ABSTRACT
The succession of a new monach offered the foreign Reformed communities, especially the wealthy Dutch community, an important opportunity to impress and influence the new ruler in connection with her/his coronation entry into London. When Elizabeth undertook her coronation entry into London, most of the Dutch and Walloon merchants who had been based in the City during the reign of Edward VI remained in exile on the Continent. As in 1604 the Dutch community’s willingness to build an impressive arch and sponsor the pageantry in 1625 compares well with the overall expenditure of the City which spent £4,300 on its arches and pageants designed by Gerard Christmas and Thomas Middelton. The magnitude of the Stuart coronation entries had evidently contracted by the Restoration: James had been given seven arches in 1604, and five, according to the Venetian ambassador, had been erected for Charles’s planned entry in 1626, as opposed to the four offered to Charles II in 1661.
