Page:The Queens of England.djvu/168

 142 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. pounds of the present money — was offered to Richard, and to the queen a table of equal value, on which was displayed a figure of St. Anne. The marriage of the royal couple took place at the conclusion of the Christmas holidays. "Shee was," says Speed, "with great pompe and glorie at the same time crowned queene by the hand of William Courtney (a younger sonne of the Earle of Devonshire), Bishop of London, lately promoved from London to the see of Canterbury, at St. Stephen's Chapel, Westminster." Great were the rejoicings and splendid the festivities which followed these events, and tournaments were held for several successive days. It was at this period that the royal bride ob- tained the title of "good Queen Anne," for her intercession with Richard that a general pardon should be granted to the people, who since the rebellion of Wat Tyler had been subjected to con- tinual severities arid executions. Shortly after the marriage and coronation of the queen, parliament "which by this great ladie's arrivall was interrupted and prorogued," reassembled, the grant of a subsidy to defray the various expenses demanded, and "many things concerning the excesse of apparell," etc., "were wholesomely enacted,"* — with what advantage a few extracts will show. Holinshed mentions one coat belonging to the king which was so covered with gold and jewels as to cost the sum of thirty thousand marks ; while Sir John Arundel was thought even to surpass the king in his magnificence of attire, having no less than fifty- two rich suits of cloth-of-gold tissue. Camden tells us, that the commons "were besotted in excesse of apparell, in white sur- coates reaching to their loines ; some in a garment reaching to their heeles, close before, and strowting out on their sides, so that on the back they make men seeme women, and this they called, by a ridiculous name, gozvne; their hoods are little, tied under the chin, and buttoned like the woman's, but set with gold, silver, and precious stones ; their lirrepippesf reach to their heeles, all jagged. They have another weede of silke, which they call a paltock ;»J their hose are of two colors, or pied, with more; which, with latchets (which they call herlots), they tie to their paltocks, without any breeches. Their girdles are of gold and silver, some worth twenty marks ; their shoes and pat- tens are snouted and piked more than a finger long, crooking
 * Speed. fTippets hanging down in front. J A close jacket.