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Shakespeare & Beyond

Pageants, banquets, and fireworks: How to celebrate a coronation

Francis Sandford. The history of the coronation of the most high, most mighty, and most excellent monarch, James II. 1687. S652
Francis Sandford. The history of the coronation of the most high, most mighty, and most excellent monarch, James II. 1687. S652

An English coronation in the 16th and 17th centuries would include festivities that pointed to the grandeur and majesty of the monarchy, as we find depicted here in these books and documents from the Folger collection.

Elizabeth I: Pageants

Elizabeth I. Whereas you have in youre custodie and charge certen apparell as officer for our Maskes and Revelles… ([London], January 3, 1558/59). Folger MS L.b.33

Elizabeth I. Whereas you have in youre custodie and charge certen apparell as officer for our Maskes and Revelles… ([London], January 3, 1558/59). Folger MS L.b.33. (Click the image for a zoomable version.)

Note Elizabeth I’s signature and the broken seal on this warrant ordering Sir Thomas Cawarden, Master of the Revels, to lend costumes to the city of London for “Maskes and Revelles” celebrating her coronation. The city staged five pageants, enacted as Elizabeth progressed through the streets, that “emphasized Elizabeth’s legitimate claim to the throne, her own virtuousness, and her association with Protestantism,” as Georgianna Ziegler writes in the Elizabeth I: Then and Now exhibition catalog.