aldermen, and 360 mounted citizens, apparelled in
robes of embroidered silk, and each carrying in their hands a cup of
gold or silver, in token of the privilege claimed by the City for the
lord mayor to officiate as chief butler at the king's coronation. On the
return of Edward I. from the Holy Land the citizens, in the wildness of
their loyalty, threw, it is said, handfuls of gold and silver out of
window to the crowd. It was on the return of the same king from his
Scotch victories that the earliest known City pageant took place. Each
guild had its show. The Fishmongers had gilt salmon and sturgeon, drawn
by eight horses, and six-and-forty knights riding seahorses, followed by
St. Magnus (it was St. Magnus' day), with 1,000 horsemen.

Mr. Fairholt proved from papers still preserved by the Grocers' Company
that water processions took place at least nineteen years earlier than
the usual date (1453) set down for their commencement. Sir John Norman
is mentioned by the City poet as the first Lord Mayor that rowed to
Westminster. He had silver oars, and so delighted the London watermen
that they wrote a ballad about him, of which two lines only still
exist--

"Row thy boat, Norman,
Row to thy leman."

In the troublous reign of Henry VI. the Goldsmiths made a special stand
for their privileges on Lord Mayor's day. They complained loudly that
they had always ridden with the mayor to Westminster and back, and that
on their return to Chepe they sit on horseback "above the Cross afore
the Goldsmiths' Row; but that on the morrow of the Apostles Simon and
Jude, when they came to their stations, they found the Butchers had
forestalled them, who would not budge for all the prayers of the wardens
of the Goldsmiths, and hence had arisen great variance and strife." The
two guilds submitted to the Lord Mayor's arbitration, whereupon the
Mayor ruled that the Goldsmiths should retain possession of their
ancient stand.

The first Lord Mayor's pageant described by the old chroniclers is that
when Anne Boleyn "came from Greenwich to Westminster on her coronation
day, and the Mayor went to serve her as chief butler, according to
ancient custom." Hall expressly says that the water procession on that
occasion resembled that of Lord Mayor's Day. The Mayor's barge, covered
with red cloth (blue except at royal ceremonies), was garnished with
goodly banners and streamers, and the sides hung with emblazoned
targets. In the barge were "sh