Page:The religious life of King Henry VI.djvu/21

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AND EDUCATION
3

Lord Protector and the Duke of Exeter, unto the choir, whence he was borne to the High Altar." After this ceremony he was "set upon a fair courser and so conveyed through Chepe and other streets of the city."[1]During the Parliament then in session Henry was "sundry times conveyed to Westminster, and within the Parliament Chamber kept his royal state."

In 1426 the small King opened the "Parliament of Bats" at which Bedford sought to end the dissensions between Gloucester and Bishop Beaufort. At this time, on Whit Sunday, the Protector dubbed his nephew a knight, and afterwards a number of young nobles received their knighthood from the "gracious hands" of the child King. The Christmas and the New Year of 1426 were kept by the Court at Eltham, and the little King received among his presents a set of coral beads which had belonged to King Edward, and was amused by the games and interludes of "Jack Travail" and his company, and by the music of "portable organs."[2]

  1. Fabyan's Concordance of Histories, quoted in the D.N.B.
  2. Rymer, Foedera, x, 387.