before this priory gate. "In 1357 great and royal jousts were then
holden in Smithfield; there being present the Kings of England,
France, and Scotland, with many other nobles and great estates of
divers lands," writes Stow. Gay must have been the scene in the
forty-eighth year of Edward III, when Dame Alice Perrers, the King's
mistress, as Lady of the Sun, rode from the Tower of London to
Smithfield accompanied by many lords and ladies, every lady leading a
lord by his horse-bridle, and there began a great joust which endured
seven days after. The lists were set in the great open space with
tiers of seats around, a great central canopy for the Queen of Beauty,
the royal party, and divers tents and pavilions for the contending
knights and esquires. It was a grand spectacle, adorned with all the
pomp and magnificence of medieval chivalry. Froissart describes with
consummate detail the jousts in the fourteenth year of Richard II,
before a grand company, when sixty coursers gaily apparelled for the
jousts issued from the Tower of London ridden by esquires of honour,
and then sixty ladies of honour mounted on palfreys, each lady leading
a knight with a chain of gold, with a great number of trumpets and
other instruments of music with them. On arriving at Smithfield the
ladies dismounted, the esquires led the coursers which the knights
mounted, and after their helmets were set on their heads proclamation
was made by the heralds, the jousts began, "to the great pleasure of
the beholders." But it was not all pomp and pageantry. Many and deadly
were the fights fought in front of the old gate, when men lost their
lives or were borne from the field mortally wounded, or contended for
honour and life against unjust accusers. That must have been a sorry
scene in 1446, when a rascally servant, John David, accused his
master, William Catur, of treason, and had to face the wager of battle
in Smithfield. The master was well beloved, and inconsiderate friends
plied him with wine so that he was not in a condition to fight, and