GREENWICH PARK 109 
All through the earlier history of the Park this tower 
must have been a conspicuous object. During Tudor 
times Greenwich was much lived in by the Sovereign, and 
many a gay pageant enlivened the Park. Jousts and tour¬ 
naments, Christmas games and May Day frolics, were of 
yearly recurrence in the early days of Henry VIII. 
The Court moved there regularly to “bring in the 
May.” A picturesque account is given of one of these 
merry-makings by the Venetian Ambassador and his 
Secretary. The Ambassador was charmed with the King. 
“ Not only,” he writes, is he “ very expert in arms and 
of great valour, and most excellent in personal endow¬ 
ment, but is likewise so gifted and adorned with mental 
accomplishments of every sort.” He joined in the May 
Day proceedings, which must indeed have presented a 
brilliant spectacle, with the oaks and hawthorn, and all 
the wild beauty of Greenwich Park, as a background. 
Katharine of Aragon, “ most excellently attired and very 
richly, and with her twenty-five damsels mounted on 
white palfreys, with housings of the same fashion most 
beautifully embroidered in gold,” and followed by 
“ a number of footmen,” rode out into the wood, 
where “ they found the King with his guard, all clad in 
a livery of green with bowers [boughs] in their hands, 
and about 100 noblemen on horseback, all gorgeously 
arrayed.” “ In this wood were certain bowers filled pur¬ 
posely with singing birds, which carrolled most sweetly.” 
Music played, and a banquet under the trees followed, 
then the procession with the King and Queen together 
returned to the Palace. The crowds flocking round them 
the Venetian estimated “to exceed . . . 25,000 persons.” 
Queen Mary was born at Greenwich, and there she 
was betrothed to the Dauphin of France. She resided 
