ANIMALS IN PAGEANTS 99 



purposes. In modern Europe, except in military 

 funerals, horses are always ridden or driven in 

 pageants, of which they have been an indispensable 

 part since the four white steeds drew the Roman 

 general in his triumph. Those best remembered 

 in England are the Queen's cream-coloured State 

 horses. With their manes plaited with purple, and 

 each led by a broad purple ribbon, they were a 

 most striking object in the Jubilee procession. In 

 England, the military funeral is the only pageant in 

 which the horse appears without its rider. The 

 custom is probably ancient beyond record, the horse 

 having been led to the tomb and there killed for 

 the use of its rider in the next world. In the 

 tomb of Childeric, father of Clovis, the skeleton of 

 his war-horse was found, with hundreds of small 

 gold ornaments which had decorated its harness in 

 the funeral procession. But the impressive custom 

 now in use at the military funeral, when the charger 

 follows the body to the grave, with the boots hang- 

 ing reversed on either side, seems to be a modern 

 revival of an ancient custom. In Tudor times, the 

 horse, or horses, of the dead soldier followed the 

 body, but without the silent appeal of the empty 

 saddle. At the funeral of Sir Philip Sidney, for 

 example, immediately following the car, came his 

 'horse for the field, 1 or charger, led by an esquire 



