Daffyd Thomas, a 12 year old Scholar at Westminster School, described in a letter to his mother in Llanstinan, Wales, the Bean Feast that took place before the Coronation with himself as Bean King. Praises were sung for Saints Justin Martyr and Justus of Beauvais and a masque (Apollo and Hyacinth) was performed in a park with huge banners depicting the Scottish lion, the Welsh dragon and jay birds hanging from the trees. He carried a leek in each hand and was stripped bare and then wrapped in a sheepskin fleece by his schoolmaster John Jason. He made his commemorative coin, a unite, or jacobus, into a necklace. “With this, I hope to protect myself against all evil,” he told his mother.
from Victory and Jubilation, Musick for a Coronation by Jurat Jarkman,
reproduced by kind permission of the author and the Jackdaw Press.
Part One:
Jasmine Cottage