‘As Well by the English as by the Strangers’: Performing a Multicultural London in The Magnificent Entertainment

Abstract

The pageantry marking James VI & I’s royal entry into London in 1604 featured the participation of Italian and Dutch immigrants who contributed two of the entry’s triumphal arches. This article examines the role of these immigrant communities within the production, and textual reproduction, of James’s royal entry. The pageant records present contrasting approaches to the multiculturalism of early modern London. The first, represented by Thomas Dekker’s official pageant text The Magnificent Entertainment, divides the city into ‘the English’ and ‘the strangers’, whose presence is celebrated for the symbolic possibilities of creating unity out of multiplicity. In the second approach, recoverable within the Italian and Dutch arches, immigrant populations maintain their distinct identities as unified communities possessing the historical and cultural right to welcome James to their city.