Historic%20Yorkshire

68
HENRY THE III.'s CHRISTMAS AT YORK.
We cannot further describe the splendour and regal
magnificence of the grand feast. As at many a banquet
since, strains of music werepouredforth byan assemblage
of harpers, bagpipe players,and players on the pipe and
tabor at intervals during the progress of the banquet,
while mimes, jesters, joculators, and tumblers now and
then diverted the guests with caustic jest or harmless
frolic.
Other incidents occurred which doubtless lent some
interest to the scene at the time as they do to the narrative
now. Whilst the company wereseated in the midst
of the conviviality the Scottish King publicly addressed
to His Majesty of England an entreaty for the pardon of
one PhilipLovel, a clerk, who had been commissionedto
gather the taxes from the Jews of the North, and who
had been charged with an oppressive and extortionate
performanceof his duties. The resentment of theEnglish
King had already been partially appeasedby the present
from Lovel of a thousand marks. The remembrance,
possibly,of this large sum, and the entreatiesof theroyal
Scot and other noble guests, had the effect of causing
Henry to yield. He granted the dishonest clerk a full
pardon. It is not recorded by what good offices Philip
Lovel was entitledto the intercessionof his pleaders.
The ceremonies were over; Margaret, Princess of
England, was now Margaret, Queen of Scotland. She
and her royal husband departed north, taking with them
their own Scottish retinue, and also a portionof Henry's
people to attend the queen. Henry and his train of
nobles turned their faces south, after bidding an affectionate
farewellto his son-in-law, and promising to send
counsellors to assist and advisein allmatters relating to
any dispute or controversy that might arisebetween the
couple. Then he returned to his capital,and to the complications
and troubles which disturbed his reign. Thus
ended all the pageantry and splendour of King Henry's
Christmas at York in 1252 — (some chroniclers have it
1251).