The Edwinstowe Coronation Pageant

Pageant type

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Performances

Place: Edge of Sherwood Forest (Edwinstowe) (Edwinstowe, Nottinghamshire, England)

Year: 1953

Indoors/outdoors: Outdoors

Number of performances: 4

Notes

30 July–3 August 1953, daily at 7pm

Name of pageant master and other named staff

  • Producer [Pageant Master]: Westcott, R.W.
  • President: The Earl Manvers
  • President: The Countess Manvers
  • Hon. Secretary: Mr J.D. Dixon
  • Hon. Treasurer: Mr R. Maxfield
  • Publicity Secretary: Mrs J. Greaves
  • Musical Director: Mr R. Caudwell
  • Wardrobe Mistress: Mrs M. Staniland
  • Programme Compiler: Mr M. Jackson
  • Children’s Dance Arranger: Mrs M. Bradbury
  • Children’s Dance Arranger: Miss D.M. Fairfax
  • Make Up: Mrs A.C.E. Devereux
  • 6 men, 6 women, 12 total
  • Episode 1 Producer: Mrs W. Woodall
  • Episode 2 Producer: Mr L. Raynor
  • Episode 3 Producer: Mrs L. Ratcliffe
  • Episode 4 Producer: Mrs C. Naish
  • Episode 5 Producer: Mrs D. Nicholson
  • Episode 6 Producer: Mr T. Anderson
  • Episode 7 Producer: Mrs M. Dixon
  • Episode 8 Producer: Mrs R. Ward
  • Episodes 9 and 10 – No producer listed

Notes

The producer was Mr R.W. Westcott, BA, LRAM

Names of executive committee or equivalent

Committee:

  • Chairman: Mr W.A. Beardsley
  • Vice-Chairman: Lady Eveline Maude
  • 13 men, 14 women = 27 total

Names of script-writer(s) and other credited author(s)

  • Wilson, Hilda
  • Wilson, Angus

Names of composers

n/a

Numbers of performers

200

Financial information

Object of any funds raised

n/a

Linked occasion


Coronation of Elizabeth II

Audience information

  • Grandstand: Yes
  • Grandstand capacity: n/a
  • Total audience: n/a

Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest

3s. 6d.– 1s. 6d.

Seats at 3s. 6d., 2s. 6d., and 1s. 6d. Half price for children. Unreserved standing accommodation at 1s. 6d.

Associated events

Events in May and June such as a whist drive, free cinema show for children, football and cricket matches, parades, displays, concerts and a united open air service.

Pageant outline

Prologue

The Queen Oak enters, following the playing of Greensleeves, and describes how she comes from the heart of Sherwood and represents its memories from the beginning. The trees whisper back, declaring her Mother of Sherwood. The Oak describes it as fitting that she should narrate the story, since another young Queen is in their minds—referring to the Coronation of Elizabeth II. A forester then also enters and introduces himself as the narrator of the pageant at the request of the Oak, speaking in plain language, describing his role as making sure ‘that the trees grow and flourish just as Edwinstowe has grown and flourished through the centuries.’ He states that it will be a story of the common people, who come from kingly origins. A dance of the Trees of Sherwood takes place.

Episode I. The Naming of Edwinstowe

A group of Saxon men enter, miming the cutting down of trees. Women and children follow, and all begin to prepare huts and prepare food. Throughout this they sing a working song describing their activities. Three women begin talking about the goodness of home, as well as complaining humorously about their menfolk. Two such men approach. The women complain that they had not wanted to move home and longed for a place with a name. The men and women bicker about who does the most work—whether domestic or economic—and about whose husband the new settlement should be named after. All of a sudden a scream is heard, and someone from the crowd shouts that there are men in the forest with swords, carrying something heavy. A small procession enters, with monks and armed thanes carrying a covered bier. Announcing that it is their King, Edwin, who has been killed in battle, they are on their way to Whitby for a burial. The local folk invite them to stay overnight, asking what the place is called. After hearing the answer that it does not yet have a name, the monk dubs it Edwinstowe, since it had housed a king that day. All leave in formation. The Forester and Queen Oak tell of the early history of the village, the cultivating of the forest, and the Norman invasion.

Episode II. Domesday Book

A group of children dance on to a simple air on a pipe and play games. Adults enter and ask the children if they know what day it is. One jokingly replies it is the day for paying taxes, saying it makes his father angry—one adult responds ‘Taxes are things that have to be paid’. The King’s Reeve then enters, ready to receive the taxes. As each local name is read out, they approach and pay their dues, using local products like apples or bacon, which is in turn written down by the Scrivener. The Reeve exits. Two investigators approach, in the village to record its particulars like land, pasture, crops and the families of the village. One man, Egbert, makes fun of the investigators by pretending that all the dues piled up are from him to the King, afforded because he is so important. This backfires when the investigators declare that this means he will have to pay high taxes; he tries to escape but is caught. The Reeve re-enters and laughs at the scene, before taking the investigators to dine and supply them with the information they require. The villagers make fun of Egbert. The Forester and the Queen Oak describe the following hundred years, and how the rulers governed Edwinstowe harshly, punishing anyone who hunted or killed the King’s deer, in the ever-present shadow of the Forest Courts.

Episode III. The Forest Court

The Verderers and Clerk of the Court enter and are seated at a special table. Other villagers crowd in. A prisoner is brought forward, who waves to the crowd which is there in support. He is charged with chasing one of the King’s deer with a dog. When the Verderer asks the Clerk whether the deer was killed, the prisoner says that the dog was willing but was too fat and lacking to give chase. Admonished to be silent, he is asked his name. When he declares he has only a first name, John, but that some call him muttonhead, there is laughter from the crowd. All of a sudden a hunting horn is heard and King John, followed by members of the hunt, enters. The King tells the court of an unsuccessful chase and how the deer that escaped must now not be hurt, now known as the Harte Royale. The Hermit of Clipstone enters and tells the King that he prays for good Christian souls. The King gives the Hermit money and asks him to pray for the King’s soul. During this, the prisoner has escaped into the forest. The King exits. The Verderers realise that the prisoner has escaped and argue among themselves, before a child points them in the wrong direction. They exit quickly. The crowd admonishes the young boy before they realise his trick; they all then resolve to pretend to look for the prisoner to gain the praise of the Verderers. The Forester and Queen Oak announce and tell the tale of the great outlaw of Sherwood, Robin Hood, the most famous character in Edwinstowe’s history.

Episode IV. Robin Hood and Allin A’ Dale

Robin meets Allin, very downcast, and hears that his betrothed is to be married to an old man. Robin goes to the church disguised as a harper and, when the couple arrive, he throws off his disguise, summons his men and dresses Little John in the Bishop’s robes. Little John ‘asks’ them seven times in the church and then marries Allin to his sweetheart amid general rejoicing and to the discomfiture of the old man. This story is described in a long accompanying ballad. After this the Forester and Queen Oak tell of the legend that Maid Marian and Robin Hood were wedded in the old church of Edwinstowe, of which a small part still remains. They then tell of the terror of the Black Death, before also describing how a Fair was held each year in this time, allowed by charter from King Henry the Fourth.

Episode V. Sherwood for the Queen

A crowd of jugglers and dancers enter, followed by children. Other sideshows are brought in—including a strong man, a performing bear, pedlars, sweet sellers and Morris Dancers. Various incidents take place during the fair—a child running away with a sweetmeat and being chased; a farmer hiring labourers; boys buying gifts for their girls; a weight lifter challenging bystanders to a competition; and an archery contest. When the merrymaking is at its height, Queen Elizabeth’s woodmen enter with one of the Queen’s trees—disrupting the fair. The woodsmen describe how it will be used to build ships to defend the island, describing how many have sailed the seas in the strong and reliable Sherwood oak. A boy declares his wish to be a sailor; admonished by his mother, he is encouraged by a woodsmen, who declares ‘his desire to serve the Queen should not be thwarted’. The boy declares ‘God save the Queen!’ followed by the rest of the crowd in repeat. All leave, marking the end of the first part of the pageant.

Episode VI. The Cavalier’s Spur

The Queen Oak and the Forester re-enter and describe how the country was torn apart by the Civil War. While noting that in Edwinstowe ‘the people touched only the fringe of war’, they describe how a soldier’s spur, lost by a Cavilier when travelling past, still remained in the Church. They then state that they can dream of how it might have been lost, introducing the episode. Village girls enter with baskets, having been fruit-picking. A young Cavalier enters on horseback; one of the girls embraces him, her lover returned. They talk fondly, and she comments on his missing spur, before exiting—inciting jealousy in the other girls. They then dance, before being interrupted by a ‘stern Puritan’ who tells them that they should be ‘about your househould duties or praying for salvation.’ They mock him and continue dancing. The Puritan shows the village girls the spur, which he has found, and asks if they have seen a horseman; they lie, saying that they have not. A small company of Parliament foot soldiers then enter; the Puritan rushes to them and tells them that he has found a Royalist spur, which he gives to the Parliamentarian leader. The Parliamentarians state their intention to ‘smoke out’ the remaining Royalists. The young Cavalier re-enters in disguise as a Puritan and talks to the Parliamentarians—admonishing and condemning them for staring at the village girls. Making them kneel, a woman then enters and accuses the Cavalier of stealing her husband’s clothes. Realising they have been duped, they rise, but the Cavalier escapes. The leader of the Parliamentarians throws the spur away in anger. The village girls laugh, before all leave. The Forester and Queen Oak re-enter and tell of how there are great families nearby the village, who have their own tales.

Episode VII. Lady Mary Elopes

Three footmen and three maids enter, singing, before unpacking a picnic. They discuss the predicament of Lady Mary Pierrepont—betrothed to someone whom she did not love by her father, while her heart remained with Mr Wortley Montagu. At that point Montagu enters; upon realising that the picnic is a celebration for his lover, he angrily declares that he will make sure he stops the engagement—asking the maids and footmen for help, to which they assent. Lady Mary and Jonathan Swift enter, talking. Lord Dorchester and others enter, and he asks his daughter to talk to her betrothed; she does so, grudgingly. Music is played for the guests. Montagu manages to send a secret note to Lady Mary. With one of her maids she concocts a plan to escape. As all dance, Montagu and Mary try to escape—but the song ends too soon. Informed by Swift that his daughter is about to escape, the Lord is powerless to stop them. After the Lord leaves with the other guests, the maids and footmen clear up—and drink a toast to Mary and her elopement. The Forest and Queen Oak reappear and tell of the faraway Napoleonic wars while life in Edwinstowe went on.

Episode VIII. Edwinstowe, 1800

The Rev. Charles Gordon enters and addresses the audience, telling them that he is going to show them an incident that happened in 1800. A wedding party enters, as a table with glasses and wine and beer is set up. The father of the bridegroom toasts the bride. Everyone looks towards her; she fumbles a speech and asks her fiancé to take over. He does so and jokes, to the accompaniment of much laughter, that it will be the last time he will ‘be able to get a word in’. He toasts his father. The father of the bride in turn toasts his son-in-law-to-be. The best man toasts the bridesmaids, cheekily saying that, as a sailor, he is a good judge of their beauty. A song is sung by a choir. After this, an Army Recruiting Sergeant and a few soliders approach. The women are hurried away, as the sergeant comes forward. The local men all make excuses for why they cannot serve, apart from one who says ‘I can do better for myself than live with the sweepings of the jails and such like scum.’ The sergeant declares that the village will be fined for not providing men. The reverend declares ‘There would be no need for his sort if the Army would but treat its men, not as brutish beasts, but as human beings made in the image of God.’ The groom and his best man leave to take a boat across the lake. Much laughter, then all disperse. The reverend steps forward and again addresses the audience, describing how the two young men unfortunately subsequently drowned in a violent storm, a stone placed in the local cemetery recording their story and memory. The Queen Oak and the Forester re-enter and describe the industrial revolution and the great changes in landscape it brought.

Episode IX. Coal

The Miner enters and speaks to the Forester, declaring ‘What’s the good of shutting your eyes to the real facts? The Age of Industry is here, and moaning about trees won’t turn back the clock. I’m sorry about the woods and the forests—I spent most of my time when I was a youngster playing among the trees—but if they’re needed for industry they’ve got to go.’ The Forester replies ‘not without a fight’, and they begin to argue. The Spirits of Coal enter, as the Trees of Sherwood advance; they do battle. Eventually the Forester and Miner move into the middle and raise axe and pick in a threatening manner. The Queen Oak tells them to stop their ‘senseless warfare’ and makes them shake hands. The Forester admits that he was frightened that all the trees might be hewn down. The Miner replies, ‘That happened elsewhere, but not here in Edwinstowe. We are not such barbarians as you think. Why, when the Bolsover Company planned in 1926 to get coal in Sherwood Forest, the new colliery was sunk at the edge of the forest, north-east of the village. Not only that, but we tried at first to do without boilers and smoke, and I only wish we could have gone on like that. So we’re not enemies Forester are we?’ The Forester replies, ‘No, Miner, we are not. Come, let us walk together for the future, knowing each other’s hand and heart. England is more important than either of us.’ As they leave, the Queen Oak says

‘Forgive us that so much remains untold. That the great wars are left unshown, When many Sherwood lads went forth to fight, And to our lovely woods came tanks And guns and ammunition And many grim appliants [sic] of death.

For this is a gay time When we should rightly choose, to think of happy things.’

Episode X. God Save Our Queen

The May Queen enters on a decorated float, the Miner and Forester on either side. Following her crowning a procession of everyone who has taken part in the Episodes, grouped in their organisations, enters carrying banners. The May Queen thanks the audience, and asks them to pray for the new Queen. All sing ‘God Save the Queen’.

Key historical figures mentioned

  • John (1167–1216) king of England, and lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and of Aquitaine, and count of Anjou
  • Hood, Robin (supp. fl. late 12th–13th cent.) legendary outlaw hero
  • Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley [née Lady Mary Pierrepont] (bap. 1689, d. 1762) writer
  • Swift, Jonathan (1667–1745) writer and dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin

Musical production

Stringed instruments and amplification

Greensleeves (Prologue).


Newspaper coverage of pageant

Nottingham Evening News

Book of words

n/a

Other primary published materials

  • Wilson, Hilda and Wilson, Angus. A Souvenir Programme of the Pageant of Edwinstowe: A Evocation of the Colour and Romance of the Past. Edwinstowe, 1953. Price 1s 6d. Nottinghamshire Archives. PAC/94/12/9/1.

References in secondary literature

n/a

Archival holdings connected to pageant

  • Edwinstowe Coronation Celebrations Committee. Coronation Souvenir Programme and History of Edwinstowe. Edwinstowe, 1953. Nottinghamshire Archives: PAC/94/12/9/3.
  • ‘Edwinstowe Coronation Celebrations, 1952: THIS CONCERNS ALL THE PEOPLE OF EDWINSTOWE’. Nottinghamshire Archives. PAC/94/12/9/4.
  • Letter from Secretaries’ Office of Customs and Excise, London, to the Pageant Committee, 9 July 1953. Nottinghamshire Archives. PAC/94/12/9/8.
  • Wilson, Hilda and Wilson, Angus. The Pageant of Edwinstowe. Original script, 1953. Nottinghamshire Archives: PAC/94/12/9/15.

Sources used in preparation of pageant

  • A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode.
  • Nottinghamshire Court Records.

Summary

The Edwinstowe Pageant of 1953 was held to commemorate the Coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. It was the last and by far largest event in the village’s two-month-long programme of various sports competitions, whist drives, parades, concerts, and church services.2 Apart from the scriptwriters, Hilda and Angus Wilson (no relation to the novelist), and the producer, R.W. Westcott, all who took part and organised the pageant came from the locality.3 Each episode also had its own producer and was undertaken by an association local to the village.4 Taking place on the edge of Sherwood Forest, its two hundred performers ostensibly told the history of the small village and its surrounding woodland in nine episodes, from the Saxons to the present day. It was narrated by the famous Queen Oak (more commonly known as the Major Oak), a large tree estimated to be up to one thousand years old, and a local forester, who spoke in simple and clear language. At times these characters also involved themselves in the action.

Throughout the pageant the story was light-hearted and humorous, using both local legends and invented stories to weave a tale that connected the village to national events, eschewing historically accurate speech for more easily followed dialogue. Often the laughs came from the bickering between local men and women, such as in the Naming of Edwinstowe episode, where the sexes battled over who did the most work, or in the Cavalier’s Spur, where a group of village girls showed their jealousy of a betrothed friend. At other times the scene mostly revolved around a humorous incident, such as the escape of a cheeky prisoner in the Forest Court episode, or the gentle jesting of a man who was caught pretending to be much richer than he was in the Domesday Book episode. The only scene that properly broke with this style was the penultimate, Edwinstowe 1800, in which the Rev. Charles Gordon spoke directly to the audience to introduce a locally famous tale of a tragic drowning of a groom and his best man in a storm on the lake.

Unsurprisingly, considering the pageants context of commemorating the Coronation, there were links to Queens and the new monarch in particular. In the prologue the Queen Oak, an other-worldly character, described it as fitting that she should narrate the story since they had ‘another young queen in their minds’.5 In the Sherwood for the Queen episode, the village was linked to Queen Elizabeth I through the forest’s provision of wood for the boats that defeated the Spanish Armada. The connection was most obvious, however, in the final scene of the pageant, when the Coal Queen was crowned. Originally part of local pit village culture, coal queens had become highly organised and more popular with the nationalisation of the industry in 1946.6 Playing the Coal Queen in the episode was the recent winner of the Nottinghamshire region; after thanking the audience, she asked them all to pray for the new Queen, following which the national anthem was enthusiastically sung.7

More generally, the industry of mining was important in the themes and organisation of the pageant. Almost all of the local men who took acting parts were miners, and the Thoresby Colliery gave ‘much invaluable material assistance and support’.8 Edwinstowe, in 1921, had been a small rural village of only 963 people, the population having declined from a high of 2438 in 1851 and remaining stable at around 900 since the 1880s. Following the sinking of the Thoresby Colliery in 1925 by the major mining concern Bolsover Colliery Company, the village’s population rocketed to 2818 in 1931 and 3371 in 1951.9 While the signs of decline in the industry were apparent nationally, the Thoresby Colliery was at its peak, employing 1800 people and being the first colliery in the country to reach one million tons output in both 1951 and 1952.10 As a local historian stated in another Coronation programme, the village had undergone ‘a fundamental change in its appearance as well as vastly increasing its size. Now it stands as a fusion of the old and the new’.11 The last episode thus tried to make sense of this vast shift. Entitled simply 'Coal', it featured a symbolic conflict between a Miner and the Forester, the former declaring the ‘age of industry’ and declaring that if the trees were ‘needed for industry they’ve got to go.’ The Forester fiercely resisted, and a battle between the Spirits of Coal and the Trees of Sherwood took place. When the Miner and Forester finally began to advance menacingly towards each other, weapons raised, the Queen Oak made them stop their ‘senseless warfare’ and shake hands. Both admitted that they needed each other and that England was ‘more important than either of us.’12 As the script elaborated, the Forester’s anger was ‘understandable when he sees the insatiable appetite of industry devouring the greenery of centuries and the slag heaps of the collieries despoiling the rural’; however, it was easily soothed when he realised ‘that the great changes have been caused by national economic necessity and not by mere destructiveness’.13

If the storyline was a celebration of the history of the forest and also its new successful industry, the souvenir also drew attention to problems the area was facing in the present and the hangover of the Second World War. Telling its reader to let the pageant ‘transport you from the troubles of today and from the Sherwood Forest of dilapidated Nissen huts and empty ice cream cartons’ and back to ‘when the world was young and Sherwood an undefiled sequence of wooded beauty.’14 As the Queen Oak stated in the final scene, the great wars were left unshown, as was the impact of wartime on the locality, as the pageant instead decided to show happy times.15 In terms of its audience, then, it seems that the pageant was mostly externally focused, concentrating on bringing tourists and visitors back to the village. A leaflet distributed seven months previously called upon the civic spirit of ‘ALL THE PEOPLE OF EDWINSTOWE’ to become ‘PAGEANT-MINDED’ and throw themselves into preparing the pageant in order ‘to show, not only the immediate neighbourhood but the Nation, that the spirit of Sherwood lives on in our village’.16 As the souvenir programme told the reader, ‘We can suggest nothing better than that you should visit Edwinstowe… [a] village rich in romantic and historical association.17 Unsurprisingly, then, a tale featuring Robin Hood formed the basis for a particularly long episode, in common with other pageants in Nottinghamshire. Despite its seemingly commercial aim and many fictional or legendary scenes, it qualified for exemption from the Entertainments Tax.18

Unfortunately, it is difficult to judge the success of the pageant; neither large nor particularly novel, it did not make the national press. A local report in the Nottingham Evening Post was nonetheless positive, describing the evident enjoyment of the children who took part, and how a ‘feeling of enjoyment pervaded the whole show and spread to the watching audience.’19 Its interest today lies mainly in its depiction of mining and the vast changes that industry had brought to the village, and as a small local example of the reinvigoration that pageantry could achieve in the early 1950s—it was, after all, declared as ‘the biggest show’ the village had ‘ever tackled.’20

Footnotes

  1. ^ See Edwinstowe Coronation Celebrations Committee, Coronation Souvenir Programme and History of Edwinstowe (Edwinstowe, 1953). Nottinghamshire Archives. PAC/94/12/9/3.
  2. ^ For the celebration more generally, see Edwinstowe Coronation Celebrations Committee, Coronation Souvenir Programme and History of Edwinstowe (Edwinstowe, 1953). Nottinghamshire Archives. PAC/94/12/9/3.
  3. ^ ‘Edwinstowe Pageant’, Nottingham Evening Post, 31 July 1953, 7.
  4. ^ Hilda Wilson and Angus Wilson, A Souvenir Programme of the Pageant of Edwinstowe: A Evocation of the Colour and Romance of the Past (Edwinstowe, 1953). Nottinghamshire Archives. PAC/94/12/9/1.
  5. ^ Hilda Wilson and Angus Wilson, The Pageant of Edwinstowe (original script, 1953). Nottinghamshire Archives. PAC/94/12/9/15.
  6. ^ Martin Wainright, ‘Coal Queens Make a Strictly PC Comeback’, The Guardian, 22 February 2008, accessed 11 April 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/feb/22/britishidentity.gender.
  7. ^ Wilson and Wilson, The Pageant of Edwinstowe.
  8. ^ Wilson and Wilson, A Souvenir Programme of the Pageant of Edwinstowe; ‘Edwinstowe Pageant’, 7.
  9. ^ GB Historical GIS/University of Portsmouth, ‘Edwinstowe Total Population’, A Vision of Britain through Time, accessed 11 April 2014, http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/unit/10260358/cube/TOT_POP.
  10. ^ Edwinstowe Coronation Celebrations Committee, Coronation Souvenir Programme and History of Edwinstowe.
  11. ^ M.J. Jackson, ‘The Story of Edwinstowe’ in Edwinstowe Coronation Celebrations Committee, Coronation Souvenir Programme and History of Edwinstowe, no page numbers.
  12. ^ Wilson and Wilson, The Pageant of Edwinstowe
  13. ^ Wilson and Wilson, A Souvenir Programme of the Pageant of Edwinstowe.
  14. ^ Ibid. Nissen huts were constructed in the forest for the use of soldiers garrisoned there.
  15. ^ Wilson and Wilson, The Pageant of Edwinstowe.
  16. ^ ‘Edwinstowe Coronation Celebrations, 1952: THIS CONCERNS ALL THE PEOPLE OF EDWINSTOWE’. Nottinghamshire Archives. PAC/94/12/9/4.
  17. ^ Wilson and Wilson, A Souvenir Programme of the Pageant of Edwinstowe.
  18. ^ Letter from Secretaries’ Office of Customs and Excise, London, to the Pageant Committee, 9 July 1953. Nottinghamshire Archives. PAC/94/12/9/8.
  19. ^ ‘Edwinstowe Pageant’, 7.
  20. ^ ‘Edwinstowe Coronation Celebrations, 1952: THIS CONCERNS ALL THE PEOPLE OF EDWINSTOWE’.

How to cite this entry

Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘The Edwinstowe Coronation Pageant’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1059/