, "and the Queen received it in both her hands, kissed it,
clasped it to her bosom, and thanked the City for this present,
esteemed above all others. She promised to read it diligently, to the
great comfort of the bystanders." All the houses in Cheapside were
dressed with banners and streamers, and the richest carpets, stuffs, and
cloth of gold tapestried the streets. At the upper end of Chepe, the
Recorder presented the Queen, from the City, with a handsome crimson
satin purse, containing a thousand marks in gold, which she most
graciously pocketed. There were trumpeters at the Standard in Chepe, and
the City waits stood at the porch of St. Peter's, Cornhill. The City
companies stretched in rows from Fenchurch Street to the Little Conduit
in Chepe, behind rails, which were hung with cloth.

On an occasion when James I. and his wife visited the City, at the
Conduit, Cheapside, there was a grand display of tapestry, gold cloth,
and silks; and before the structure "a handsome apprentice was
appointed, whose part it was to walk backwards and forwards, as if
outside a shop, in his flat cap and usual dress, addressing the
passengers with his usual cry for custom of, 'What d'ye lack, gentles?
What will you buy? silks, satins, or taff--taf--fetas?' He then broke
into premeditated verse:--

"'But stay, bold tongue! I stand at giddy gaze!
Be dim, mine eyes! What gallant train are here,
That strikes minds mute, puts good wits in a maze?
Oh! 'tis our King, royal King James, I say!
Pass on in peace, and happy be thy way;
Live long on earth, and England's sceptre sway,'" &c.

Henrietta Maria, that pretty, wilful queen of Charles I., accompanied by
the Duke of Buckingham and Bassompierre, the French ambassador, went to
what the latter calls _Shipside_, to view the Lord Mayor's procession.
She also came to a masquerade at the Temple, in the costume of a City
lady. Mistress Bassett, the great lace-woman of Cheapside, went foremost
of the Court party at the Temple carnival, and led the Queen by the
hand.

But what are royal processions to the Lord Mayor's Show?

The earliest civic show on record, writes Mr. Fairholt, who made a
specialty of this subject, took place in 1236, on the passage of Henry
III. and Eleanor of Provence through the City to Westminster. They were
escorted by the mayor,