describes him as proceeding with great pomp from Westminster to the Tower, "on the Saturday before his coronation." This was at that time "the castle royall and cheefe howse of safetye in this kingdome." Hither, therefore, many of our princes repaired for security until "all things of royal apparell and pompe necessarye and proper" to the coronation could be arranged. "Those squires who were to be knighted watched their arms that night: they amounted to forty-six; each squire had his chamber and bath, in which he bathed. The ensuing day the duke of Lancaster (Henry IV.) after mass, created them knights, and presented them with long green coats, with straight sleeves lined with minever, after the manner of prelates. These knights had on their left shoulders a double cord of white silk, with white tufts hanging down."

Henry VI. created thirty-six knights on his coronation; Edward IV. thirty-two; and Charles II. sixty-eight. The marriages of the royal family, the birth of heirs to the crown, and the fitting out of military expeditions of importance, furnish other accessions to the order during this long period. After the reign of Charles II. this part of the ceremonial was omitted; and the order, in fact, discontinued until the accession of the House of Brunswick[47].

The princes of this august house, however, have not revived the custom of an extraordinary creation of knights as a part of the coronation ceremonies.

The other ancient and disused custom of a royal progress from the Tower to Westminster is a theme of admiration with several of our old chroniclers, and must have been a highly interesting and popular accompaniment of the royal pageant.

The monarch, ordinarily, dined at the Tower on the day after the creation of the Knights of the Bath; and devoted the greater part of the day, after dinner, to this prolonged exhibition of himself to the people. Charles II. dined at what is called an "early" hour, in the "account" of sir Edward Walker, i.e. nine o'clock in the morning, on this occasion.

Froissart thus gives us the progress of Henry IV. "The duke of Lancaster left the Tower this Sunday after dinner, on his return to Westminster: he was bare-headed, and had round his neck the order of the king of France. The prince of Wales, six dukes, six earls, eighteen barons, accompanied him; and there were, of knights and other nobility, from eight to nine hundred horse with the procession. The duke was dressed in a jacket of the German fashion, of cloth of gold, mounted on a white courser, with a blue garter on his left leg. He passed through the streets of London, which were all handsomely decorated with tapestries and other rich hangings: there were nine fountains in Cheapside, and other streets he passed through, which perpetually ran with white and red wines. He was escorted by prodigious numbers of gentlemen, with their servants in liveries and badges; and the different companies of London were led by their wardens, clothed in their proper livery, and with ensigns of their trade. The whole cavalcade amounted to six thousand horse, which escorted the duke from the Tower to Westminster[48]."

Or, as Shakspeare brings every movement of a similar procession of this monarch before us,

"Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed,
Which his aspiring rider seemed to know,
With slow but stately pace, kept on his course:
While all tongues cried, God save thee, Bolingbroke!
You would have thought the very windows spake,
So many greedy looks of young and old
Through casements darted their desiring eyes
Upon his visage; and that all the walls
With painted imagery had said at once
Jesu preserve thee! welcome Bolingbroke!
Whilst he, from one side to the other turning,
Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed's neck,
Bespoke them thus; I thank you, countrymen;
And thus still doing, thus he past along[49]."

The coronation of Elizabeth the queen of Henry VII. includes one of the most splendid royal progresses on record. It will be recollected by our readers that this prince exhibited a strong personal reluctance to marry Elizabeth as well as to her subsequent coronation; although his union with her extinguished the bloody feuds of the houses of York and Lancaster, and bequeathed to posterity the invaluable boon of an undisputed succession to the throne. The Commons, in presenting him on his accession with the usual grant of tonnage and poundage, took the liberty to add their desire that he would "take to wife and consort the Princess Elizabeth, which marriage they hoped God would bless with a progeny of the race of kings," (de stirpe regum[50], the united race, perhaps, is meant). But it was not until a pretender to the throne had shaken the regal authority to its base, that, eighteen months after his marriage, he prepared for the coronation of his queen. A very superior modern historian[51] thus expresses the feelings of the prince and people on this occasion:—

"From this insurrection [that which was terminated by the battle of Stoke] the king learned an important lesson, that it was not his interest to wound the feelings of those whose principles had attached them to the house of York. His behaviour to the queen had created great discontent. Why, it was asked, was she not crowned? Why was she, the rightful heir to the crown, refused the usual honours of royalty? Other kings had been eager to crown their consorts: but Elizabeth had now been married a year and a half; she had borne the king a son to succeed to the throne; and yet she was kept in obscurity, as if she were unworthy her station."

The orders which he now gave, therefore, for her public investiture with the royal dignity, were calculated fully to conciliate the popular feeling. On the Friday preceding her coronation fourteen gentlemen were created knights of the Bath, and on the same day "the queene's good grace, royally apparelled, and accompanyed with my ladie the king's mother, and many other great estates, bothe lordes and ladies, richely besene, came forward to the coronacion; and, at their coming furth from Grenewich by water, there was attending upon her there, the maior, shrifes, and aldermen of the citie, and divers and many worshipfull comoners, chosen out of every craft, in their levereyes, in barges