In recent years considerable scholarly attention has been given to the nature and significance of the ceremonial entries into important cities by kings and other great people. A prevalent interpretation of these entries sees them essentially as a ‘monarchical institution’ with little significance attached to the role the citizens played in these spectacles. Yet other views are slowly ‘catching up’. A useful – though more descriptive than analytical – contribution to these civic oriented approaches is made by Neil Murphy in his ‘Receiving royals in later medieval York: civic ceremony and the municipal elite, 1478–1503’, Northern History, 43 (2006), 241–55. York was a city that received considerable royal attention, and unlike most English provincial centres, York's civic records are such that information about the pageants, programmes and performances can be obtained. Murphy essentially only considers three royal visits to the city: Richard III in 1483, Henry VII in 1486 and Princess Margaret en route to Scotland in 1503. The most prominent elements which he emphasizes and illustrates are as follows. The organization and control of the procession rested strongly with the merchant elite. The procession was organized to pass through streets largely inhabited by merchants and past the churches specially connected with them. Major episodes were scheduled at sites associated with civic authority: at Micklegate Bar, the Ouse Bridge and the Common Hall, yet Murphy also stresses the relevance of ‘public space’ within these entries. A particularly interesting observation is that considerable trouble was taken to associate ceremonial entries with the city's play cycles. Thus for Henry VII's visit in 1486 the city paid the weavers to put on their Corpus Christi Day pageant. When it was learned that the king planed another visit to York in August of the following year, the Corpus Christi play was delayed until then. Murphy highlights several interesting details, for example the way in which the city was notified of royal intentions to visit; the importance of the scarlet robes worn by all the city's rulers; the means adopted to keep a procession under mobile illumination. Special importance attaches to the gifts normally made to the king, especially a new monarch, or other royal entrants. Thus in 1483 Richard III was given 500 marks, his queen 100 ‘gold shillings’. These were very large sums in relation to the York municipal revenue and reflect Richard III's popularity in the city. Henry VII on his visit in 1486 – several months after Bosworth – agreed to do without a gift. Murphy pays little attention to the possible implications of this point. It is somewhat astonishing that he also fails to analyse the political contents of the pageants staged by the city on this occasion: York went to considerable trouble to stress the city's mythological past.