incess Elizabeth and the Lady Jane
Grey, they were nothing.

Arrived at the Dowgate, the fleet was towed up the limpid Walbrook (whose
channel has now been for two centuries buried out of sight under acres of
buildings) to Bucklersbury, past houses and under bridges populous with
merry-makers and brilliantly lighted, and at last came to a halt in a
basin where now is Barge Yard, in the centre of the ancient city of
London. Tom disembarked, and he and his gallant procession crossed
Cheapside and made a short march through the Old Jewry and Basinghall
Street to the Guildhall.

Tom and his little ladies were received with due ceremony by the Lord
Mayor and the Fathers of the City, in their gold chains and scarlet robes
of state, and conducted to a rich canopy of state at the head of the
great hall, preceded by heralds making proclamation, and by the Mace and
the City Sword. The lords and ladies who were to attend upon Tom and his
two small friends took their places behind their chairs.

At a lower table the Court grandees and other guests of noble degree were
seated, with the magnates of the city; the commoners took places at a
multitude of tables on the main floor of the hall. From their lofty
vantage-ground the giants Gog and Magog, the ancient guardians of the
city, contemplated the spectacle below them with eyes grown familiar to
it in forgotten generations. There was a bugle-blast and a proclamation,
and a fat butler appeared in a high perch in the leftward wall, followed
by his servitors bearing with impressive solemnity a royal baron of beef,
smoking hot and ready for the knife.

After grace, Tom (being instructed) rose--and the whole house with him
--and drank from a portly golden loving-cup with the Princess Elizabeth;
from her it passed to the Lady Jane, and then traversed the general
assemblage. So the banquet began.

By midnight the revelry was at its height. Now came one of those
picturesque spectacles so admired in that old day. A description of it
is still extant in the quaint wording of a chronicler who witnessed it:

'Space being made, presently entered a baron and an earl appareled after
the Turkish fashion in long robes of bawdkin powdered with gold; hats on
their heads of crimson velvet, with great rolls of gold, girded with two
swords, called scimitars, hanging by great bawdricks of gold. Next came
yet another baron and another earl, in two long gowns of yellow satin,
traversed with white