ABSTRACT
The royal entry of James VI and I into London in 1604 was the most lavish one that London had ever mounted. Interestingly, the alien Dutch nation spent more money and employed more workers to produce its arch than did the city of London proportionately on any one of its own. In 1549 the English nation did the same for the royal entry of Prince Philip into Antwerp. Furthermore, the designs for these two festival arches employed the same iconography and were erected at similarly strategic points along their respective processional routes. This chapter compares these two arches to illuminate two key moments in a kind of ritualised conversation between the English and Dutch nations.
