Event Comment: Edition of 1662: Being a True Relation of
the Honourable
the City of Londons Entertaining
Their Sacred Majesties Upon
the River of
Thames,
and Welcoming
them from
Hampton-Court to
White-Hall. Expressed
and set forth in several Shews
and Pageants,
the 23 day of August 1662. According to
the printed version,
the management of
the pageant was under
the care of
Peter Mills, Surveyor;
Malin, Water Bayliff;
Thomas Whiting, Joyner;
Richard Cleere, Carver.
The songs were set by
John Gamble, one of His Majesty's Servants.
Evelyn, Diary: I this day was spectator of
the most magnificent Triumph that certainly ever floted on
the thames, considering
the innumerable number of boates & Vessels, dressed
and adorned with all imaginable Pomp: but above all,
the Thrones, Arches, Pageants, & o
ther representations, stately barges of
the Lord Major, & Companies, with various Inventions, musique, & Peales of Ordnance both from
the vessels & shore, going to meete & Conduct
the new
Queene from Hampton Court to White-hall, at
the first time of her Coming to Towne.... his Majestie &
the Queene, came in an antique-shaped open Vessell, convered with a State or Canopy of Cloth of Gold, made in forme of a Cupola, supported with high Corinthian Pillars, wreathd with flowers, festoones & Gyrl
ands:
Pepys, Diary: We got into White Hall garden,
and so to
the Bowling-green,
and up to
the top of
the new Banqueting House
there, over
the thames, which was a most pleasant place as any I could have got;
and all
the show consisted chiefly in
the number of boats
and barges;
and two pageants, one of a
King,
and ano
ther of a
Queen, with her Maydes of Honour sitting at her feet very prettily;
and they tell me
the Queen is
Sir Richard Ford's daughter. Anon come
the King and Queen in a barge under a canopy with 10,000 barges
and boats, I think, for we could see no water for
them, nor discern
the King nor
Queen.
And so
they l
anded at
White Hall Bridge,
and the great guns on
the o
ther side went off