Chapter 11 - The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain
Chapter 11: At Guildhall. Free audiobook of Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper. Audio courtesy of Librivox.
CHAPTER XI.
At Guildhall.
The royal barge, attended by its gorgeous fleet, took its stately way down the Thames through the wilderness of illuminated boats. The air was laden with music; the river banks were beruffled with joy-flames; the distant city lay in a soft luminous glow from its countless invisible bonfires; above it rose many a slender spire into the sky, incrusted with sparkling lights, wherefore in their remoteness they seemed like jewelled lances thrust aloft; as the fleet swept along, it was greeted from the banks with a continuous hoarse roar of cheers and the ceaseless flash and boom of artillery.
To Tom Canty, half buried in his silken cushions, these sounds and this spectacle were a wonder unspeakably sublime and astonishing. To his little friends at his side, the Princess Elizabeth and the Lady Jane Grey, they were nothing.
Arrived at the Dowgate, the fleet was towed up the limpid Walbrook (whose channel has now been for two centuries buried out of sight under acres of buildings) to Bucklersbury, past houses and under bridges populous with merry-makers and brilliantly lighted, and at last came to a halt in a basin where now is Barge Yard, in the centre of the ancient city of London. Tom disembarked, and he and his gallant procession crossed Cheapside and made a short march through the Old Jewry and Basinghall Street to the Guildhall.
Tom and his little ladies were received with due ceremony by the Lord Mayor and the Fathers of the City, in their gold chains and scarlet robes of state, and conducted to a rich canopy of state at the head of the great hall, preceded by heralds making proclamation, and by the Mace and the City Sword. The lords and ladies who were to attend upon Tom and his two small friends took their places behind their chairs.
At a lower table the Court grandees and other guests of noble degree were seated, with the magnates of the city; the commoners took places at a multitude of tables on the main floor of the hall. From their lofty vantage-ground the giants Gog and Magog, the ancient guardians of the city, contemplated the spectacle below them with eyes grown familiar to it in forgotten generations. There was a bugle-blast and a proclamation, and a fat butler appeared in a high perch in the leftward wall, followed by his servitors bearing with impressive solemnity a royal baron of beef, smoking hot and ready for the knife.
After grace, Tom (being instructed) rose--and the whole house with him--and drank from a portly golden loving-cup with the Princess Elizabeth; from her it passed to the Lady Jane, and then traversed the general assemblage. So the banquet began.
By midnight the revelry was at its height. Now came one of those picturesque spectacles so admired in that old day. A description of it is still extant in the quaint wording of a chronicler who witnessed it:
'Space being made, presently entered a baron and an earl appareled after the Turkish fashion in long robes of bawdkin powdered with gold; hats on their heads of crimson velvet, with great rolls of gold, girded with two swords, called scimitars, hanging by great bawdricks of gold. Next came yet another baron and another earl, in two long gowns of yellow satin, traversed with white satin, and in every bend of white was a bend of crimson satin, after the fashion of Russia, with furred hats of gray on their heads; either of them having an hatchet in their hands, and boots with pykes' (points a foot long), 'turned up. And after them came a knight, then the Lord High Admiral, and with him five nobles, in doublets of crimson velvet, voyded low on the back and before to the cannell-bone, laced on the breasts with chains of silver; and over that, short cloaks of crimson satin, and on their heads hats after the dancers' fashion, with pheasants' feathers in them. These were appareled after the fashion of Prussia. The torchbearers, which were about an hundred, were appareled in crimson satin and green, like Moors, their faces black. Next came in a mommarye. Then the minstrels, which were disguised, danced; and the lords and ladies did wildly dance also, that it was a pleasure to behold.'
The Prince and the Pauper Audiobook by Mark Twain | Audiobook with subtitles
The Prince and the Pauper (1882) represents Mark Twain's first attempt at historical fiction. The book, set in 1547, tells the story of two young boys who are identical in appearance: Tom Canty, a pauper who lives with his abusive father in Offal Court, London, and Prince Edward son of Henry VIII of England. Due to a series of circumstances, the boys accidentally replace each other, and much of the humor in the book originates in the two boys' inability to function in the world that is so familiar to the other (although Tom soon displays considerable wisdom in his decisions). In many ways, the book is a social satire, particularly compelling in its condemnation of the inequality that existed between the classes in Tudor England. In that sense, Twain abandoned the wry Midwestern style for which he was best known and adopts a style reminiscent of Charles Dickens. (Summary from Wikipedia.org)
Genre(s): Children's Fiction
The Prince and the Pauper
Mark TWAIN
Chapters:
00:00:10 | Chapter 1: The birth of the Prince and the Pauper
00:05:17 | Chapter 2: Tom’s early life
00:14:52 | Chapter 3: Tom’s meeting with the Prince
00:27:49 | Chapter 4: The Prince’s troubles begin
00:36:14 | Chapter 5: Tom as a patrician
00:51:45 | Chapter 6: Tom receives instructions
01:07:29 | Chapter 7: Tom’s first royal dinner
01:15:10 | Chapter 8: The question of the Seal
01:21:08 | Chapter 9: The river pageant
01:26:54 | Chapter 10: The Prince in the toils
01:43:55 | Chapter 11: At Guildhall
01:54:46 | Chapter 12: The Prince and his deliverer
02:18:15 | Chapter 13: The disappearance of the Prince
02:26:52 | Chapter 14: ‘Le Roi est mort - vive le Roi’
02:49:36 | Chapter 15: Tom as King
03:12:18 | Chapter 16: The state dinner
03:18:23 | Chapter 17: Foo-foo the First
03:39:43 | Chapter 18: The Prince with the tramps
03:55:43 | Chapter 19: The Prince with the peasants
04:06:56 | Chapter 20: The Prince and the hermit
04:21:26 | Chapter 21: Hendon to the rescue
04:30:47 | Chapter 22: A victim of treachery
04:41:42 | Chapter 23: The Prince a prisoner
04:48:54 | Chapter 24: The escape
04:54:39 | Chapter 25: Hendon Hall
05:08:41 | Chapter 26: Disowned
05:16:48 | Chapter 27: In prison
05:36:36 | Chapter 28: The sacrifice
05:43:54 | Chapter 29: To London
05:48:00 | Chapter 30: Tom’s progress
05:53:22 | Chapter 31: The Recognition procession
06:05:45 | Chapter 32: Coronation Day
06:30:42 | Chapter 33: Edward as King
06:49:31 | CONCLUSION: Justice and Retribution
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