alms, shagbushes, and divers other
instruments, which continually made goodly harmony." Fifty barges,
filled with the various companies, followed, marshalled and kept in
order by three light wherries with officers. Before the Mayor's barge
came another barge, full of ordnance and containing a huge dragon
(emblematic of the Rouge Dragon in the Tudor arms), which vomited wild
fire; and round about it stood terrible monsters and savages, also
vomiting fire, discharging squibs, and making "hideous noises." By the
side of the Mayor's barge was the bachelors' barge, in which were
trumpeters and other musicians. The decks of the Mayor's barge, and the
sail-yards, and top-castles were hung with flags and rich cloth of gold
and silver. At the head and stern were two great banners, with the royal
arms in beaten gold. The sides of the barge were hung with flags and
banners of the Haberdashers' and Merchant Adventurers' Companies (the
Lord Mayor, Sir Stephen Peacock, was a haberdasher). On the outside of
the barge shone three dozen illuminated royal escutcheons. On the left
hand of this barge came another boat, in which was a pageant. A white
falcon, crowned, stood upon a mount, on a golden rock, environed with
white and red roses (Anne Boleyn's device), and about the mount sat
virgins, "singing and playing sweetly." The Mayor's company, the
Haberdashers, came first, then the Mercers, then the Grocers, and so on,
the barges being garnished with banners and hung with arras and rich
carpets. In 1566-7 the water procession was very costly, and seven
hundred pounds of gunpowder were burned. This is the first show of which
a detailed account exists, and it is to be found recorded in the books
of the Ironmongers' Company.

[Illustration: THE LORD MAYOR'S PROCESSION. (From Hogarth's "Industrious
Apprentice.") (_See page 323._)]

[Illustration: THE MARRIAGE PROCESSION OF ANNE BOLEYN (_see page 316_).]

A curious and exact description of a Lord Mayor's procession in
Elizabeth's reign, written by William Smith, a London haberdasher in
1575, is still extant. The day after Simon and Jude the Mayor went by
water to Westminster, attended by the barges of all the companies,
duly marshalled and hung with emblazoned shields. On their return they
landed at Paul's Wharf, where they took horse, "and in great pomp passed
through the great street of the city called Cheapside." The road was
cleared by beadles and men dressed as devils, and wild men, wh