THE QUEEN & THE KING

These royal spectators of their daughter's sacrifice are regular extras in the St. George narratives. Betrayed by their pagan gods, their earthly powers cannot alter the princess's plight.

This drama appeared not only in paintings but in tableaux too. So when in 1461 King Edward IV visited Bristol, he was received at Temple Cross by

'Seynt George on horsbakke . . . fyghtyng
with a dragon; and the Kyng and Quene on
high in a castell, and his doughter benethe
with a lambe; ate the sleying of the dragon
ther was a greet melody of aungellys."

Rather later, in 1515, Barclay's Life of St. George evoked the joy at George's intervention, and their rejection of false gods: 

The kynge and queen were chrystenyd firste of all
Next them theyr doughter, gode chaste Alcyone,
And after them the people great and small
Stryvyd who first might at the water be
Receyvynge batysme with all humylyte . . .