Henry VII was too cheap to make new parade floats for special occasions, including his son’s wedding, so he just kept having them repainted over and over, likely to the chagrin of the chroniclers, who kept having to sound amazed when describing them!

[**The following takes place during the marriage celebrations for Catherine of Aragon and Arthur, Prince of Wales, in 1501.**] >On the day after the tournament – which went off admirably, all the contenders breaking their spears skillfully and nobody being hurt – there were festivities in the great hall, where again the English love of allegorical monstrosities formed the main diversion. >A castle filled with singing boys was drawn in by four great beasts in chains of gold, two lions, one of gold, the other silver, a harte and an elk, “in each of them,” the chronicler explains scrupulously, [“two men, one in the forepart and one in the hinder part, secretly hid and appareled, nothing of them seen but their legs which were disguised after the proportion and kind of beasts they were in.”](http://i.imgur.com/1h2j5c6.jpg) >A ship followed, bearing Hope and Desire and a figure representing the princess of Spain, then a hill with eight knights thereon, and a multitude of other devices, dazzling the eyes with gilt and the mind with far-fetched symbolism. For more than a week such entertainments went on – the same four animals, with presumably the same eight men inside them, appearing again and again, to be described each time by the chronicler as if they were quite new, although, as a matter of fact, Henry had used them for several previous spectacles and simply had them repainted for the wedding. _____________________________________ **Source:** Mattingly, Garrett. “Part I: A Spanish Princess (1485-1509); Chapter 2, Section iii” *Catherine of Aragon*. New York: Quality Paperback , 1990. 41-2. Print.