ver
like a stolen love-match, and the marriage feast had been eaten in vexation
and disappointment. These past mortifications were to be atoned for by a
coronation pageant which the art and the wealth of the richest city in
Europe should be poured out in the most lavish profusion to adorn.

On the morning of the 31st of May, the families of the London citizens were
stirring early in all houses. From Temple Bar to the Tower, the streets
were fresh strewed with gravel, the footpaths were railed off along the
whole distance, and occupied on one side by the guilds, their workmen, and
apprentices, on the other by the city constables and officials in their
gaudy uniforms, "with their staves in hand for to cause the people to keep
good room and order."[435] Cornhill and Gracechurch Street had dressed
their fronts in scarlet and crimson, in arras and tapestry, and the rich
carpet-work from Persia and the East. Cheapside, to outshine her rivals,
was draped even more splendidly in cloth of gold, and tissue, and velvet.
The sheriffs were pacing up and down on their great Flemish horses, hung
with liveries, and all the windows were thronged with ladies crowding to
see the procession pass. At length the Tower guns opened, the grim gates
rolled back, and under the archway in the bright May sunshine, the long
column began slowly to defile. Two states only permitted their
representatives to grace the scene with their presence--Venice and France.
It was, perhaps, to make the most of this isolated countenance, that the
French ambassador's train formed the van of the cavalcade. Twelve French
knights came riding foremost in surcoats of blue velvet with sleeves of
yellow silk, their horses trapped in blue, with white crosses powdered on
their hangings. After them followed a troop of English gentlemen, two and
two, and then the Knights of the Bath, "in gowns of violet, with hoods
purfled with miniver like doctors." Next, perhaps at a little interval, the
abbots passed on, mitred in their robes; the barons followed in crimson
velvet, the bishops then, and then the earls and marquises, the dresses of
each order increasing in elaborate gorgeousness. All these rode on in
pairs. Then came alone Audeley, lord-chancellor, and behind him the
Venetian ambassador and the Archbishop of York; the Archbishop of
Canterbury, and Du Bellay, Bishop of Bayonne and of Paris, not now with
bugle and hunting-frock, but solemn with stole and crozier. Next, the lord