The Lord Mayor’s Show

Each new Lord Mayor of London went in procession to Westminster to be sworn in on 9 November, with the livery companies, their banners and a few men in armour. In earlier centuries the show was a lavish pageant, with verses by poets of note, and giants were carried in civic processions in London as at Chester, York and Norwich. Chambers thought what was left looked faintly ludicrous, but the show survives, now held on the second Saturday in November.