, been covered with gravel; all the Companies had provided new
banners; all the magistrates new robes. Twelve thousand pounds had been
expended in preparing fireworks. Great multitudes of people from all the
neighbouring shires had come up to see the show. Never had the City been
in a more loyal or more joyous mood. The evil days were past. The guinea
had fallen to twenty-one shillings and sixpence. The bank note had risen
to par. The new crowns and halfcrowns, broad, heavy and sharply
milled, were ringing on all the counters. After some days of impatient
expectation it was known, on the fourteenth of November, that His
Majesty had landed at Margate. Late on the fifteenth he reached
Greenwich, and rested in the stately building which, under his auspices,
was turning from a palace into a hospital. On the next morning, a bright
and soft morning, eighty coaches and six, filled with nobles, prelates,
privy councillors and judges, came to swell his train. In Southwark he
was met by the Lord Mayor and the Aldermen in all the pomp of office.
The way through the Borough to the bridge was lined by the Surrey
militia; the way from the bridge to Walbrook by three regiments of the
militia of the City. All along Cheapside, on the right hand and on the
left, the livery were marshalled under the standards of their trades. At
the east end of Saint Paul's churchyard stood the boys of the school of
Edward the Sixth, wearing, as they still wear, the garb of the sixteenth
century. Round the Cathedral, down Ludgate Hill and along Fleet Street,
were drawn up three more regiments of Londoners. From Temple Bar to
Whitehall gate the trainbands of Middlesex and the Foot Guards were
under arms. The windows along the whole route were gay with tapestry,
ribands and flags. But the finest part of the show was the innumerable
crowd of spectators, all in their Sunday clothing, and such clothing
as only the upper classes of other countries could afford to wear. "I
never," William wrote that evening to Heinsius, "I never saw such a
multitude of welldressed people." Nor was the King less struck by the
indications of joy and affection with which he was greeted from the
beginning to the end of his triumph. His coach, from the moment when
he entered it at Greenwich till he alighted from it in the court of
Whitehall, was accompanied by one long huzza. Scarcely had he reached
his palace when addresses of congratulation, from all the great
corporations of his kin