The splendid banners, the heraldic pomp and barbaric
grandeur of their retinues, augmenting with every fresh arrival, made
the streets one ever-moving pageant for many days before the conflict
began. Isabella had full leisure to observe, from her own lattice, the
gay and costly garniture, and the glittering appointments of the
warriors, with the pageants and puerile diversions suited to the taste
and capacity of the ignorant crowds by which they were followed. The
king's mummers were arrived, together with many other marvels in the
shape of puppet-shows and "motions" enacting the "old vice;" Jonas and
the whale, Nineveh, the Creation, and a thousand unintelligible but
equally gratifying and instructive devices; one of which, we are told,
was "four giants, a unicorn, a camel, an ass, a dragon, a hobby-horse,
and sixteen naked boys!"
The crowds attracted by these spectacles were immense, and the city nigh
choked with the torrents that set in from every quarter.
From the windows of the houses, where lodged the knights appointed to
the encounter, hung their several coats, richly emblazoned, rousing
forth many a shout and hurrah, as one and another symbol was recognised
to be the badge of some favourite chief; but more than all, was the
young Stanley's escutcheon favoured by the fickle breath of popular
opinion, which made it needful that a double guard should be mounted
near his dwelling,--a precaution, moreover, rendered needful by the many
tumults among the different partisans and retainers, not always ending
without bloodshed.
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