Middle English Literature

Processions
London quickly received news of Henry V’s October 25, 1415, victory at
Agincourt. Three days later, on October 28, the newly elected mayor,
Nicholas Wotton, and many of London’s citizens processed on foot to
Westminster to give thanks to God and praise for Henry before the queen
and lords of the realm. In the month before the king arrived back in
London on Saturday, November 23 (via Calais), the city prepared elaborate
architectural sceneries, tableaux vivants, and other acts. Combined royal
and civic ceremonies were common in the later Middle Ages, and this royal
entry is in particular similar to Henry VI’s entry into Paris in 1431 and his
return to London in 1432.
For information on Agincourt and Gesta Henrici Quinti, see “Battle of
Agincourt,” p. 46.
Primary documents and further reading
Brie, F. W. D. (ed.) (1960) [1906, 1908] The Brut, or the Chronicle of England, 2
vols. EETS, o.s. 131, 136. London: Oxford University Press.
Curry, A. (ed.) (2000) The Battle of Agincourt: Sources and Interpretations.
Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell.
DeVries, D. N. (1996) “And Away Go Troubles Down the Drain: Late Medieval
London and the Poetics of Urban Renewal.” Exemplaria 8: 401–18.
Fabyan, R. (1811) The New Chronicles of England and of France, ed. H. Ellis.
London: Rivington et al.
Kingsford, C. L. (ed.) (1905) Chronicles of London. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Kipling, G. (ed.) (1990) The Receyt of Ladie Kateryne. EETS, o.s. 296. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
—— (1998) Enter the King: Theatre, Liturgy, and Ritual in the Medieval Civic
Triumph. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Processions
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210
Style and Spectacle
Strohm, P. (1998) England’s Empty Throne: Usurpation and the Language of Legiti-
mation, 1399–1422. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Walsingham, T. (1937) The St. Albans Chronicle, 1406–1420, ed. V. H. Galbraith.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Withington, R. (1963) [1918, 1920] English Pageantry: An Historical Outline, 2
vols. New York: Blom.
British Library MS Cotton Julius E. iv, fols. 120v–122r. In F. Taylor and J. S. Roskell (eds. and
trans.) (1975) Gesta Henrici Quinti (The Deeds of Henry the Fifth). Oxford: Clarendon Press,
101–13.
Language: Latin
Manuscript date: 1416–17
[H]aving taken a day’s rest in the port [of Dover], the king resumed his
journey by way of the sacred thresholds of Canterbury Cathedral and the
church of St. Augustine to his manor of Eltham, it being his intention to
honour his city of London on the following Saturday with his personal
presence. And the citizens, having heard the greatly longed-for, nay indeed
most joyful, news of his arrival, had in the meantime made ready themselves
and their city, as far as the time available allowed, for the reception of the
most loving and most beloved prince whom God of his mercy had so
gloriously and marvellously brought back home in triumph from a rebel-
lious and stubborn people. And as soon as it was light on that eagerly
awaited Saturday,
1
the citizens went out to meet the king as far as the
heights of Blackheath, that is, the mayor and the twenty-four aldermen in
scarlet and other citizens of lower degree in red gowns with parti-coloured
hoods of red and white to the number of about twenty thousand on horses.
All of them, according to their crafts, wore some particular richly fashioned
badge, which conspicuously distinguished the crafts one from another. And
when, about ten o’clock, the king came through their midst and the citizens
had given to God glory and honour, and to the king congratulations and
thanks for the victory he had gained and for his efforts on behalf of the com-
mon weal, the citizens hastened on ahead towards the city, and the king
followed with his own, though only quite modest, retinue.
And now to let my pen interpose amid these glorious deeds, some account
of what the city and so many of its noble citizens had done to express its
praise and to embellish itself. When the tower at the entrance to the bridge
was reached, there was seen placed high on top of it and representing as it
1
November 23.

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were the entrance into the city’s jurisdiction, an image of a giant of aston-
ishing size who, looking down upon the king’s face, held like a champion a
great axe in his right hand and like a warder the keys of the city hanging
from a baton in his left. At his right side stood a figure of a woman, not
much smaller in size, wearing a scarlet mantle and adornments appropriate
to her sex, and they were like a man and his wife, who in their richest attire
were bent upon seeing the eagerly awaited face of their lord and welcoming
him with abundant praise. And, all around them, projecting from the ram-