A royal procession
This scene depicts the visit of Marie de Médicis, the queen mother of France and the mother-in-law of England’s Charles I, but it also shows details of daily life in mid-1600s London.
Householders and other spectators fill the balconies—and a few rooftops—of Cheapside in this splendid hand-colored scene from Jean Puget de la Serre’s Histoire de l’entrée de la reyne mere du roy trés-Chrestien, dans la Grande-Bretaigne.
Published in London in 1639, the French-language book records the visit of sixty-five-year-old Marie de Médicis, the queen mother of France and the mother-in-law of England’s Charles I. This copy, bound in red goatskin, bears the arms of its first owner, Cardinal Jules Mazarin, who succeeded Cardinal Richelieu as the de facto ruler of France in 1642.
In the early modern age, royal visits, births, and funerals were great occasions marked by parades, fireworks, bands, masques, and other festive celebrations. Books like this one helped readers visualize such events before the days of instantaneous television reporting. Today, the details of the illustrations reveal much about the daily life of the period as well. Here, the background offers a good view of London’s closely crowded half-timbered houses before the Great Fire of 1666.