in the street; but what is really pleasant is that you are expected to kiss the ladies, be they married or single, after you have been once formally presented to them, wherever you meet them. This is very agreeable when the ladies are young and fair, but otherwise

Mechanical religiosity, too, was now taking the place of the sincere piety of earlier and more austere times, and, even in the pageantry of this period, pagan mythology held as conspicuous a place as the Catholic hagiology. The light-fingered Mercury was as frequently associated in the city pageants with the infant John the Baptist, as Our Lady and the Seven Sacraments with Apollo and the Nine Muses. The influence of the later Italian Renaissance, the Renaissance of the dissolute Courts of the Borgias and Medici, imported by worldly prelates from the banks of the Tiber, was fast becoming acclimatised on those of the Thames-and was gradually preparing the way, not only for the Reformation, but also for the essentially pagan reign of "our great Eliza."

In the autumn of the first year of the sixteenth century, the unfortunate daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Katherine of Aragon, came to England as the affianced bride of Prince Arthur; her entry into the city was extremely magnificent. She was accompanied by a number of Spanish ladies and gentlemen, the Archbishop of Grenada, and several other foreign prelates. The Infanta, after the Spanish fashion, rode a handsome black mule. On her right cantered Prince Henry, Duke of York; on her left, the Papal Legate. Katherine's head-dress was a broad round felt hat, with an enormous bunch of long black plumes. She was draped in a mantilla of carnation coloured satin; and her hair, which was of a rich auburn hue, streamed below her waist. Her duenna, Doña Elvira, rode a black mule immediately behind the Princess. Doña Elvira, "a very sage lady," was dressed entirely in black, with a kerchief on her head and "black cloths hanging down beside her cheeks like a nun." Next followed four Spanish ladies, also riding mules, and wearing broad black felt hats heavily plumed, like the one worn by their royal mistress. The Princess's side-saddle was fash

1 It is said, and on fairly good authority, that our costers" are of Spanish descent. May not their headgear of a black hat with voluminous feathers, be a traditional part of their ancient national costume?

ioned in the shape of a little arm-chair, secured by straps crossing the mule's back. The most curious part of all was that four English ladies, attired in the English fashion, and riding palfreys, were deputed to lead each Spanish lady's mule, but as they did not sit their mounts on the same side as the fair foreigners, each couple seemed to be riding back to back, which, according to the authority from whose Spanish record this account is translated,1 "gave them the appearance of having quarrelled."

Katherine's bridal dress fairly took away the breath of the great English ladies, and of the public in general. She wore a Spanish mantilla of white silk, embroidered 5 inches deep with gold, pearls, and precious stones. This veiled the greater part of her face and person; but it was her petticoats that most amazed the spectators and excited their mirth. "Her gown was very wide, both the sleeves and the body with many plaits, and had beneath the waist certain round hoops which stretched it out so that she looked almost as broad as she was high." In other words, she wore the traditional Spanish guardinfante or farthingale, which continued in fashion at the Spanish Court from a period of very remote antiquity down to the first quarter of the last century. In a modified form it was revived by the Empress Eugenie under the ever to be execrated name of "crinoline."

The marriage of Prince Arthur and Katherine of Aragon on November 14, 1501, must have been a gorgeous affair. The procession from the Tower to St. Paul's passed through gaily decorated streets, hung with the usual draperies of silk, tapestry, and cloth-of-gold. First rode two sumptuously dressed gentlemen bearing the colours of Guienne and Normandy. Then came others carrying the King's hat and cloak; whilst the colossal figure of Sir Thomas Brandon, in splendid armour, preceded the handsome young lad, Prince Henry, Duke of York, who was garbed in a habit of cloth-of-silver tissue ornamented with Tudor roses in gold. He was, we are assured, the admired of all admirers; and indeed, in his youth, our eighth Henry was reckoned the handsomest prince in Christendom. Exceedingly tall for his age, and with a complexion, the Venetian Envoy

1 There is a very curious MS. in the Madrid Library of this pageant, from which many of these details have been derived. It is anonymous, and was probably written by someone in the train of the Princess.

declared, like that of a fair woman, he was a model of agility and strength, first in every bout at tennis, tournament, or tilt. King Henry VII., riding a white horse, followed bareheaded, and wore a robe of crimson velvet; his placard or breastplate was set with diamonds, rubies, and pearls, and his bawdrick, or belt, "with great rubies." The trappings of his horse were of damask and gold, even its hoofs were gilded. A throng of splendidly dressed nobles attended him. Immediately behind the King's procession came that of the Queen-Consort, who was seated in a chariot drawn by white palfreys. Elizabeth of York was dressed in embroidered white satin, with a train of purple velvet. By her sat the "Spanish King's daughter," the Lady Katherine of Aragon, all in white and gold, with her tawny hair streaming down her back from under a rich coronet. A bevy of maidens in white and gold followed the bride, who little dreamt, in that hour of happiness, of the dire trials in store for her.

Even Hall was baffled for words sufficiently glowing wherewith to describe this princely wedding. "How can I," says he, "portray the costlie apparel both of gold and silversmith's work, and imbroideries, the rich jewels, the musaical charms, the stirring horses, the beautiful bards, and the glittering trappings, both with bells and spangles, of gold. I pretermit also the rich apparel of the Princes, the beautie of the English ladies, the goodlie demeanoure of the young damoiseles, the amorous countenance of the lustie bachelors. I pass on all the fine imagined clothes, the costly furs of the citizens standing on scaffolds raised from Gracechurch to St. Paul's, and I will speak but of the rich arras, the costlie tapestrie, the curious velvets, the beautiful satins, and the pleasant silks which do hang in every street where she passed. The wine that continually did run out of the conduits, and the gravelling of the streets, needth but to be remembered."

Arthur, Prince of Wales, the stalwart young bridegroom, who had spent the night at the Wardrobe in Ludgate Hill, met the bride's procession in the Cathedral, where the wedding was celebrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, on "a high raised stage in front of the Altar." The King and Queen were on another stage, and after the bride and bridegroom were "made one" they went and knelt to receive the parental blessing; and then all the company heard High Mass, at which the Archbishop