On This Day in Elizabethan History: Pikemen Demonstrate for Queen Elizabeth

Happy May Day!



"Dancing Around the May-Pole"-A 1767 illustration from A Little Pretty Pocket Book for children. Picture acquired through Wikimedia Commons. Image public domain.

"They rose early to observe the rite of May"

-A Midsummer Night's Dream

On This Day in Elizabethan History, May Day in 1572, a band of London pikemen demonstrated their skill-at-arms for Queen Elizabeth I at Greenwich Palace.


An illustration of an officer of a unit of pikemen from Military Antiquities: Respecting the History of the English Army from Conquest to the Present Time by Francis Grose. Picture acquired through Wikimedia Commons. Image public domain.