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 CHAPTER IX

THE LOVE OF SPECTACLES

N the day before her coronation Elizabeth made the customary progress through the City from the Tower to Whitehall. This pageant, which was the regular preliminary to a coronation, is one of the most interesting that could be described in this chapter; but, as it is too long in its original account for convenient insertion here, and as the reprint of Arber's English Garner has put it within the reach of all, the circumstantial contemporary account is omitted.

A synopsis of The Princely Pleasures of Kenilworth is to be found in Strutt's Sports and Pastimes of the English People; and the same elaborate revels are fully described in Scott's Kenilworth, most of the local colour of which is taken directly from a contemporary account.

The present writer need offer no apology for continuing the narrative of this chapter as far as possible in the words of contemporary writers, usually so graphic and so full of the spirit of the time in which they were written.

"(April 23, 1559.) The same day the queen Rh