Munday’s Pageant

The Lord Mayor of London’s Pageant

John Herbert, the Lord Mayor’s factotum, walked into the drapers shop in Cripplegate, London owned by Anthony Munday the writer and poet.

“I’m here to see Anthony Munday.” Announced Herbert.

“He doesn’t actually concern himself with cloth any more sir.” Replied the tailor.

“I don’t want a coat you clod; the writer man! the writer!” Demanded Herbert.

“Oh, up those stairs sir, he works up there.”

“Ah, Munday, there you are. How is life for you, spiked any good Catholics recently?” He chuckled.

“That was years ago Herbert, in my youth, and I worked for the King as an emissary.” Munday reposted.

“A spy more like, disguised as a Deacon and worming your way around Rome, but I’m not here about your youthful peregrinations; the Lord Mayor requests that you bring me to now on the Mayoral Pageant for this year; and to be safely assured that you have dropped that cart from last years performance. He does not want any repeat of the ‘Rutting Tosspots’ cart that went wild. No arboreal codpieces or whatever they were and no portly men with beards dressed as trollops. Two men are still in gaol from the drunken riot that followed it. At the time the Mayor said that they should be damn well hung and I said that that was the cause of it in the first place.”

“Herbert,”groaned Munday,” Noah told that pun; stick to being a messenger man.”

“Well it’s true, it was only the fact that a hanging would besmirch the memory of his pageant that saved em from the gallows. So; how is progress with the pageant, is all written up now?”

“Yes but there are minor adjustments to make that are dependent upon the grant to be given, but all is written. What is my grant this year, how many groats will be in the purse?”

“I can’t be sure but the past year has been strained for the great unwashed so he needs to give a good free show to placate them. I will be suggesting the same as last year plus a tithe. You won’t get it but probably a quarter-tithe, does that help?”

“If you speak true Herbert it will all work well, there are extra plans in the offing that will be possible. I have spoken to a Mr Morris Vitus who has a troupe of dancing men. They will replace the ‘Rutting Tosspots” and be more the ‘Dancing Tosspots’. They dress in white with bells and ribbons and wooden swords and dance and sing bawdy songs, and drink of course, but all that’s extra costs.”

“Morris Vitus you say, Is that his real name?”

“That’s what he goes by but it does sound like an eponymous contrivance as they call themselves Vitus’s Dancers.”

“No no, too religious a name for the setting; won’t do, he will have to change it.”

“For the fee I don’t doubt he will; I will tell him to think of something else.”

“Very well Munday, I will return next week with the grant agreement and then you can spit and shake with your companies.”

“Oh, one more thing Herbert, I have started using a ‘nom de plume’ for these performance works. I wish to keep my serious works separate so keep it to yourself and tell no one it’s by me. It will say by Wil Shakespeare on the frontispiece.”

“Wil Shakespeare; Wil Shakespeare, It sounds like ‘will shake his spear’. Is it a pun on onanism?”

“That Herbert, and other bawdy meanings as to suit a man’s mind thinking free. It is as unique as it is humorous, there will only be myself using it. No one else in England would go by that name, not even the dullest farmer from the middle of nowhere.”

(c)ARMaidd
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Anthony Munday 1553 -1633, Draper, writer, poet, secret agent, political pamphleteer, polyglot, translator and the true author of the works of Shakespeare and so he is therefore, Bard of London.