Para1Throughout the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline periods, on October 29, the mayor elect of the City of London made his way to Westminster to swear an oath of allegiance to the king or queen. In the sixteenth century, a tradition of pageantry developed around this event, picking up where the Midsummer Shows left off and achieving a complex and expensive splendour before the shows were cancelled for the duration of the Civil War and Commonwealth period. The Midsummer Watch, the principal form of civic pageantry in the first half of the sixteenth century, included militaristic presentations, processions, and spectacles on the water, all of which came to feature in the mayoral shows, the first of which likely took place on October 29, 1535 (Lancashire 171-172). There are also similarities between mayoral shows and the medieval tradition of royal entries. They both traversed the traditional processional route along Cheapside, although the royal entry usually began at the Tower and moved west, while the mayoral procession completed a loop from the City to Westminster and back east through the City (Manley).

Para2The electoral system was oligarchical. The mayor was elected from and by the privileged members of the livery companies, usually after serving terms as alderman and sheriff. The mayor-elect had to belong to one of the twelve great livery companies, which sometimes required that a mayor translate from a lesser company to one of the twelve great companies before he took office (as Edward Barkham did in 1621 when he translated from the Leathersellers to the Drapers, much against the latter’s will). The livery company to which the mayor belonged received considerable attention and bore the cost of the show, as the pageant books often stress. While the shows often celebrate the trade practiced by the livery company sponsoring the show, most of the Jacobean mayors were economic high-flyers. Free of multiple trading companies such as the East India Company, the Muscovy Company, and the Merchant Adventurers, the mayor sometimes had little daily connection with his livery company. Nonetheless, each year, the wardens, assistants, and brothers of the mayor’s company organized and paid for the pageants that took place both on the Thames on barges and in the streets on wagons.

Para3The livery company records offer elaborate details of the planning process as well as the various expenses, challenges, and partnerships that went into the production of a mayoral show, both before and after the festivities. Although the Malone Society Collections volumes III and V offer some selections from these company books in tandem with other accounts of the mayoral shows, Tracey Hill’s 2010 book Pageantry and Power showcases what can be accomplished through further historical inquiry into these records.

Para4Generally the company hired a poet to write the speeches and coordinate the entertainment. Regular pageant poets were well known playwrights: Anthony Munday, Thomas Middleton, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Heywood, and John Webster. We know that there was either regularly or on occasion a bidding process. In 1613, Munday, Middleton, and Dekker all presented a pitch to the Grocers for the mayoral show of that year, with Middleton’s sketch winning the competition and the other two dramatists receiving some compensation for their troubles. The pageant poet hired professional players to deliver the speeches and organized children to sing. While the arrangements for the printing of the books and erection of the various edifices was then handled by the pageant writer and artificer, the company managed the logistical affairs, which could range from mounting a galley-foist to compensating the child performers with a breakfast. The artificer or craftsperson built the edifices and devices that comprised the various pageants of a given show; this person worked closely with the pageant poet, as the two were responsible for managing the budgeted amount allocated to them by the livery company for making, writing, and printing the show based upon the invention approved by the livery company. The idea or narrative for the show was generally that of the poet who proposed it to the company often in competition with other dramatists.

Para5The entire show was a peripatetic event consisting of multiple spectacles and pageants at traditional points on the water and on land. Upon returning from Westminster, the mayor landed at Paul’s Stairs or Baynard’s Castle, where the first pageant on land might take place. The mayor, entourage, and pageant (on a wagon) processed up Paul’s Chain to Paul’s Churchyard, where there might be another pageant waiting. As the procession moved on, the new pageant would join the end of the procession, eventually moving into Cheapside. The Little Conduit, the Cheap Cross, the Standard, and the Cheap Conduit were usual points for speeches, dramatic action, and tableau, each pageant being added to the end of the procession. At Laurence Lane end, the procession would make its way to Guildhall for the feast, leaving the pageants in Cheapside.

Para6This basic structure was expandable or contractable depending on the resources of the sponsoring company. In 1613, the Grocers added additional pageants before the mayor even took to his barge; in 1621, the Drapers (unhappy about having Barkham imposed upon them) did the bare minimum. The pageants might have an overarching loose narrative structure, or they might present discrete messages. Frequent characters were historical figures like Faringdon or allegorical figures like Envy.

Para7The pageants were propagandistic and didactic. Through both spectacle and speech, they celebrate the trade of the sponsoring company, working to represent its importance to the commonwealth. The speakers enjoin the mayor elect to be virtuous, generous, and wise, and to take no bribes. Sometimes, they also offer implicit or explicit lessons to the members of the sponsoring company. There was an effort to counsel English authority through spectacle and speech while celebrating the city’s role in governance. The company and mayor seemed to welcome these didactic moments, which worked to set a standard for mayoral and civic behaviour and thereby suggest the ultimate virtue of the office.

Para8A mayoral show was a truly collaborative enterprise that celebrated the livery company and London, but it took the entire city (onstage, behind the scenes, and in the crowd) to make it happen. All of the twelve companies celebrated these events, taking their company barges to Westminster with the mayor in the morning and returning to the City in order of precedence. They listened to the sermon at St. Paul’s and participated in the feast at the Guildhall. Their collective enterprise was frequently mentioned in the pageant books and performances.