The MS. annals record, that Prince Edward came first to Coventry this year, and had 100 marks and a cup given him; that his house was kept at Cheylsmore, and that the gracious prince was one of the godfathers to the mayor's child. He remained in the city till the 3rd of May, and the form of an oath of allegiance and fidelity taken on that day by the mayor and aldermen, is preserved in the Leet book.

The next loyal exhibition of this nature was for the reception of Prince Arthur, in 1498, many entertaining particulars of which are derived from the same authority. We can give only two poetical specimens, and indeed we cannot speak very highly of the City Laureats of Coventry: their manufacture of poetry is by no means so celebrated as that of ribbons; although, doubtless, the royal families repaid their poetical fervour with a corresponding quantity of privileges and char

ters :

"And the crosse in the croschepyng was garnysshed & wyne ther rennyng and angels sensyng & syngyng with Orgayns and other melody &c. And at the Cundyt ther was seynt George kyllyng the dragon and seynt George had this speche folowyng

O most sovraign lorde be divyne provission to be
The ruler of cruell Mars & kyng Insuperable
Ye reioyce my corage trustyng hit to se
That named am George yo' patron favorable
To whom ye ar & ever shal be so acceptable
That in felde or cite wher so ever ye rayne
Shall I nev❜ fayle yewe thus is my purpose playne
To protect yo' magnyficence myself I shall endever
In all thyngs that yo' highnes shall concerne
Mor tenderly then I git did ever

Kyng Duke yerle lorde also berne [baron]

As
ye be myn assistence in processe shall lerne
Which thurgh yo' vertue most amorous knyght
I owe to yo* presence be due & very right
Like wyse as this lady be grace I defended
That thurgh myschaunce chosen was to dye
Fro thys foule serpent whom I sor wonded

In the Chamberlains' Accounts, made up Anno 1499, are these items:

It. p'd for settyng of the posts in the croschepyng when the kyng was here, in gret

It. p'd for takyng down of the same posts a geyn....

It. for pavyng in the croschepyng ther as the posts stode, of

ijs

xd

viij yards.

viija

So

ye in distresse preserve ever woll I

Fro all parell and wyked veleny

That shuld yo' noble persone in eny wyse distrayn

Which welcome is to this yo' chamb'r & to me right fayn

"And this Balet was song at the Crosse

Vivat le prynce Arthur.

In 1510, Henry VIII. and his then queen visited Co ventry; upon which occasion, three pageants were set forth, viz. one at Jordan Well, with nine orders of angels; one at Broad Gate, with divers beautiful damsels; and another at the Cross, with a goodly stage play. A very brief account, preserved in the MS. Annals of the City, is the only notice that remains of them; but, doubtless, the customary odes and addresses, and loyal unction, were poured over their majesties by the mayor, aldermen, and citizens, a class of lieges whose vials of effervescent loyalty were then, as often times in modern days, emptied without much mercy or discrimination.

In 1525, the Lady Mary, eldest daughter of Henry VIII., came to Coventry, and, we are told, lay at the Priory, where she remained two days. The mercers' pageant was gallantly trimmed, and stood in Cross Cheaping. At her going away, one hundred marks and a kerchief were presented to her. This account

from the MS. is all that is recorded, except some items in the Trinity Guild accounts, which shew that the public bodies of the city, religious, probably, as well as civil, were assembled to do her honour.

The next and last royal visit to the city, attended with a display of pageants, was that of Queen Elizabeth, in 1565, a particular account of which is recorded in the MS. Annals. It is also fully extracted in Nichols's Progresses of Queen Eli

zabeth.*

We must return to a rapid notice of the pageants of the different companies. The Dramatis Persona are now only to be made out from the items of charges for their wardrobes. Among the characters represented in the smiths' pageant, the first in the list is GoD, or, as it is sometimes more correctly expressed, Jesus. The following are the principal entries describing the dress of character:

The splendid entertainment of this queen, and the gorgeous public shews which were given in her honour, at Kenilworth, are well known and described in that singular tract, A Letter whearin part of the Entertainment untoo the Queenz Majesty, at Killingwoorth Castl, in Warwick Sheer, in this Soomerz Progrest 1575, iz signified: from a freend officer attendant in the Coourt, unto hiz freend a Citizen and Merchaunt of London." See also Kenilwoorth Illustrated, a folio volume of graphic and literary illustrations, of which Mr. Sharp is the reputed Editor.

The confusion of the persons of the Holy Trinity arising from the old pictorial designs and mysteries. A splendid picture, by Rubens, of Ignatius Loyola, represents the founder of the Jesuits contemplating this mystery in rapture. His uplifted eyes are fixed on the letters I. H. S. blazing in the centre of a flame of fire. These awful initials, still placed on the pulpits and altar pieces of Protestant Churches, denote neither Trinity nor Unity; they only exemplify the mistakes of the early manuscript writers.

This is shewn by Mr. Casley, in his preface to the Catalogue of the King's MSS. (p. xxiii.) he says, that, in Latin MSS. the Greek letters of the word Christus, as also Jesus, are always retained, except that the terminations are changed according to the Latin language. Jesus is written I. H. S., or in small characters i. h. s., which is the Greek I H 2, or, an abbreviation of es. However, the scribes knew nothing of this for a thousand years before the invention of printing; for, if they had, they would not have written ih s. for ines; but they ignorantly copied, after one another, such letters as they found put for those two words: nay, at length, they pretended to find Jesus Hominum Salvator comprehended in the word IHS; which is another proof that they took the middle letter to be h, not . The dash also over the word, which is a sign of abbreviation, some have changed to the sign of the cross.

1451.-It' payed for vj skynnys of whitleder to godds

garment

It' payed for makyng of the same garment 1553. It' payd for v schepskens for gods & coot for

makyng

1498.-It' payd for mendyng a cheverel for god and for sowyng of gods kote of leddur and for makyng of the hands to the same kote

1490.-It' a cheveral gyld for Ihe.*

1565.-pd for payntyng & gyldyng (inter alia) gods cote.

pd for a gyrdyll for god

1501.-It' pd ffor a newe sudere for god

1560.-Item for a selldall for god.

All the different characters are suitably attired, though without much respect for probability or chronology. The anachronisms are much the same as the scenic representations of Abraham shooting Isaac with a double-barrelled Birmingham gun, and Apollo playing on a Cremona fiddle. The DEVIL was a very favourite and prominent character in the religious mysteries; he was introduced as often as was decently practicable; and it is not a little amusing to trace his modern biography and the brimstone descriptions so common in our popular conventicles, in these mimic representations.

"But bad as he is, the DEVIL may be abused,

Be falsely charged and causelessly accused!"

The following is the account of this gentleman's habili

ments :

1451.-Item payd for the demon's garment makyng & the stof

Item payd for collyryng of the same garment 1477.-Item for mendyng the demons garment (inter alia) · Item for newe ledder to the same garment

v' iija ob. viijd

xxijd

1494.-Item paid to Wattis for dressyng of the devells hede viija 1490.-Item the devyls hede (repaired)

1498.-It' paid for peynttyng of the demones hede (inter alia) 1567.-Item payd for a stafe for the demon

iiijd

Satan has certainly met with more civil description in later

* This cheverel, or false hair, (peruke) in 1490, described to have been gilt, is consistent with the fashion of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth, who are reported to have worn, occasionally, fine gold-dust in their hair: this was, probably, some cheap lacker in imitation of the haut ton practice.

times. A recent military writer says, that at the Lisbon theatre, in a piece called the Creation of the World, the Devil appears in a dancing quadrille of infernal spirits, dressed in black, with scarlet stockings, and a gold-laced hat. In the Banes to the Chester plays, 1600, their Devil is thus described :

"The Devill in his fethers, all ragger and rent."

The Devil appears to have been much better known in those days. We moderns can boast no personal acquaintance with him, with his tail, his barbed tongue, or his prong, and no knowledge of him save what we learn from blackletter books and the Latin poem Querela, translated_by_the father of Crashaw the poet, under the title of "The Complaint, or Dialogue betwixt the Soule and the Bodie of a Damned Man; each laying the fault upon the other." (London, 1616, 24mo.) One further description only of this important person we will quote from the conversation between Hodge and Gammer, in Gammer Gurton's Needle :

Gam:-But Hodge had he no horns to push?

Hodg-As long as your two armes. Saw ye never fryer Rushe Painted on cloth, with a side long cowe's tayle,

And crooked cloven feet, and many a hoked nayle?

For al the world (if I should judg) chould reckon him his brother;

Loke, even what face frier Rush had, the devil had such

another."

We pass over the well-known descriptions of Hell Mouth, (hell was not very deep at Coventry, as three fathoms of cord would bottom it) the demons, the earthquake, and all the rude paraphernalia of the scenery.

The only play extant, that of the guild and company of shearmen and taylors, is re-printed with a singular fidelity, which, as in other instances, we cannot for want of type imitate. This guild was founded in honour of the Nativity, and took for the subject of their pageant, the Birth of Christ and offering of the Magi, with the Flight into Egypt and Murder of the Innocents. We have no space for those extracts, which would enable our readers to judge of the nature of the plot

"On the evening of Good Friday," says Southey, in his Letters from Spain and Portugal, "I went to the new Convent, to witness the rending of the veil of the Temple, and hear a Portuguese Sermon. The Earthquake was represented by a noise like scuffling of feet." Vol. ii. p. 181.