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Godgifu, a Saxon noblewoman, famously rode naked through the streets of
Coventry to save her people from what Daniel Donoghue described (in Lady Godiva:
A Literary History of the Legend) as 'an oppressive and shameful servitude'.
This is one of four two-minute extracts from a two to three-hour procession,
held to commemorate her legend in Coventry on the afternoon of 9th September
1902, as part of the city's coronation celebrations.
The procession starred the fabulously voluptuous and successful London
Hippodrome actress Vera Guedes as Godiva. The Coventry Herald and Free Press
judged the film thus: 'A very interesting item is the reproduction of the Godiva
Procession'. This extract begins with a lingering shot of Godiva, in her
flesh-coloured dress, on her horse highlighting her significance in the
procession. The remaining extracts lose her as a focus, as the procession is
used as a vehicle to exhibit local trade.
To read more about this and other processions and parades in the Mitchell and
Kenyon Collection, see Professor Andrew Prescott's article in The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon: Edwardian Britain on Film (ed. Vanessa Toulmin, Simon Popple, Patrick Russell, BFI, 2004).
Rebecca Vick
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Mitchell and Kenyon 531 (2:16)
