BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME PROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Henrg M, Sage 1891 Ak>-a-\vvri VMvv \a"3 Cornell University Library PN 2589.K29 Notices illustrative of tlie drama, and o 3 1924 026 121 321 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026121321 NOTICES ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE DRAMA AND OTHER AMUSEMENTS AT LEICESTER. " Let nothing that's magnificall, Or that may tend to Leicester's graceful state Be unperfourmed See that plaies be published, Maie-games and maskes with mirth and minstrelsie ; Pageants and school-fe-istes, beares and puppet-piaies." Moral of the " Three Lordes, Sfc, of London," 1590. FAC-SIMILE OF A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF LEICESTER, PUBLISHED IN THE YEAR 1610. j Abeay ^aie ^ J\iirth gatejlreet 7 SintusffaU g Tie SpMe C/feifcpkoej of} Citu byf^xu-j noted to ChitrcBe yuU, iZ-MumbcrStm gait ii-Kti/t Gate 14Swinesmarke( iS ■ Satterdayes market ikCanktveu 1 jane -IjS cUartincs <8 ■ Marlinijlrat ^Ihqhjlrett ZiJIanktwienplaa 2.6 S Mc/iolasjhaml/us Z iReddL cr^ejlretb 28 ^Mcuyes 29Tbe-Cdk,U^ 30 Cdmpett jx OuUyl^Uau"' llJh* navi^warke. •i\1t^ Grange NOTICES ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE DRAMA, AND OTHER POPULAR AMUSEMENTS, CHIEFLY IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES, INCIDENTALLY ILLUSTRATING SHAKESPEARE AND HIS COTEMPOEAEIES; EXTRACTED FROM THE CHAMBERLAINS' ACCOUNTS AND OTHER MANUSCRIPTS OF THE BOROUGH OF LEICESTER. WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY WILLIAM KELLY. LONDON: JOHN KUSSELL SMITH, SOHO-SQUARE. 1865. PREFACE. SMALL portion of the contents of the following pages has already appeared in print, as part of a paper on the " Ancient Records of Leicester," read before our local Literary and Philosophical Society, in the year 1851, and subsequently printed in the volume of the society's transactions. In now embodying the sub- stance of those brief remarks on the subject in the present greatly extended work, that portion has been almost entirely re-written, and the extracts from the records there referred to, as well as the many addi- tional ones now appearing for the first time, have been carefully collated with the original entries. The chief source from whence the materials for the following work have been derived is the series of Accounts of the Town Chamberlains, and my attention was first directed to them under the follow- ing circumstances : — In the year 1847 I undertook, as a labour of love, in conjunction with Mr, James Thompson, (who was then collecting materials for his valuable " His- tory of Leicester"), to arrange the MSS. in the Borough Muniment-room, which had for very many vi Preface. years been lying untouched in a state of great disorder and neglect. Our offer having been promptly accepted by the Town Council, who— properly appreciating the value of these records of our past history, which, if once allowed to perish, no wealth could replace — unanimously voted the sum of money required for binding them, and our labours then commenced : my colleague undertaking the arrangement of the interest- ing series of Hall Papers (now forming twenty-four folio volumes, beginning with the year 1583), whilst the Chamberlains' Accounts (now collected into thirty- eight volumes) fell to my lot. These accounts were at the time lying in a confused mass, mixed with other papers, in a corner of the muniment-room, a prey to rats and saturated with moisture, caused by the overflowings of a water butt filtrating through the porous stone wall of the building ; owing to which the contents of some of the documents were hope- lessly effaced, whilst others were rotting away and crumbled under the touch. Whilst occupied at home during my leisure hours in drying and arranging the accounts, I was naturally led to peruse them, and I was at once struck by the interesting nature of their contents, and, on examination, was surprised to find how little (as compared with the mass of information which they contained) they had been consulted by our local historians. This, it is fair to assume, could only be accounted for by the jealous care with which all access to the Corporation archives had been guarded prior to the year 1836, when the E-eformed Corporation was elected. This induced me to transcribe a considerable num- Preface. vii ber of entries on various subjects, some of which formed the groundwork of the paper above-men- tioned, others were worked up into a series of papers on "Royal Progresses to Leicester," read before the same society ; those relating to the siege of the town in 1645 were printed in the Appendix to Mr. Thompson's " History of Leicester ; " whilst some very curious particulars respecting the visitations of the Plague were included by Mr. Buck in an interesting paper on " Epidemics in the Middle Ages." Some months ago my MS. collection of tran- scripts having passed through the hands of a learned friend — than whom few have rendered more Impor- tant services in Illustration of the dramatic literature of Shakespeare and his age, and of our earlier poets — he strongly urged upon me the desirability of col- lecting together and printing every entry relating to the stage and other amusements, deeming many of those which he read curious and valuable illustrations; and it is to this cause that the preparation of the present work is owing. Feeling that, however curious and valuable the extracts from the records might be to the well-skilled antiquary, to the general reader they would appear but as the dry, and possibly repulsive bones of a skeleton, in the Introduction the writer has "tried his 'prentice hand" at an attempt to clothe these bones with flesh, and to present them before the eye with, at least, some appearance of vitality and motion. In addition to the Chamberlains' Accounts (which commence in the year 1517), entries have also been transcribed from the Hall Papers, the Hall Books, and the Town Book of Acts. With a single exception — the very curious " bill " vlii Preface. in 1534 relating to Eobin Hood — the body of the work is derived exclusively from the Corporation archives, but many curious particulars, illustrative of the subject, drawn from other original MSS. (as the Churchwardens' Accounts of Melton Mowbray and those of St. Martin's, Leicester), are embodied in the Introduction. The only classification which has been attempted has been to place the extracts, as far as practicable, under the years to which they respectively relate; for, as the Town Accounts range from " the feast of St. Michael the Archangel " in one year, to the same festival in the succeeding one, they comprise, in every instance, portions of two years ; and from the absence of dates, except occasionally, it is often impossible to decide with certainty whether particular entries belong to the latter part of the one year, or the be- ginning of the next. Where not otherwise indicated within brackets, the whole of the entries are taken from these accounts. W. K. Leicester, April 2nd, 1 864. AS IT APPJIAEOID IN 1821. INTRODUCTION. 'he town of Leicester, although, unlike its co-equals in antiquity, the cities of Chester and Goventry, it has not had its name associated with any series of those rude and unartistic productions of the early English stage which have come down to us, was, undoubtedly, for several centuries, the frequent scene of those dra- matic; spectacles, which, having their origin in the Middle Ages, under the name of Miracle Plays or Mysteries, reached their culminating-point in "the merrie days of good Queen Bess," when the immortal works of a Beaumont, a Fletcher, a Jonson, and, above all, a Shakespeare, gave a vitality and vrai- semblance to the stage which it had not previously attained, and made it, indeed, "hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature," showing "the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure." Although it was in England that the eaxHest re- presentation of these religious plays is recorded to have taken place, it was not until the reign of Ed- ward III. that they were generally acted in English; and consequently, up to that period, and indeed for some time subsequently, the performers were monks, B 2 Early Mysteries and Miracle Plays. or persons attached to the Church. Thus, Chaucer, in his description of the parish-clerk " joly Absolon," in " The Miller's Tale," says :— " Somtime to shew his lightnesse and maistrie He plaieth Herode on a skaffold hie." By the fifteenth century, however, as will be seen by extracts from our local records, and other au- thorities, many of the plays were performed by laymen. The Mysteries and Miracle Plays were distinct in character, although, even as early as the fourteenth century, there appears to have been some confusion in this country in the application of the terms. The former, being founded on Scripture subjects, and intended to set forth the mysteries of the Christian revelation, were thus designated mysteria,ov mysteries; whilst the latter derived their title from being repre- sentations of the miracles said to have been performed by the saints of the Roman Catholic Church, and these were the most popular representations. They were common in London in 1170; and as early as 1119, or, according to Matthew Paris, nine years earlier, the miracle-play of St. Katherine was repre- sented at Dunstable, and which, as we learn from Bui sens, was even then no novelty. The earliest examples of these compositions now known, are three plays written in France, in the beginning of the twelfth century, by Hilarius, an Englishman and disciple of the famous Abelard, the subjects of which are the raising of Lazarus, a miracle of St, Nicholas, and the history of Daniel.' ' "Wright's Introduction to the " Chester Plays,'' p. 6. Early Mysteries and Miracle Plays. 3 We have no means of ascertaining at what period dramatic spectacles were first introduced into Lei- cester ; but the earliest references to them which we find in our municipal and parochial records, towards the close of the fifteenth century, evidently show that they were in full operation at that time, as they had been, in all probability, long before. In an age when nearly all the laity were illiterate, these plays, the characters and incidents in which were, as we have seen, drawn from the Old or New Testament history, or from the legends of saints, became the readiest means in the hands of the clergy of imparting religious instruction to their flocks, by presenting before their eyes, as it were, the very persons and scenes recorded in Scripture, and thus, in a dramatic form, impressing those events more powerfully upon the popular mind. Indeed, so closely was the Biblical narrative adhered to, that in repre- sentations of the Mystery of the Creation of the World (if we are to judge from the explicit stage direction, " stand nackede," and the play itself) there seems no reason to doubt that Adam and Eve ap- peared upon the stage in a state of nudity, and Adam is described as presenting a fig-leaf apron to Eve. In reference hereto, Warton, in his " History of Eng- lish Poetry,"' observes "that this extraordinary spec- tacle was beheld by a numerous company of both sexes, with great complacency ; they had the autho- rity of Scripture for such a representation, and they gave matters just as they found them in the third chapter of Genesis." Mr. Thomas Wright, however, in a note on this subject, in the " Chester Plays,""'' ' Vol. i., p. 244. ' Vol. i., p. 238. 4 Early Mysteries and Miracle Plays. edited by him for the Shakespeare Society, doubts the accuracy of this assumption. He says : — " I am strongly inclined to think that this is altogether an error, that the direction is merely figurative, and that the persons who represented our first parents were only to be supposed to be in a state of nudity. Still, that part of the performance which related to the fig-leaves could not be otherwise than what would now be considered very indecorous." The opinion of Mr. "Wright on every subject of antiquarian research is worthy of all respect; but still, taking the explicit stage direction, &c,, coupled with the habit which had long universally prevailed, and which was continued to a much later period, of retiring to rest perfectly naked (several persons sleep- ing in the same room), and other gross manners of the people, together with the coarse and indecent language frequently put into the mouths of the female characters in the so-called religious plays, the ques- tion is still open to considerable doubt whether the earlier commentators were not correct in their opi- nion. Upon this subject we may adduce the follow- ing extraordinary testimony, which, if it is to be be- lieved, is a strong confirmation of the assertion being literally true. A sermon, preached by John Stock- wood, in 1578, contains the following extremely strange and curious piece of information, on a similar practice, even at that late period : — " If you resorte," says he, " to the Theatre, the Curtaine, and other places of playes in the Citye, you shall, on the Lorde's daye, haue these places so full as possibly they can throng: insomuche that in some places they [the players] shame not, in the tyme of divine service to come and dance about the churche, and Early Mysteries -and Miracle Plays. 5 without to have naked men dauncing in nettes, which is most filthie ; for the heathen, that had never further knowledge than the light of nature, haue counted it shameful! for a player to come on the stage without a slop." ^ One would suppose that this, to us, start- ling assertion would not have been made openly from the pulpit if it had no foundation in fact. A regular series of these plays was frequently performed by the various trading companies of our old towns, as at Chester, where the series commenced with the Creation and Fall of Lucifer, and ended with the Greneral Judgment of the World ; and Stow, in his " Survey of London,"^ informs us that, in 1390, the parish-clerks of London played interludes at Skinner's Well, "which play continued three days together, the king, queen and nobles being present ; " and, also, that in 1409, " they played a play which lasted eight days, and was of matter from the crea- tion of the world." Of the popularity of these plays, and the religious processions, partaking more or less of the same dra- matic character, we have ample evidence in the works of our early writers. Thus Chaucer, among many other allusions to them, represents his Wife of Bath amusing herself with them during Lent, in her husband's absence : — " Therfore made I my visitations To vigilies, and to processions, To preohings eke, and to thise pilgrimages, To playes of miracles, and manages, And wered upon my gay skarlet gites."' k ^ See Mr. Collier's Introduction to Northbrooke's " Treatise against Dicing, Dancing, Plays, and Interludes," reprinted by the Shakespeare Society, p. 14. 2 Ed. 1842, p. 7. " ' Gowns. 6 Early Mysteries and Miracle Plays. The clergy, it would seem, however, were not una- nimous as to the propriety of these public dramatic performances ; for in an Anglo-French poem entitled the " Manuel de Peche," written about the middle of the thirteenth century, and which has been attributed by some writers to Robert Grossetete, the famous Archdeacon of Leicester, and subsequently Bishop of Lincoln, a violent attack is made upon them. Although the Mysteries and Miracle Plays, even at an early period, were not unfrequently performed upon moveable scaffolds or stages, termed "pageants," in the public streets and in cemeteries (and this became more especially the case after lay actors be- longing to the trading companies, or guilds, began to perform them), yet, having a religious object, they were usually represented in the churches, and even during divine service on particular festivals : indeed, there were some who held that it was a sin to wit- ness the performance of the mysteries of the resur- rection or birth of Christ on highways or greens, but that it was lawful to do so in churches ; thus : — " He may yn the cherche, thrugh thys resun, Pley the resurrecoyun ; And he may pleye wythoutyn plyght Howe god was bore yn thole nyght, To make men to beleve stedfastly That he lyght yn the vyrgyne Mary. Zyf ' thou do hyt in weyys or grenys A syght of synne truly hyt semys."* On account of their religious origin and ordinary place of representation, we have thus rather to look ' If. * Robert de Brunne's translation of the " Manuel de Pech^." Whitsuntide Processions at Leicester. 7 to our parochial than to our municipal records for the most numerous entries relating to these early dra- matic displays. The Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Mary de Castro afford us the most interesting of these parti- culars. Unfortunately, however, we can only refer to these records at second-hand, the originals having long since disappeared from the parish chest, and (with the single exception of the account for the year 1490, recently recovered by the writer) were sold by auction in London some thirty years ago, and all traces of them appear to be lost. We are thus indebted to the transcripts made from the ac- counts, in the last century, by the Reverend Samuel Carte, vicar of St. Martin's, for what information we possess respecting their contents. We learn that a solemn procession took place annually, on Whit-Monday, from the church of St. Mary within the Castle to St. Margaret's without the walls of the town. The image of the Virgin Mary, which, at other times, richly clothed and crowned, stood in a tabernacle, or shrine, with a can- dlestick and a light continually burning before it, was, on these occasions, carried through the streets under a canopy, borne by four persons, and preceded by minstrels playing upon the harp and other instru- ments. Then followed twelve persons representing the twelve apostles, each of whom had the name of the apostle whom he personated written on parch- ment and fixed on his bonnet., The virgins of the parish took part in the procession, and its effect was heightened by banners and streamers flaunting in the breeze, one of which is described as " King Edward's standard," another as the "Trinity banner," 8 Wliitsuntide Processions at Leicester. and a third as " the great streamer of silk," and which were borne by fourteen men. Thus composed, and accompanied, doubtless, by the priests and canons of the collegiate church, the procession in honour of the Virgin left the precincts of that once proud castle — by turns the residence of the Beaumonts, the De Montforts, and the Plan- tagenets — and, in the early summer morning, wend- ing its way along the quaint old streets, lined on either side by picturesque timber houses, whose doors and overhanging windows, story above story, were crowded with spectators, proceeded by the High Cross, and, leaving the town by the North Gate, finally, after passing St. John's Cross at its entrance, traversed the Sancta Via, or Holy Way — the Sanvey-gate of modern times — and entered the church of St. Margaret, where oblations were made at the high altar. These consisted, in part, of two pairs of gloves, one pair said to be for God, and the other for St. Thomas of India. On returning to St. Mary's, after the conclusion of the ceremony, the representatives of the apostles, the banner-bearers, minstrels and others, who had assisted at it, were either remunerated for their services in money, or, as was more usual, regaled at the expense of the parish — for many years a calf having been provided for that purpose, which, in 1513, cost 2s. 4rf. A breakfast provided in one instance (1525) consisted of half a calf, and three calves' heads and two plucks, with ale, &c. Many curious particulars connected with this cere- mony have been rescued from oblivion in Mr. Carte's extracts, but as they consist simply of a selection from the various items of expense incurred by the Churchwardens^ Accounts of St. Mary's. 9 parish on these occasionSj we know not whether this annual spectacle, gorgeous, no doubt, in its character (for it was customary to lend hallowed vestments, as well as horses, harness, &c., from the churches and monasteries for dramatic representations), was merely a religious procession, or if any performance, in dumb- show or otherwise, took place at intervals during its progress through the streets. Nichols* is of opinion that a work in MS., written by Master Richard de Leicester (who flourished at the end of the thirteenth century, and who is described by Leland as "a great clerk"), entitled "De Articulo- rum Symboli distributione secundum numerum Apos- tolorum," and which was formerly in the Sion Library, might, if it coidd be examined, really prove to con- tain particulars illustrative of this spectacle. We have not, however, been able to learn whether this work is now in existence. In the earliest of the parochial accounts — that for the year 1490. — we find the following entries relating to this custom : — " Item, payd onWytsunmudy for Y postuUs & aU man! thyngs . . • . , . ij' vj^ ; " and — " Item, receyuyd at Saynt Margarets . . . vj*" (on making the oblation) ; and similar entries occur in subsequent years : among the rest, a payment of Zs. 4:d. being made in 1493 "for bread, ale, flesh, &c., for the apostles and others." On various occasions payments were also made for writing the names of ' " Hist. Leices.," vol. i., p. 314, note. 10 Corpus Christi Procession at Coventry. the apostles on parchment; for pins, points, tucking- strings, and whip-cord ; for the gloves presented at St. Margaret's; for repairing "King Edward's stan- dard," and other banners, &c. ; and also, occasionally, payments to the twelve apostles, the four bearers of the canopy, the fourteen banner-bearers, the virgins, minstrels, and others ; as well as the customary an- nual charges for bread, ale, powdered beef,' veal, spice, dressing, fire, &c., incurred in feasting them, - In that curious and scarce work. Sharp's " Disserta- tion on the Pageants or Dramatic Mysteries anciently performed at Coventry,"^ attention has been directed to these extracts, although, repeating an error in Nichols's " History of Leicestershire,"' from which he quotes them, and in which numerous entries are misplaced prior to 1544 (in which year the accounts of St. Martin's actually commence), that writer has misappropriated them to that church, instead of St. Mary's, to which they really relate. They are referred to as presenting several remark- able coincidences with the annual procession of the Fraternity of the Corpus Christi Gild at Coventry. In that ceremony a canopy of gold tissue was borne by four burgesses of the city over the Sacra- ment, or Corpus Christi, with six children, bearing as many torches, on each side of it, and in the pro- ^ According to Mad Tom, this was a favourite dish with a very elevated personage. He sings : — " The man in the moon drinks claret, Eats powder' d leef, turnip, and carrot ; But a cup of old Malaga sack Will fire the bush at his back.'' 2 4to., 1825, p. 166, note. ^ Vol. i., p. 569. St, Mary's, Leicester. 11 cession were personated the Virgin Mary, wearing a crown of silver-gilt, the angel Gabriel bearing the lily, the twelve apostles with torches of wax, amongst whom James and Thomas "of Inde" received double wages, and eight virgins with St. Katherine and St. Margaret. The members of the Trinity Gild joined in the procession, and added to its embellishments with their torches decorated with banners; whilst there, as at Leicester, the spectacle was also attended with music, as a charge of 3*. 4rf. occurs for the waits ; and a " breakfast was provided for the mem- bers of the Gild, and a part, at least, of the actors, viz., the apostles."' The "remarkable coincidences," referred to by Mr. Sharp, are increased by the fact, that in the wide south aisle of St. Mary's Church, in this town, was held the religious guild of the Holy Trinity; the members of which, doubtless, as at Coventry, also joined with their banners, crosses, &c., in the pro- cession on Whit-Monday, although no record of it remains; whilst in the account for 1499 is an entry of a payment of four marks for "painting St. James and undersetting the body of the church there, and making the tabernacle;" and it is thus also very pro- bable that this saint, as well as St. Thomas of India, in whose honour, as we have seen, a pair of gloves was presented at St. Margaret's, was a prominent figure in our Whitsuntide spectacle, no less than in the Corpus Christi procession at Coventry. On the same day, and probably in conjunction with the more magnificent one from St. Mary's, a some- what similar procession took place from St. Martin's ' Page 166, 12 Page 175. ^ " lllusttations of Shakespeare,"' p. 595. 100 The Puritans at Leicester. the Commonwealth they were again attacked by a new set of fanatics ; and, together with the whole of the May festivities, the Whitsun-ales, &c., in many parts of England degraded." In this respect we find that the Leicester Puritans of the Elizabethan age, both clerical and lay, were not a whit behind their confreres elsewhere in a zealous crusade against those amusements; which it must, however, be admitted, whilst pleasant and innocent enough in themselves, were, by abuse, doubtless made the cause of much immorality. Thus, on the 1st of June, 1599, we find that a poor man, one Eichard Woodshawe, a shoemaker, was gravely accused before the Mayor and magistrates of the town of having spoken in favour of these pastimes, and was thereupon bound over to take his trial for this ofiience at the next assizes. His accusers were Joshua Johnson and Ki^hard Mosely, inmates of Wigston's Hospital, who deposed that on the previous day they heard Woodshawe say " that if we do live, we shall see other gates dancing and maying than is now ; " and also, that " the preacher was a liar, for that, in his sermon, he said Mr. Mayor caused a maypole to be taken down and cut in pieces, and that the said maypole was pieced and set up again; " which was not true, for it was not pieced, but that part which was left was set up again. Woodshawe, on being interrogated as to the words he had spoken in the " New Hospital," admitted having said " that within these six years it may be there will be more morris-dancing in the town; " and it would appear that he had subsequently disclosed "the names of the mor- ris-dancers on Tuesday night in Whitsun week last," for we find among the Hall papers a list thus headed May-day Riot at Leicester. 101 containing- the names of six persons, the last being " Richard Woodshawe, shoemaker, their accuser." The circumstances which had occasioned this arbi- trary display of puritanic zeal are more fully explained in the written defence, which Woodshawe at his trial in the following month handed up to the judge — either Sir Edmund Anderson or Justice Glanville. He states that at Whitsuntide last past, Mr, Mayor gave leave to divers young men of the town to fetch in a maypole, and to set up the same In the town; which they did, with shot and morris-dancers, but that his worship was presently incensed, for so soon- as the maypole was set up he caused it to be pulled down again; and for that "your poor orator" said that within these six years he hoped to see more morris-dancing than ever he had seen; for that he heard one Mr. Hunter say that " when he came to be Mayor of Leicester,' he would allow. a morris, being out of service-time;" whereupon, and for the said speeches so used, "your poor orator," not meaning any hurt therein, was, by Mr. Mayor, bound over unto the assizes, to answer the same before your lordship. He then begs the judge's gracious favour in his behalf, that he may be released from his bonds on his just trial, and he was released accordingly. Similar arbitrary attempts of the Puritans to put down these favourite sports of the people led, a few years later, to a serious riot in the town, respecting * The Mayor at this time was that Thomas Clarkfe, of the Blue Boar Inn, whose name has become famous in connection with the tradition respecting Kichard IIL's bedstead. Mr. Hunter became Mayor in 1603-4, but we fear he was unable to perform this promise. 102 May-day Riot at Leicester. which we have among the Hall papers several docu- ments containing some curious particulars. This collision between the populace and the au- thorities of the town occurred in the month of May, 1603, and the first information we have respecting it is to be found on a decayed fragment of paper which has originally contained a copy of a letter, without date, from the Mayor, Mr. James Ellice, to the Earl of Huntingdon, Lord Lieutenant of the County. So far aa the very imperfect state of this document, at its commencement, enables us to ascertain, we gather that the Mayor " advertises " the Earl that he has taken upon himself to apprise his honour's nephew. Sir Henry Hastings, on behalf of his lord- ship's brother, that much timber from his woods was spoiled, stolen, and cut up, and brought to Leicester for May-day, without the knowledge of the Stewards of the Fair in their regular watch at night. " Now so it was," he then proceeds, " may it please your good lordship, the stewards notwithstanding, there was the same night many maypoles by an unruly band and a confused multitude of base people set up in the street, and the stewards' watch too weak to suppress the outrage." He then states that on the Sabbath-day (the first of May) all these unruly persons were gathered together round a maypole set up near to some place in Leicester, which we cannot ascertain, where he found a great number of people, who, in defiance of him, were proceeding in their sports " with a most tumultuous uproar and outcry, until Sir William Skipwith' came in, and dealing some- ^ He had a mansion in the High Street, called " The White House." May-day Biot at Leicester. 103 wTiat roughly, and laying hold of one Wood, a but- cher, a most disorderly lewd person, brought him to me, whom I presently committed. Proclamation of departure was made to the rude audience, which was then contemned, and seconded the next day with ' morrices,' and a great number of idle, rude com- pany, many of them armed with shot,^ following them, morning and evening, the whole town throughout." The Mayor concludes his letter by stating that he thought it his duty to advertise his lordship of this, and to crave his assistance, countenance, and direction. The Earl's reply is not recorded, probably he had a personal interview with the Mayor and others of the town authorities, whose next proceeding appears to have been the collecting of evidence against the ring- leaders in the aflFair. One result of this step is to be found in the next paper, being a copy of the deposi- tion, or " Sayings of Will" Saunderson of the Old (i.e. Trinity) Hospital, beadsman," taken before the Mayor and Mr. Gillott on the 4th day of May. This witness deposed, that coming towards Simon " Yng's," or Inge's, door in Leicester, he found divers women sitting there, on Saturday night, the last day of April, Symon Ynge then raging at the setting up of the maypole standing near to his house In the South-gate ; and who said that they (meaning the maypoles) were suffered in no town but here in Leicester. Whereupon he, the " Examinate," said that If the Eling did allow of them, then we ought not to gainsay it. " The King," said he (the said Symon Ynge), " I will obey Queen Elizabeth her * " Shot " is here used simply as denoting fire-arms, which were discharged, as at the present day, as a sign of honour and rejoicing, and were not carried for the purpose of intimidation. 104 May-day Riot at Leicester. laws.'' Then said the Examlnate, " The Queen is dead, and that her laws were now the King's laws." Then the said Symon Ynge answered again and said, " The King had no laws." Then said the Examinate to him, " Take heed what you say, for fear of punish- ment, for hath not our King made many knights by law, and sent out his writs by law, and made two pieces of Scottish coin current here in England, and all by law." Saunderson.was bound in the sum of £\0 to give evidence against Symon Inge at the next assizes. On the 11th of May we find the Mayor addressing another letter to the Earl of Huntingdon, in which he craves pardon for his long silence, which might seem to be great negligence, especially being so honourably and worthily directed and advised in a matter of such consequence and great importance, and explains that the true reason of it was that he might the more effectually search forth and the more cer- tainly inform his honour of the principal offenders and chief agents, as well abettors as actors in the late tumultuous disturbance of their peaceable govern- ment in this corporation, of whose names, he adds, he has made a short catalogue, which he presumes to present to his lordship, humbly beseeching that such exemplary punishment may be inflicted upon them, that others may be terrified to offend in the like. The Mayor then states that whereas a report has since been suggested that he had given countenance to the morris dancers, who so disorderly assembled themselves together, he assures his honour that it is and hath been far from him and his affection, for, to his grief, he sees daily theft set up before his eyes ; tumult and confusion upholden and unpunished ; and May-day Riot at Leicester. l05 both former and present government disgraced. He has therefore made his complaint (being the mouth of all his brethren), and prayed the aid of his honour's honourable place of lieutenancy, humbly desiring his lordship's strength to be added to his weakness, yet his honour shall ever find him willing and ready in his place to further his Majesty's service so far as either life, goods, or will can extend unto. He con- cludes with the assurance that so soon as he shall receive the Earl's warrant and order for taking down these stolen maypoles, &c., his diligence in the speedy execution thereof shall well appear, and so humbly craving pardon, he also humbly takes his leave. Then foUows the catalogue above mentioned, of " the names of the morrice dauncers," consisting of nine persons, "William Johnson, servant to Mr. Hugh Hunter " (whose name it will be recollected occurs in the former proceedings in 1599, as in favour of a morris dance), standing at the head ; whilst the last is that of " John Wood, butcher," described as " a disorderly person ; him (says the Mayor) have I bound with two sufficient sureties to appear before the judge at the next assizes." This was the same man who was seized and delivered to the Mayor by Sir William Skip with. We have then the names of seven others, being " such as were furnished with shot ; " and the cata- logue is completed by " the names of them that have been punished," comprising six names, the last being that of " Boger More, late soldier." We then learn that George Langley, painter, acknowledged having painted the maypole near to the Talbot, and for so doing was paid 2s. by the before-mentioned WiUiam Johnson, Mr. Hugh Hun- 106 May-day Riot at Leicester. ter's servant ; he also said that he painted the may- pole in the Humberstone Gate, and for this he was paid a penny by one William Salesbury, servant to William Hunt, Chamberlain of Leicester. From this it seems evident that some members of the cor- poration were in favour of these sports, and it is not improbable, notwithstanding his disclaimer of the report to that effect, that the Mayor himself was secretly favourably disposed towards them, but was fearful of compromising himself with the puritanic Earl. We are again without the Earl's reply to Mr. Mayor's letter, but, probably, by his desire, we find that some days later (on the 16th) Symon Ynge, against whom his accuser Saunderson was bound to appear at the next assizes, was himself interrogated before the Mayor and Mr. Gillott, as to the conver- sation that took place between him and Saunderson on Saturday night, the last of April, His explana- tion was that he was sitting at his own door, when Saunderson came to him and said he could not see the maypole at his own door for the elm tree standing at Pollard's door, and Saunderson asked him what harm the pole did, to which he answered not anything at all concerning the maypole; and that Saunderson then said that maypoles were set up in all places as the King came, and that the King allowed them in his book. Whereupon he (Symon Ynge) said he wished Saunderson to be contented and let us be ruled by Mr. Mayor and the justices (the cunning fellow!), adding that he thought the King, as yet, had made no new laws, but those that were in the Queen's Majesty's time ; and that then Saunderson replied and said, "hath not the King made certain knights by May-day Riot at Leicester. 107 law, and also allowed two Scottish pieces of coin, the one of gold, the other of silver, to be current in England by law," to which he answered nothing, and, to his remembrance, there were no further speeches between them. On the 18th a " Common Hall " was held, but we have no record of the result of the discussion on this all-absorbing topic of the time among the towns- people, beyond a " Memorandum," that, " in regard of the manifold inconveniences and disorders which we have seen, by experience, usually to accompany the setting up of maypoles in our town, by reason of the multitude of rude and disorderly persons therein, for that reason they have been heretofore for many years forbidden and restrained amongst us." During all this time the town was in a very dis- turbed and unsettled state, for, notwithstanding the proceedings taken by the Mayor and justices, and the very natural fear of the resentment of the powerful nobleman, their neighbour, at their contu- macy gainst his authority, the people stiU would not quietly submit to be thus deprived of their old amusements, for we have another record of further disorder and riotous conduct arising out of the taking down the maypoles by direction of the Earl, as sought for in the Mayor's letter of the 11th of May. On the 19th of that month William Leppington, the younger, slater, being examined before the Mayor, deposed that on Monday night, the 16th of May (after the maypole was taken down in Belgrave Gate), Anthony Fletcher said to Mr. Gillott (who, as a magistrate, appears to have superintended its removal) "Who shall pay William Leppington for taking down the maypole ? " to which Mr. Gillott answered and 108 May-day Riot at Leicester. "willed" the said Fletcher to forbear his speeches and go to bed ; whereupon Fletcher replied, " Well ! I will cool you both (meaning Mr. Gillott and Lep- pington) for this." He further deposed that the same Monday night Agnes Watkin, the wife of John Watkin, of Leicester, shoemaker, said to him, " Thou art like unto like, as the devill sayd to the Colly ar."^ On the 16th one of the King's messengers arrived with four proclamations "by writ under his high* ness's seal," dated at Westminster the 9th of May, one of them prohibiting "all bear-baitings, bull- baitings, interludes, common plays, or other like dis- ordered or unlawful exercises or pastimes to be kept or used upon any sabbath day ; " and on the 20th a proclamation, equivalent to the modern " Riot Act," was read to the people, but even this did not effectu- ally put some of them to silence, for on thte following night Thomas Tyers, being in the Town Hall, said in the hearing of several persons that "he would see Mr. Mayor hanged as high as the top of the hall (the wicked wretch !) before he would be at his command, either for the cutting down of maypoles or anything else." And on the same night that contumacious and dis- orderly rascal, John Wood, the butcher, who did not ' A comic interlude or moral-play, by Ulpian Fulwell, was printed in 1568, entitled " Like will to Like, quod the Devil to the Collier;" and in Henslowe's "Diary," (p. 181), it is stated that on the 28th of October, 1600, the Earl of Pembroke's men played a piece at the Rose called " The Like unto Like." Butler evidently refers to this proverb in " Hudibras," (canto ii., 1. 350), when he says, " As like the devil as a collier." We do not find it, however, in either Kelly's " Proverbs of all Nations," or Bohn's "Handbook of Proverbs." The latter gives " Like to like, as Nan to Nicholas." May-day Riot at Leicester. 109 care for either Mayor or knight, had the audacity to deliver these speeches to Mr. Mayor himself, namely, " that he heard one say unto him, that Tom Pestall should report to one sitting upon a bulk^ in Leices- ter, that talked of Mr. Sacheverill, that the said Mr. Sacheverill was above Mr. Mayor;" and Wood, nothing daunted, told the Mayor to his face that he " did enough to make the whole town to rise against him," adding, that he (the Mayor) and others " had done him wrong, but he would be righted, or else he would spend twenty pounds," Kude and boisterous as John Wood, the butcher, was, we may, perhaps, according to his light, and his own belief, set him down as a rough, uncultured patriot — one who, at all hazards, stood up in defence of the rights and liberties of himself and his fellows, which, he felt, were unjustly invaded by the people being thus precluded from the enjoyment of their old accustomed sports, through the narrow-minded tyranny of a set of bigotted fanatics,^ who, in the words of Butler, — ' The stall or open front of a shop. The front of a butcher's shop, where the meat is laid, is still called a bulkar in Lincoln- shire. — Hailiweli.. ^ In 1644 — the year before the Puritan inhabitants so bravely defended the town against the Royal forces — we find the two Houses of Parliament passing an Act which set forth that " because the prophanation of the Lord's day hath been here- tofore greatly occasioned by maypoles (a heathenish vanity generally abused to superstition and wickedness) the Lords and Commons do further order and ordain that all and singular maypoles, that are or shall be erected, shall be taken down and removed by the constables, borsholders, tythingmen, petty constables, and churchwardens of the parishes where the same may be ; and that no maypole shall be hereafter set up, erected, or suffered to be within this kingdom of England or dominion 1 10 May-day Riot at Leicester. " Were so perverse and opposite, As if they worshipp'd God for spite. That with more care keep holy-day The wrong, than others the right way : Quarrel with mino'd pies, and disparage Their best and dearest friend — plum-porridge ; Fat pig and goose itself oppose, And blaspheme custard through the nose." And, without much exaggeration, we may perhaps look upon him as a sort of prototype of Gray's rustic patriot — " The village Hampden, that with dauntless breast The little tyrant of his fields withstood." But we have not yet done with the commotions and complications arising out of this May-day busi- ness; for we find Mr. Nathaniel Sampson, the master of Wigston's Hospital^ (of which the Mr. Sacheverill before mentioned was Confrater), brought before the Mayor and justices for words in his sermon on May- day, spoken in disparagement of the state of things under the new rule of King James, who had suc- ceeded Elizabeth on the preceding 24th of March, and who, as is well known, was favourably disposed towards the popular sports of the age. In this trans- action we again find the name of Mr. Thomas Hunter holding a prominent place — he being, in all proba- bility, the leader of the more catholic party in the municipal body, and upon whom the Mayorality was conferred at the next election. This charge against of Wales," &c., &c. Well may a recent writer exclaim, " Mercy on us ! what an army to put down a poor maypole! " — Soanb's New Curiosities of Literature, vol. i., p. 247, note. ' Some particulars respecting him will be found in the body of the work. May-day Riot at Leicester. Ill the Puritan preacher was preferred by " Christopher Walton, gentleman, servant to the King's Majesty," who, in his examination on the 19th of May, before the Mayor and Mr. Kobert Heyrick, said that on the same morning he heard Mr. Hunter report "that John Knight, of Leicester, tanner, should say, that he heard Mr. Sampson, in his sermon, say that gold is turned to silver, silver to brass, and brass to dross." Mr. Sampson "is charged with these speeches, and utterly denyeth the same;" whereupon Eichard Tydesdale, " Comer of Jarsey," deposed that " upon May-day in the afternoon, at the sermon in St. Mar- tin's church, in Leicester, he heard Mr. Nathaniel Sampson in his sermon deliver these speeches, viz., 'that we have had a golden world these 44 years,^ and from gold to silver, and from silver to brass, and from brass to iron, and from iron to clay.'" It does not appear if anything further was done respecting this charge, but among the papers connected with it is one written in a very bad and illiterate hand, con- taining the following rude lines, evidently intended for rhyme, but written without regularity in this respect : — "The first of May, Being the Sabbath day, In Queen Mary's time It was a silver mine ; And in Queen Elizabeth's time A golden mine ; And now it is caU'd A leaden mine ; Worser than copper, A drossy mine. God save King James the First and of Scotland the VI." i.e. during Queen Elizabeth's rei^n. 112 Merlin's Prophecies. The minds of the common people of the Shake- spearian age were, undoubtedly, greatly unsettled, from the frequent changes which had been taking place in religion and government, and were full of supersti- tion and the belief in strange and absurd prophecies, which were eagerly caught up, and spread from mouth to mouth, telling of fearful things to come, before the happy return of the golden age, which was ex- pected to take place; and when it was to be "a, pleasant golden world." Among the extracts are a few which we have se- lected rather as illustrating allusions made by Shake- speare to the usages, manners, and superstitions of his time, than from any direct bearing which they have upon our subject. The foremost of these in importance and interest are transcripts of the depositions of various inhabit- ants taken before the magistrates of the town, in October, 1586, relating to a supposed prophecy of Merlin, and the then expected execution of Mary Queen of Scots, who had been brought as a prisoner to Leicester on the preceding 23rd of September, and remained two nights, on her way to Fotheringhay Castle, to be put upon her trial ; and it is a singular coincidence that that event took place on the 14th of October, at the very time that these persons were being examined at Leicester, touching reports con- cerning her. This unhappy Queen had previously been brought to Leicester in November, 1569, and then, as on this occasion, was an inmate of " Lord's Place," the Earl of Huntingdon's mansion in High Street, and it was, of course, owing to her presence here in 1586, that these "prophecies and sayings" became so rife in the town. MerlirCs Prophecies. 113 The other extracts refer to the " Gossips' Feast " at christenings, the use of the name " Emmanuel " at the top of letters, &c. Merlin, the supposed author of these prophecies, was a British magician, living about the year 500, and was deemed the prince of enchanters — one who could outdo the enchantments of all others, but who, at length, fell a victim to one of his own spells, through his misplaced confidence in a lovely, but vain and wicked woman. Geoflrey of Monmouth has written the fabulous history of Merlin in his British History, and the wizard was a prominent figure in the ancient ro- mances of chivalry, telling of the wondrous deeds of Eang Arthur and the Benights of the Round Table ; and he has been the theme of many a poet's song from that age to our own. Spencer says, " It Merlin was, which whylome did excell All living wightes in might of magicke spell." ' And our present Poet Laureate describes him as, " The most famous man of all those times, Merlin, who knew the range of all their arts, Had built the King his havens, ships, and halls, Was also Bard, and knew the starry heavens ; The people called him Wizard."^ Whilst even at the present day there are not a few ignorant, superstitious people who still are credulous enough to put faith in his prophecies, and those of his modem representatives, "Kaphael" and "Zad- ' " Faerie Queene," book i., c. viii., 36. 2 "Idylls of the King," p. 102. I 114 MerlirHs Propliecies. kiel;" among whose disciples, a year or two ago, was a London Alderman, who actually took occasion, on the bench of justice, to draw public attention to what he believed to be the fulfilment of the prophecy of one of these impostors, foretelling the decease of the lamented Prince Consort. A native of our own county, who, as regards his birth, was contemporaneous with Shakespeare, after- wards, became famous as an astrologer and prophet. This was the celebrated, or rather the notorious, WiUiam Lilly, the friend of Elias Ashmole, who was born at Disc worth, near Castle Donington, in 1602, as he tells us in his curious and amusing autobiography.' He is termed by Butler, in his " Hudibras," ^ the " English Merlin ; " and he figures, at length, in the third canto of the poem as the " Sidrophel " of the same inimitably facetious writer. The first person examined before the Mayor and others, on the 13th and I4th of October, 1586, re- specting these pretended prophecies, was one Charles Dubignon, who, in reply to the questions put to him, said that on Michaelmas even, " or some other night ' It seemed in accordance with "the eternal fitness of things " that Castle Donington should possess a conjurer who had power over the evil spirits, for a rare tract by Philip Stubbes, author of the " Anatomy of Abuses," informs us how "the devil very strangely appeared" in June, 1581, to a woman named Joane Bowser, dwelling at that place, the inci- dents of which event are set forth in a long poem in which the following advice is given — " And now, O gentle Donington, be mindful yet of me. Who have with paines contriued this same for loue I beare to thee. Abandon, then, out of thy streates all mirthe and minstrelsie ; No pipers, nor no dauncers vile, in thee let extant be." 2 Part I., c. ii., 1. 346. Merliiis ProjihedM. 115 thereabouts," he came home about eight or nine o'clock, when he threw away two or three eggs which his master had ordered to be given to him, " to roast " for his supper. He then went on to say that he heard Edward Sawford, " the Embroiderer," say that if the Queen of Scots were put to death (as it was sup- posed she should be) there was like to be very great troubles in England, and that if there were any such "hurly-burly,"^ it would go hard with the strangers now in England. Also, that the said Sawford told him that Merlin saith in his book, that after such troubles ended, then it would be a pleasant, golden world ; and, further, that if there were not present remedy this Parliament for the relief of the poor, he supposed that the common people would rise, or great sin would be ; and that Merlin's prophecy was that troubles should come about Windsor. Dubignon then inquired of Sawford how he knew this, and whether he had Merlin's book, to which he said " No," but he heard it of " a very friend " of his, and that the book was in Yorkshire. Another person, one William Byard, but who was commonly known as " Old Byard," was charged with having said that in the reign of Queen Elizabeth men should be " breeched like bears and coated like apes, and women painted like images to behold great pride and lechery ; in young and old great talk of God and no deal served, nor any of his laws much regarded ; faith and honesty most hated ; with flat- tery abundantly, carrieth away the victory, but God, ' "When the hurly-burhf s done." — Macbeth., act i., sc. 1. This word is explained by Peacham, in his " Garden of Elo- quence" (1577), as signifying an uproar, or tumultuous ster. 116 Merlin's Prophecies. of his omnipotency, will not so deluded be." He was also accused of having said that "after Michael- mas a Parliament should be holden, whereunto many- should come of the noblemen, and some not come; and they that did come should commune of such matters as they came for, and not agree ; insomuch that they shall fall at square, and some blows shall be given, and so should part every man to his home. Then should they go together on the ears within themselves ; insomuch that her Majesty should be in such fear that she should flee into Wales. Then should the enemy approach the land, and proffer in many places, and where he proffered most to mean least to enter ; but at West Chester the enemy should enter and invade the land, and the crown won and lost once or twice. Then should such as have racked rents and wronged the poor, and hoarded up their corn, go to the post ; and three battles fought, one at West Chester, the other at Coventry, the third at London. " Then should a man and a boy be ploughing, and shall see a man clothed in black, bare-headed, running over the field; the boy shall say, 'Master, who is yonder?' The master shall say, 'A priest, let us kill him, for it is they that have brought all this trouble.' Then, in their greatest trouble, should a dead man come, and, after his name shall be known, all shall run unto him ; he shall give unto every man his own wife and land, and shall set four rulers in the land ; then shall he go forth and conquer, and never cease till he come to Jerusalem, and there die by the will of God, and be buried between the three Kings of Cologne." Many more particulars respecting Merlin and his prophecies, King Arthur, Queen Elizabeth, MerlirCs Prophecies. 117 and the events which were to come to pass — when men " should be coated like apes, and breeched like bears" — as rehearsed by " Old Byard," will be found in another lengthy deposition, among the extracts under this year, signed by Charles Dubignon, but to which our space will only permit us to refer; and it will also be seen that the parties accused were brought be- fore the judges at the assizes for trial on the charge. Shakespeare twice alludes to Merlin and his pro- phecies. In " King Henry IV."' after Owen Glen- dower has been descanting on the ''omens and portents dire," which heralded his nativity, and Hotspur's un- believing and taunting replies to the chieftain's asser- tions, the poet, on Mortimer's saying, " Fye, cousin Percy ! how you cross my father," makes Hotspur thus reply — " I cannot choose : sometimes he angers me With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant, Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies ; And of a dragon and a finless fish, A clip-wing'd griflin, and a moulten raven, A couching lion and a ramping cat. And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff As puts me from my faith." And again, in "King Lear,"* he makes the fool say — " ril speak a prophecy ere I go : When priests are more in word than matter ; When brewers mar their malt with water ; When nobles are their tailors' tutors ; No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors : ' Partl.,actiii., sc. 1. A play entitled "The Birth of Merlin," the first known edition of which was printed in 1662, has been attributed to the joint labours of Shakespeare and Rowley. It will be found amongst Shakespeare's Doubtful Plays. ^ Act iii., sc. 2. 118 MerlirCs Prophecies. When every case in law is right ; No squire in debt, nor no poor knight ; When slanders do not live in tongues ; Nor outpurses come not to throngs ; When usurers tell their gold i' the field ; And bawds and whores do churches build ; — Then shall the realm of Albion Come to great confusion. , Then comes the time, who lives to see't, That going shall be used with feet. This prophecy Merlin shall make, for I live before his time." This witty satire was evidently levelled against the " prophecies " attributed to Merlin, which were then prevalent amongst the people, and it Is even not im- probable that it may have been prompted by the very one for discussing which some of the inhabitants of this town were taken into custody; for the play of " King Lear " appears to have been composed during Elizabeth's reign, although not printed until that of her successor. Whilst Shakespeare thus pleasantly directed the shafts of his ridicule against these idle prophecies. Lord Bacon attacked them in a graver manner : in- deed, the statutes directed against them in Shake- speare's day show that the effect which they had upon the people was very considerable, and not to be des- pised by their rulers. In his essay "Of Prophecies," Bacon, after quoting " The trivial prophecy which I heard when I was a child, and Queen Elizabeth was in the flower of her years, ' When Jiempe ' is spone, England's done,' " ' i. e. The initials of the sovereigns, Henry, Edward, Mary, Philip, and Elizabeth, The Name " EmmanueV 1 1 9 which he does not scruple to explain in a way that might disarm public apprehension, adds, " My judg- ment is that they ought all to be despised, and ought to serve but for winter talk by the fireside ; though, when I say despised, I mean it as for belief, for other- wise the spreading or publishing of them is in no sort to be despised, for they have done much mischief; and I see many severe laws made to suppress them." Passing on to another subject, we find in Shake- speare's "King Henry VI." ^ the following dialogue between Jack Cade and the Clerk of Chatham — " Cade. Come hither, sirrah, I must examine thee. What is thy name ? Clerk. Emmanuel. Dick. They use to write it on the top of letters; — ^'twill go hard with yon. Cade. Let me alone. Dost thou use to write thy name? or hast thou a mark to thyself, like an honest, plain-dealing man? Clerk. Sir, I thank God I have been so well brought up that I can write my name. All. He hath confessed : away with him ; he's a villain and a traitor. Cade. Away with him, I say ; hang him with his pen and inkhom about his neck." In an article on the character of Jack Cade, in the "Papers of the Shakespeare Society," '^ the writer — in reference to the clerk's name, " Emmanuel," and DicFs remark thereupon, that " they use to write it on the top of letters" — observes, "The commentators appear to me to have taken unnecessary pains to ex- plain this passage. Is it not merely a play upon the word manual, or sign manual, to this day written at ' Part II., act iv., sc. 2. » Vol. iii., p. 49. 120 The Name " Emmanuel.'" the top of King's or Queen's letters ? " Now at the top of the extracts from the town accounts for 1578 and 1594, we find the name "Emmanuel" actually written as well as on many others of the rolls and also at the top of mamj letters of the period to be found amongst the Hall papers. Sometimes the name " Jesus " is written in lieu of " Emmanuel." Our local records thus afford positive proof that Shakespeare was in this, as in many other instances, plainly referring to a well-known usage at the period when he wrote, hut which has since become obsolete and forgotten, and that no far-fetched explanation of the commen- tators (as in its supposed derivation above quoted) is needed in place of the contemporary proof of existence of the custom in his day. Other Shakespearian allusions will be found illus- trated among the extracts and the notes thereon, as the "Gossips' Feast," the term "Harefinder," "Sho- vel-board," &c., but which our limits will not permit us further to notice here. Notwithstanding the strong Puritan party among the rulers and inhabitants of the town, it is evident that the accession of James I. and his warm personal patronage of the stage,^ as well as of many of the ruder pastimes of the people, had given a greater impetus to theatrical amusements here, as well as in other parts of the kingdom — for, whatever fashion may be set at court will always be followed — as is evinced by the greatly increased number of payments to com- ' Mr. Peter Cunningham, in the Introduction to his "Extracts from the Eevells Accounts " (p. xxxiv.), states that " the new King sa.vr five times as many plays in a year as Queen Elizabeth was accustomed to see." Players at Leicester. 121 panies of players recorded in the town accounts in succeeding years. The chief of these companies were those of the King (of which Shakespeare was a member), the Queen, Prince Henry, and the Princess Elizabeth (afterwards the celebrated and unfortunate Queen of Bohemia — the fascinating " Queen of Hearts " — who was so greatly beloved by the English people^), and, in addition, those of numerous noblemen of the period. Although under the influence of this court patron- age of the stage, the more liberal-minded party in the corporation were strengthened in their support of popular amusements, the Puritan members of that body still seem to have manifested an active opposi- tion to them whenever they had the opportunity of so doing ; for in many instances these companies of players had a "gratuity" given to them, and were not suffered to perform. This course of proceeding is especially marked in the year 1622, when, as we have already noticed, a great number of Puritan preachers came to the town, and had wine presented to them at the public expense after the " exercises "• at church, when we may readily believe that the King's "Book of Sports," '^ then recently put forth. ' It was upon this unhappy lady that Sir Henry Wotton, her attached servant, composed his well known lines, "You meaner beauties of the night." She visited Leicester on several occasions in her earlier days. ^ It was on the 24th of May, 1618, that the King put forth his celebrated declaration " concerning lawful sports to be used upon Sundays, after evening prayers ended, and upon holidays." It allowed dancing by both sexes, archery, leaping, vaulting, " or any such harmless recreation ; " but prohibited what are 1 22 Players at Leicester, came in for a full share of reprobation from these bigotted fanatics — the " Gospel Trumpeter " sound- ing against it with the true orthodox nasal twang ! The Queen's players were here on many occasions, and under the years 1605 and 1609 we have some curious entries, showing that they had done consi- derable damage in the Town Hall by breaking the (Mayor's) chair in the parlour and many of the glass and latticed windows in the hall. These are the only entries of the kind which we have met with in our local records. Could this damage have been done during some disturbances between these players and the Puritans ? This was the company previously known as the " Earl of Worcester's Servants," with which Edward AUeyn was connected ; and which, as we have seen, had a quarrel in 1583 with the Mayor and the company patronized by the Master of the Revels, Some ten years after the last of these entries we begin to have the names of the " leaders," or, as we should now term them, the " managers " of the com- panies occasionally mentioned in the accounts. Thus, in 1619 payments were made to " Swynner- ton " and " Terry " and their respective companies, the latter having "large aucthoritie;" "John Daniell" was here in 1624 with his company of juvenile actors. termed " unlawful games '' on Sundays, such as bull and bear- baitings, interludes, and bowling. Charles I., chiefly, it is said, at the instigation of Archbishop Laud, was injudicious enough to "ratify and publish" this declaration in October, 1633, to the great offence, not only of the Puritans, but of many of the moderate party in the kingdom. The House of CommonB, on the 5th of May, 1643, passed a resolution ordering the King's " Book of Sports " to be burned by the common hangman. Players at Leicester. 123 called « The Children of Bristol ; " and also « Mr. Townesend and his fellows, being the Lady Elizabeth her players ; " in the next year " Slator and his com- pany, being the King's players" were rewarded; whilst in the following account is an entry contain- ing the names of " Ellis Geste, Thomas Swinerton, Arthuret Grimes, and others," who are recorded as " going about with a patent from the Master of the Kevels." In 1628 the three companies under " Swinnerton," " Knight," and " Mr. Kite " visited the town ; and in the ensuing year those of " Mr. Moore " (now at the head of "the Lady Elizabeth her players"), "Mr. Guest" and "Dishley; " and at the same period we learn that " Mr, ffenner,' the King's Poet" was paid a gratuity of 3s. 4rf. to pass the town without playing. The last name recorded is that of " Mr. Perrie, a player," and his company, in 1633. From this period the payments to players gradually decrease, and finally disappear after the outbreak of the great Civil War, when the Puritans rigidly prohibited all kinds of plays, and the theatres in London were closed for thirteen years; whilst the actors who occa- sionally attempted to perform in the provinces were frequently taken into custody, and whipped as rogues and vagabonds, as we learn from Whitelocke's " Me- morials." With the Restoration the drama re-appeared, and exhibited a licentiousness (truly reflecting the fashion- able life of the period) hardly equalled by that of any other Christian nation; but, as no further entries ^ Some particulars respecting this individual, as well as the other persons above-mentioned, will be found in the Appendix. 124 Minstrels and Waits. relating to it occur in our local records, we have here finally to take our leave of it, after tracing it from its rise in the ancient mysteries and miracle plays, through- the effulgence of its meridian splendour in the days of Shakespeare, to its temporary eclipse under the cold shadow of a life-depressing Puritan- ism, and so — in the words of " Sweet Willie " him- self— "Farewell, my masters [of the stage], farewell!" Turning from the stage, we have now to notice the entries in our records relating to waits and minstrels, or musicians, the exhibitors of " Motions," or puppet plays, tumblers, mountebanks, &c. Any attempt to trace here the general history of the ancient English minstrels would far exceed the space at our disposal. Suffice it to say, that from the earliest period of our aunals the professor of the sister arts of music and song was — like the herald — looked upon almost as a sacred character, was everywhere received as an honoured guest, and was privileged to pass without personal danger into a hostile camp in times of war ; that amongst the Anglo-Saxons, " Many a carol old and saintly Sang the minstrels and the waits," — whilst many a tale, far from saintly, "of love and war, romance and knightly worth," was chanted to their harps by wandering gleemen, who travelled from place to place wherever any festivities were going on — and in the days of our jovial forefathers, with " their eyes of azure and their locks of brown," where was not feasting going on ? — and that from the Saxon times down to the Shakespearian age — nay, even to that of the Protectorate — companies of min- Minstrels and Waits. 125 strels or musicians (for the terms at length were used as synonymous) were retained at the court of the monarch, and in the households of the great nobles, and of many of the wealthy geiitry of the country. Most of the corporate towns also had their com- panies of minstrels, termed waits, who were originally musical watchmen (the name being probably derived from the old German wacht, a vigil or watching — Gothice Wahts^), and who, at a remote period in this country as well as in Germany, from whence the custom came, sang the hour of night, and in rude rhymes warned the town against fire. The national instrument was undoubtedly the harp, but the hautboy, in all probability from being the pipe upon which these musicians usually played, was — like the performers upon it — called a " waight.'"* Another kind of pipe, of which the modern flagelet (or flageolet as it is now written) is the diminutive, was also in use among the early waits, as appears from the following passage in the old lay of "Richard Cceur de Lion " — " A wayte ther com in a kernel Ipattlemeni} And a pypyd a moot in a flagel."' Minstrels were very popular in the reign of Ed- ward II., and they were so richly dressed by their patrons, that a poem of the period, printed by the Percy Society (No. 82, p. 23), complains — " That no man may knowe A mynstrel from a knyg[h]t Well ny." ' Soane's " New Curiosities of Literature," vol. ii., p. 252. 2 Chappell's " Popular Music of the Olden Time," p. 547. ^ Quoted by Sandys, in his " Christmastide," p. 83. 126 Minstrels and Waits. Stow relates an incident which occurred at the court of Edward 11. in 1316, which shows how great was the popularity of the minstrels, and the privileges which they enjoyed at that time. The King was seated at table in Westminster Hall, solemnizing the feast of Pentecost, and attended by the peers of the realm, when a woman dressed in the habit of a min- strel, riding on a great horse trapped in the minstrel fashion, entered the hall, and, after acting the part of a minstrel for some time, mounted the steps to the royal table, where she deposited a letter (which, on inspection, proved to be a remonstrance to the King on the favours heaped by him on his minions), and then, saluting all the company, she departed. The door keepers being summoned and threatened for having admitted her, readily replied, " That it never was the custom of the King's palace to deny admission to minstrels, especially on such high solemnities and feast days," and which appears to have been deemed a valid excuse for the occurrence. Proceeding, however, from the history of minstrelsy in general to its more immediate connection with our own town, we find that in the same reign the famous Earl of Lancaster and Leicester — a prince of the blood, who, after his decapitation, was canonized by the people as " St. Thomas of Lancaster, and who kept up his household in almost regal state — was a great patron of minstrels. This we learn from the account of his cofferer, Henry of Leicester, for the year ending at Michaelmas, 1314, as quoted by Stow, in his " Survey." ' Among the entries of knights and others of the household for whom " cloths " for " the ' Edited by Thoma (8vo. 1842), p. 32. Minstrels at Leicester. 127 Earl's liveries " were provided, his minstrels are in- cluded, and numerous gifts were presented to knights of France, esquires, minstrels, and others. On the 4th of August, 1318, the King (as Henry of Knighton informs us) visited his powerful and rebellious cousin at hi» Castle of Leicester, on occa- sion of the temporary reconciliation which had been effected between them by the Papal Legates, who had been specially sent from Rome for the purpose ; when the Earl, at the head of 18,000 men, met the King and Queen on their way and escorted them into Leicester. Thomas of Lancaster, forgetting for a time his restless ambition and causes of offence, played the courteous host, and for several days held high festi- val in honour of his royal guests. The apparently happy, but short-lived family re- union, which this visit was intended to cement, doubt- less formed a prominent theme in many of the lays chanted to their harps by the attendant minstrels in the castle hall (still standing), " Where throngs of knights and barons bold In weeds of peace high triumphs hold, With store of ladies, whose bright eyes Bain influence, and judge the prize." Our next Earl, Henry of Lancaster, also had a company of minstrels in his household at Leicester, where he was frequently visited by Edward III., and in the ninth year of whose reign, Queen Philippa coming to the town on her way to the King in Scot- land, the officers of her household were presented with money by the Mayor and corporation, according to custom, when among other entries are recorded 128 John of Gaunfs Minstrels. " Gifts to the minstrels and trumpeters of the King and Earl of Lancaster," &c. The roll of the 18th Edward III. records that " Hugh the trumpeter " was admitted as a freeman of the borough into the Merchants' Guild, and paid a florin of gold as his fine, but the whole of which was finally remitted at the instance of the Earl of Derby, son and subsequently the successor of Henry of Lancaster. But of all our Earls the greatest patron of the minstrel's art was undoubtedly John of Gaunt, the friend, and kinsman by marriage, of the poet Chaucer, who was himself, evidently, a lover of music, from the delight he has in describing so many of the pil- grims and other personages in his tales as proficients in the science. All our Earls had resided, more or less frequently, at their Castle of Leicester, but both John of Gaunt and his father-in-law, Henry, " the Good Duke " of Lancaster (who died and was buried within its pre- cincts), had made it their favourite abode, and kept up in it their company of minstrels, as had been done as early as 1308 by Earl Thomas.* After the death, however, of John of Gaunt's first wife, the Lady Blanche, and his marriage to the Princess Constance (in whose right he assumed the title of King of Castile and Leon), giving that lady the choice of all his castles as her future residence, she selected Tutbury (which the Duke had recently restored), and thus, for a time, that castle became their chief establishment, to the neglect of Leicester, and there the newly-wedded pair held a splendid and ' Landsdown MSS., No. 1. Court of Minstrels. J29 truly regal court. Sir Oswald Mosley, In his " His- tory of the Castle, Priory and Town of Tutbury,"^ after describing the attention and respect paid to minstrels in those days, says — " Many such bards had from time to time found a welcome asylum under the hospitable roof of the Earls and Dukes of Lancaster ; but now that a royal court had been established at Tutbury, under the directions of the Queen, who was passionately fond of the science, and had improved the prevailing taste by the introduction of singers from her own nation, their number became so great, as to render necessary some regulations for the pur- pose of preserving order amongst them." With this intent John of Gaunt, in the 4th Rich- ard II. (1381), founded, by charter, his famous Court of Minstrels, presided over by an officer termed the " King of the Minstrels," who was to be elected an- nually from among them ; and which, like a court- leet, or court -baron, had a legal jurisdiction, with full power to receive suit and service from all the min- strels and musicians dwelling within the Honour of Tutbury, in any of the counties of Stafford, Derby, Nottingham, Leicester, or Warwick ; to determine their controversies and enact laws ; also to apprehend and arrest such of them as should refuse to appear at the said court, annually held on the 16th of August. The king and stewards of the court were every year elected with great ceremony. The Honour of Leicester being one of the foremost in the kingdom, and quite independent of that of Tutbury, it seems very doubtful whether the min- strels dwelling here, and at other places within Its ' Page 76. V 130 Town Waits. limits, were subject to the control of the court at Tutbury. Be this, however, as it might, we find that John of Gaunt and his Duchess were residing at Leicester in August, 1390, when they royally enter- tained Kichard 11. and his Queen for several days, with costly banquets, minstrelsy, and hunting in the forest ; and from this time the castle appears once more to have become their principal residence, for the Duchess was residing here at the time of her decease in 1393. With Henry IV. 's accession to the crown the Cas- tle of Leicester (whilst it became a royal castle, as it is at the present day), of course, ceased to be the residence of the head of the house of Lancaster ; and although royal visits were occasionally paid to it, and Parliaments held in it, its former glory had departed, its troops of retainers were broken up, and the strains of minstrels were no more heard daily, as of yore, in its deserted halls. An interesting " Account of Leicester Castle," from the pen of our local historian, Mr. James Thompson, was published in the year 1859, from which work, by that gentleman's kind permission, the accompanying plate of the interior of the Hall of the Castle istaken. "Abuilding, which," asMr. Thompson truly remarks, " is a monument of national interest, being probably the oldest and the only pure example existing in England of the Hall of a Norman Baron, and for these reasons second in antiquarian value only to Westminster Hall." This once noble Hall, rich in its associations of royal festivities and assemblies of the Parliaments of the realm, is now divided and converted into Assize Courts. The Castle is still held for the Crown by a Constable appointed by Minstrels and Waits at Leicester. 131 patent under the Duchy Seal, Lord Berners being the present Constable. Many corporate towns possessed their bands of minstrels or " waits " at an early period, and patron- ised as music had been by one powerful lord of the castle after another for several generations, we may feel assured that the town of Leicester was not one of the last to adopt the custom, although we have no record of the period when these musical retainers were first appointed by our civic authorities. It is clear, as has been pointed out by Mr. James Thompson, in his "History of Leicester,'" that the town waits, like the tailors, butchers, shoemakers, and other tradesmen, were united in a company, and were governed by their own rules. We have seen that as early as 1314, " Hugh the Trumpeter," a retainer of the Earl of Lancaster, was made free of the Merchants' Guild, and a few other examples of the practice will be found among the extracts in the body of the work. Thus, in 1481, we have the name of Henry Howman in the list, who is described as a harper, and Mr. Chappell, in his "Popular Music of the Olden Time,"* informs us that at this time every great family had its establish- ment of musicians, among whom the harper held a prominent position;* and that some who were less » Page 264. * Page 44. ' We are told in an " antique song," that — " Old King Cole was a merry old soul, And a merry old soul was he ; He call'd for his pipe, and he cali'd for his bowl. And he call'd /or his harpers three. Ev'ry harper had a fine harp, And a very fine harp had he." 132 Popularity of Music. wealthy retained a harper only. He adds, that a gown seems to have been the distinguishing feature of a harper's dress. In 1499 Thomas Wylkyns, " Wayte," was admitted into the guild ; and under the year 1612 the name of Thomas Pollard, musician, appears (who was subsequently the leader of the town waits); whilst in the list for 1579 is an entry strikingly illus- trative of the popularity and general practice of music at the period, and which shows that our town possessed, whilst its population was little more than that of a good sized modern village, what it cannot now boast of, with its 70,000 inhabitants — a resident maker of musical instruments. The entry records the admission into the guild of Andrew Marsam, virginal maker. Queen Elizabeth, as is well known, was celebrated for her performance on the virginals, which, says Mr. Chappell,^ resembled in shape the "square " pianoforte of the present day (of which it was the precursor), as the harpsichord did the "grand," and was probably so called because chiefly played upon by young girls. In the Shakespearian age the virginals stood in the corner of every barber's shop, whilst the lute, the cittern, and the gittern (or guitar), hung from the walls for the use and amusement of customers. Shakespeare speaks of " virginaling upon his palm ;"^ and Ben Jonson says, " I can compare him to nothing more happily than a barber's virginals, for every man may play upon him ; "^ whilst many other allusions to the instrument are to be met with in the works of contemporary writers; and even after the Restoration ' " I'opular Music of the Olden Time," p. 103. * " Winter's Tale," act i., sc. 2. ' " Every Man in his Humour," act iii., sc. 2. The Town Waits. 133 Pepys' account of the Great Fire of London, of which he was an eye-witness, mentions the great number of virginals then in use, showing that the Puritans had not been able to put down the practice of music to any great extent. As before remarked, we have no record of the time when a company of waits was first established by the corporation ; for although the Borough MSS. com- mence as early as the reign of Kichard Coeur de Lion, there is, unfortunately, a considerable hiatus in them during the Wars of the Eoses — the first of the series of Hall books containing the minutes of the proceed- ings of the corporation, only commencing with the year 1478, from which time they are complete down to the present day. The first mention we find of the town waits as a body is in the Chamberlains' account for the year 1524, when "liveries" were provided for them at a cost of 16s., from which time entries respecting them are of almost annual recurrence down to the time of the siege of Leicester in 1645, when they disappear until after the Restoration. Originally, and for a considerable period, their number was limited to three; by 1668, however, they had increased to five ; and a sixth was afterwards added, of which number the company continued to consist down to its final extinction in the year 1836. After a time, however, each of the three waits had a " boy " under him — possibly as an apprentice to the art of music. The waits were each provided, some- times annually, at other times biennially, with a scar- let gown or cloak edged with silver lace, for which, at a later period, gold lace was substituted ; and they wore, suspended round their necks by a chain of the 134 The Town Waits. same metal, a silver escutcheon or badge of the arms of the borough — the cinquefoil. These badges were delivered to the waits on their appointment, each of whom had to provide two sureties for the safe keeping of the badge and its return to the Mayor, in case of the death or dismissal from office of the wearer ; and in addition, it appears from the account for 1577, that the cinquefoil was also embroidered on the sleeves of their gowns or coats. The waits' boys, according to an order of Common Hall in 1583, were also pro- vided with gowns, and " scutcheons or cinquefoils," of some material not mentioned, were ordered to be made for them, to be worn with green* ribbons or laces about their necks. The first mention we have met with of these silver badges is in the account for 1541, when Thomas Goldsmith was paid 3s. 4d "for mending of the town waits' collars," showing that they had then been for some time in use. The chief duties of the waits, in addition to their nocturnal services, were to play in the town every morning and evening throughout the year for the gratification of the inhabitants, and to attend upon the Mayor on all state occasions, as proclaiming the May-day and other fairs, &c. ; and at the Mayor's feast they occupied "the minstrels' gallery," — which (according to ancient precedent '*) is still to be seen at the lower end of. the Guildhall opposite the dais — ' Scarlet and green were the town colours : the livery for- merly worn by the town servants was a scarlet coat, or tunic, lined with green, the field of the arms of the borough being gules. Since 1836 a brown livery has been adopted, which is not in accordance with heraldic usage. ^ See " Domestic Architecture in the Middle Ages," four- teenth century, p. 43. The Town Waits. 135 and there, according to the custom of the time, they struck up merrily as the attendants carried the dishes into the hall. In the old poem of " Kichard Coeur de Lion " we are told, that " Fro kechene cam the fyrst cours With pipes, and trumpes, and tabours;" and, again, we are told in the Cotton MS., " Caligula," A. ii., fo. 9 b., that the " Waytes blewe up to mete." Ned Ward, In his "London Spy" (of which the third edition, here quoted, was published in 1706), gives an amusing account of the city waits, which might also serve in some respects as a description of our own. After speaking in very disparaging terms of their musical performance in the streets on winter nights, at which, he tells us, his friend laughed at him: "Why, what," says he, "don't you love music? these are the topping tooters of the town; and have gowns, silver chains, and salaries for playing 'Lilla Bullera' to my Lord Mayor's horse through the city." "Marry, said I, if his horse liked their music no better than I do, he would soon fling his rider for hiring such bugbears to affront his ambleship. For my part, when you told me they were toaifa, I thought they had been the Polanders; and was never so afraid, but that their bears had been dancing behind them."i For a considerable time the town waits, although they received an occasional gratuity, had no regular wages paid to them by the corporation, but seem to have been chiefly dependent on the voluntary contri- ' Page .36. 136 The Town Waits. butions of the inhabitants, and the remuneration for their attendance at weddings. Their receipts from these sources probably being found to be very irregu- lar and inadequate, an order was made at a Common Hall in 1581, which after restricting the rewards to be given to players and others (as already quoted), provided that every "inhabiter" or housekeeper in Leicester, being of reasonable ability, should be taxed, at the discretion of Mr. Mayor, what they should give quarterly to the waits towards the amendment of their living; and in consideration whereof the waits were to "keep the town," and to play every night and morning orderly, both winter and summer, and not to go forth of the town to play, except to fairs and weddings, and then only by the licence of the Mayor; also that no " estraungers," viz., "waits, minstrels, or other musicians," should be suffered to play within the town, neither at weddings, nor fair times, nor any other times whatsoever. On the 22nd of February in the following year, it was further agreed at a Common Hall that the mem- bers of the corporation should personally contribute towards the waits' wages; the company of the Twenty- four paying \2d. a quarter, and the Forty-eight Gd. a quarter ; whilst the inhabitants generally were to be taxed quarterly, at the discretion of the Mayor, as before provided. In those days even the elementary principles of free trade were not understood — most certainly free trade in music was not allowed, but, on the contrary, " protection to native industry " was enforced in its most restricted sense ; for this order of the Common Hall went on to affirm that no strangers, being musi- cians or waits, or other persons whatsoever, being Tlie Town Waits. 137 either musicians or players, although they do or shall dwell within the town of Leicester, and be not of the com- pany of the town waits, shall be suffered to play within the town, at any time in the year, " at or in a man's house, door, window, or at any weddings or bride- houses, the time of the general assizes only excepted, and then to play but only to strangers; provided always that the town waits shall keep the town, and both evening and morning continually and orderly at reasonable and seasonable times." In the summer of 1583, from some cause, the waits had been dismissed from their oflBce, and on the 19th of that month it was agreed by those present at a meeting of the corporation, that the musicians, Mr. Griffin's servants, should be admitted and appointed the town waits, with such wages or salaries as their predecessors had had. At the same time, the three collars were ordered to be delivered to them, each of them finding two townsmen as pledges for their col- lars, and whose names are appended to the foot of the record — Greorge Kidgley being the leader of the waits, and Thomas Poynor the second, the third wait not being then appointed. Ridgley and Poynor continued in office as town waits for nearly twenty years, but however proficient they might be in the art of music, they were not always in harmony with each other, for a serious quarrel occurred between them in 1601, which ^timately led to their dismissal. On the 21st of November in that year, during a sitting of the cor- poration, Poynor sent in to the Mayor a letter, or memorial, proposing terms for an agreement between himself and his colleague Kidgley. The writing and orthography of this document 138 The Town Waits. (which is now before me) are so bad that it is almost impossible to decipher it. Poynor, however, lets their worships understand that he is willing to fulfil all their minds, and to put up with all the injuries he had received from Ridgley, and this one also, hoping it will be the last. He then proposes terms to Ridgley " in this sort according to his one part," that his (Ridgley's) son shall play the base, and his father (Ridgley himself) his old part, the treble . . . . " and the first boy to play one quarter his [part], and the next mine as long." He then proposes that whichever should thereafter be absent from his duty without reasonable cause, having had suflficient notice, should lose his place. He concludes by entreating "those that are here in presence to be witness at this agreement," hoping it will content them. On the following day, Sunday, the 22nd of November, we have a memorandum under the hand of "WUliam Eowes, Mayor," stating that "if George Ridgeley subscribe likewise to this agreement, then I will that they continue their places as our waits, and that this agreement be entered as an order of the last Com- mon Hall; if not, that they presently yield their collars to my deputy." Kidgley did sign the agree- ment penned by Poynor, but it was not of long continuance, for we have the following entry in the Hall book on St. Matthew's day, 1602, « The waits, because they cannot agree together, are therefore now dismissed from being the town waits from hence- forth." It seems probable that the second member of the company wanted "to play the first fiddle," for Poynor was entirely discarded by the corporation, by whom, on the following 28th of January, it was agreed The Town Waits. 139 " that George Eidgley and his company (being five in the whole) be from henceforth, upon his good beha- viour, admitted the town waits, having a lawful and sufficient company, skilful in the knowledge and art of music, and shall have for their wages quarterly of the Twenty-four Qd. a piece, and of the Forty-eight 3rf. a piece, and of the other inhabitants and com- moners what they in kindness and goodwill give him and his said company." In 1627, Thomas Pollard, who was made free of the Guild in 1612, appears to have been the leader of the town waits, and the name of " Robert B.owe, musician," appears as occupying the same position in 1670. In the following year these sons of harmony, being again at discord among themselves, were once more dismissed from their office, and the waits of Northampton were remunerated "for playing on Easter Monday and at May-day fair," in their stead. A company of waits was soon afterwards re-ap- pointed, and received collectively a salary of £5 per annum and their cloaks and liveries, which in 1524 cost only 16s. in 1677 cost £\0 17s. %d. The corporation continued to retain a company of waits in their service down to the passing of the "Municipal Corporations' Eeform Act" in 1835, the six musicians of whom it was composed receiving an annual salary of £5 each per annum, together with their scarlet cloaks, trimmed with gold lace, as of yore. On the new corporation coming into office in 1836, however, all this was changed, for the town council having resolved that " the true dignity of the mayoralty does not consist in antiquated pageantry," proceeded to abolish all such offices which, like those of the mace-bearers, town waits and others, were in 140 Motions, or Puppet-plays. their estimation of this character. At the same time, whilst sweeping away all the ancient pageantry and symbols of authority connected with their body, the town council proceeded to sell by public auction, not only the town plate and other property of similar character, which, under the old regime, had been used for feasting at the public expense, but also the five maces and other ancient rellques — a manifestation of zeal in the cause of reform which, however excusable It may have been In the heat of the moment and under the peculiar circumstances of the time, is greatly to be regretted. Among other things, the three silver badges of the waits were sold (for it appears that although there were six waits, this number of silver badges had never been exceeded), and, as a catalogue of the sale is now rarely to be met with, it may be worth recording that the musical instruments for the use of the waits con- sisted of two horns, two clarionets, four plccoloes and a bassoon. One of the silver badges, with its chain, is now In the Collection of Antiquities in the Town Museum. Passing on to another subject, we find in the ac- count for 1619 an entry of a payment "to players who showed Etalion Motion" and in 1625 a gra- tuity was given " to a man and a woman that were at Couldwell's playing with puppets." The species of drama here referred to — which was usually termed a droll, a motion, or a puppet-play, and which consisted of a company of wooden actors moved by wires, with the assistance of speeches made for them behind the scenes — was, we believe, the origin of our modern " Punch.'" Puppet-shows are of great antiquity, and ' The earliest notice yet discovered of the popularity of that Motions, or Puppet-plays. 141 we leam that they were common amongst the Greeks, from whom the Komans received them. They are mentioned by Xenophon, Galen, Aristotle (who speaks of some which moved their heads, eyes, hands, and limbs in a very natural manner), Gellius, Horace, and others. It is not known at what period they were first performed in England, but it was prior to 1517 ; and we are informed that in the times of the Papacy the priests at Witney, in Oxfordshire, annually exhibited a show of the Kesurrection, &c., by garnishing out certain small puppets representing the persons of Christ, Mary, and others ; and Lambarde, writing to- wards the close of the sixteenth century, relates that when a child, he saw a like puppet-show in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, where the descent of the Holy Ghost was performed ; and he adds that " they every- where used the like dumb-shows to furnish sundry parts of the Church Service with spectacles of the nativity, passion, and ascension." Cervantes has made Don Quixote the spectator of a puppet-show, and the knight's behaviour on the occasion is described with great humour. It appears that in London during the Civil War, whilst the Puritans closed the theatres, they did not discountenance puppet-plays, for in " The Actors' Remonstrance," which came out in 1643, complaint is made of the allowance of bear-baiting and puppet- shows, while regular dramatic performances were for- bidden. The Puritan party in^ the country did not, however, at an earlier period, display the same spirit towards these performances, for at the Michaelmas hero and his wife in England is in a MS. Diary of the year 1660. See Dr. Rimbault's "Little Book of Songs and Bal- lads," p. 162, note. 142 Powell the Puppet-showman. Sessions at Bridport in 1630 a charge was made " that William Sands the elder, John Sands, and William Sands the younger, and about nine others, wander up and down the country with certain blasphemous shows and sights, which they exercise by way of puppet- playing ; and are now, as the constables of Beamin- ster and other inhabitants state, come to that town, and have set up their shows of puppet-playing and feats not only in the day-time, but late in the night, to the great disturbance of the townsmen there." The Puritan preacher of Beaminster having assailed Sands and his show in the Sunday's sermon, was pursued from the church to his house by Sands and two of his company, who entered after him, and " there challenged him for his sermon, and gave him threatening speeches." The people generally seem to have favoured the showmen, but the magistrates ordered Sands to remove on the following Monday, and to depart out of the county, under penalty of being committed to the next assizes.^ These performances were at length superseded by the revival of pantomimes, which were first performed by grotesque characters in England at Drury Lane Theatre in 1702. The puppets, however, continued to be in great vogue for some years longer; for in March, 1711, we find in the " Spectator" a letter ostensibly written by the Under-sexton of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, setting forth that for twenty years he had performed his office of tolling in to prayers to his great satisfaction until the last fortnight, during which he had found his congregation take the warning of his bell, morning and evening, to go to a 1 See proceedings quoted in Koberts's " Social Life of the Southern Counties," p. 42. Puppet-shows. 143 puppet-show, set forth by one Powell under the Piazzas ; that he had placed his son at the Piazzas to acquaint the ladies that the bell rang for church, and that it stood on the other side of the garden, but they only laughed at the child ; and that, as things were, Mr. Powell had a full congregation, whilst they had a very thin house — merely a few ordinary people, who came to church only to say their prayers. This Powell was a very noted man in his way. A curious work, now before me, printed in 1715, and entitled " A Second Tale of a Tub, or the History of Robert Powel, the Puppet-Show-Man " (but which was really written as a satire against Sir Robert Walpole and his political puppets), has a frontispiece represent- ing the puppet-stage with the showman in front of it, the head of Sir Robert Walpole being placed on the humpbacked figure of Powel. Nor was Sir Robert the only one who was made to suffer this semi-trans- formation, for his royal master, William III., under- went the same process, although in a complimentary instead of a satirical manner. Tonson, the bookseller, in bringing out the folio illustrated edition of Dryden's " Virgil," intending to compliment " the Deliverer," represented ^neas with the head of William of Nassau, which politic ma- noeuvre of Tonson's gave rise to the following epigram : — " Old Jacob, by deep judgment sway'd, To please the wise beholders, Has placed old Nassau's hook-nosed head On young Eneas' shoulders. To make the parallel hold tack, Methinks there's little lacking ; One took his father pick-a-back, And t'other sent his packing." 144 Tumblers. To return, however, to Powell. In the dedication to the "Lady Majority," the writer exclaims, "What man, woman, or child, that lives within the verge of Covent Garden, or what Beau or Belle visitant at the Bath, knows not Mr. Powel? Have not England, Scotland, France, and Ireland; have not even the Orcades, the utmost limits of Csesar's conquests, been filled with the fame of Mr. Powel's mechanical achievements ? The Dutch, the most expert nation in the world for puppet shows, must now confess themselves shamefully outdone. It would be trifling after this to recount to you, how Mr. Powel has melted a whole audience into pity and tears . . . but I shall no longer harangue to prove that the sun shines." Again, he describes his hero as "the great, the illustrious, and the celebrated Mr. Powel, the puppet-showman, who has worthily acquired the re- putation of one of the most dexterous managers of human mechanism, no English artist ever coming in vie with him — his wires are perfectly invisible, his puppets are well jointed, and very apt to follow the. motions of his directing hand." It will readily be seen how applicable these qualities of the ostensible hero of the tale were to the great " motion master " of the political stage, who held, from his own exten- sive experience, that "every man has his price." The last eminent " motion master " was Plocton, whose wooden puppets were very popular at Bartholomew fair as late as 1790. It may be added, that much curious and interesting information on the subject will be found in "A Paper on Puppets," by Dr. Doran, in the " Gentleman's Magazine" for February, 1852, and also in the " Histoire des Marionettes," by M. Charles Magnin, in successive numbers of the Tumblers. 145 " Eevue des Deux Mondes," for 1850. Mr. Morley's entertaining " Memoirs of Bartholomew Fair " may also be consulted. From a very early period tumiling formed one of the most common pastimes of the English people. Strutt* says that "dancing, tumbling, and balancing, with variety of other exercises requiring skill and agility, were originally included in the performances exhibited by the gleemen and the minstrels ; and they remained attached to the profession of the joculator after he was separated from those who only retained the first branches of the minstrel's art, that is to say, poetry and music." And Mr. Wright, in his " His- tory of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in Eng- land,'"' states that, in the middle ages, "the dinner was always accompanied by music, and itinerant minstrels, mountebanks, and performers of all descrip- tions were allowed free access to the hall to amuse the guests by their performances. These were inter- mixed with dancing and tumbling, and often with exhibitions of a very gross character, which, however, amid the looseness of mediseval manners, appear to have excited no disgust." Nor were the feats of tumbling performed by the male sex only, for females also practised them, and both Strutt and Wright have given two illustrations copied from ancient MSS. representing Herodias dis- playing her feats of activity before Herod at the feast . given by him ; and which the mediaeval writers took to be those of a regular wandering jongleur. The princess is pictured supporting herself upon her hands with her legs in the air, and, as Mr. Wright, says. * » Sports and Pastimes," by Hone, p. 206. ^ Page 166. 146 The Dancing Horse, Sfc, "^performing tricks similar to those exhibited by the modern beggar boys in our streets."' In the reign of Queen Elizabeth we read of the " unchaste, shame- less, and unnatural tumbling of the Italian women," '^ from which it would appear that the practice had then fallen into disuse among us, although we find that it had not done so in the reign of Henry VII., for in the Privy Purse Expenses of that monarch is an entry on the 1st of January, 1504, of a payment of £l "to litell Mayden the tumbler." Another favourite amusement was the perform- ance of dancing bears, horses, monkeys, and other animals, many illustrations of which are given by Strutt. The earliest entry which we find in our local records in connection with these amusements is in 1548, when there was "paid to my lord marquis' servant with the dancing horse, 3s. 4rf.;" the nobleman referred to being the Marquis of Dorset, afterwards Duke of Suffolk, the father of the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey, and to whom, at the period, the corpora- tion of Leicester looked up as their patron, and to whose players and bearward presents were frequently given. In Shakespeare's time there were several celebrated learned quadrupeds, as " Holden's camel," which, says Taylor, the Water Poet, was distinguished for "ingenious study;" a superlatively wise elephant noticed by Donne and Ben Jonson ; but, above all, the "dancing horse" — "Bankes' horse" — which has been celebrated by several contemporary writers. Shakespeare refers to it in " Love's Labour's Lost,"' when he makes Moth say, " The dancing horse will ' "Domestic Manners," p. 167. ^ See " Archaeologia," for 1855. ^ Act i., sc. 2. Tumblers, §"c. 147 tell you." The fate of poor Bankes and his horse Morocco was a sad one, for, on visiting the Continent, the horse and his master were brought under sus- picion of magic, at Orleans, and although Bankes ex- plained the manner in which the tricks were performed, and undertook to teach any horse the same tricks in a twelve-month, he and his horse were eventually burned at Kome as magicians, to the lasting disgrace of that age of ignorance and intolerance.' We have a similar exhibition referred to in a ballad on " The New Humours of Bartholmew Fair," written before 1687, which thus commences — " Here are the rarities of the whole Pair, Pimper-le-Pimp, and the wise Dancing Mare ; Here's valiant St. George and the Dragon, a farce." '^ The earliest notice we have of the visits of com- panies of tumblers to the town is in 1590, when the then large sum of 28s. 4d., in addition to what was gathered, was " given to certain players, playing upon ropes at the Cross Keys." At this period not only had the nobility their com- panies of players and musicians, or minstrels, but, owing to the great popularity of such displays of skill, many of them also retained a company of tumblers. Henry VII. was frequently entertained with these performances, many entries of rewards to tumblers occurring in his Privy Purse Expenses,^ and it would * Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare" (pp. 131-2), con- tains several curious and interesting particulars respecting Bankes and his wonderful horse; as does also Collier's " Poetical Decameron" (vol. i., pp. 160-167), where it is stated, on the authority of " l?eers Jests," that the horse could even play upon the lute. " Dr. Rimbault's " Little Book of Songs and Ballads," p. 162. ^ Printed in the " Excerpta Historica." 148 Feats of Activity. seem that Queen Elizabeth inherited the tastes of her grandfather for this kind of diversion, for we learn from the Revels Account that " feats of activity and other shews" were performed before the Queen in 1587-8, and in 1588-9 " feats of activity, tumbling, and matachines,"^ in which " Symmons the tumber exhibited ; " and it appears that " Symons and his fellows" had also performed before her Majesty in 1584.* These were probably the same individuals who, under the designation of " the Queen's Tumblers," visited the provinces, and in 1589 received a gratuity of Gs. Qd. from the Corporation of Lyme/ Nor was similar patronage wanting on the part of James I., for we find that in 1622 there came to Leicester " Vincent and his Company .... having authority from the King to show feats of activity ;" Vincent probably holding the same office under James as Symmons had done under his predecessor. In this instance the Corporation did not act to- wards the tumblers with the same liberality as on the former occasion, for a gratuity of \0s. only was paid to them, the royal " authority" which they held not- withstanding. Reference has been made incidentally to the Dutch, as " the most expert nation in the world for puppet-shows," but if we borrowed any- thing from them in that respect, we appear to have lent them the services of a veiy expert tumbler or posture-master, for we learn from the Minutes of the ' A dance of fools; see Douce's "Illustrations to Shake- speare," ed. 1839, p. 578. * Collier's " Annals of the Stage,'' vol. i., p. 257. ' As quoted from the town archives in Roberts's " Social History of the Southern Counties," p. 37. Feats of Activity. 149 Council of Leyden, that in November 1608 the authorities of that city allowed "William Pedel, an Englishman, on his petition, "to exhibit various beautiful and chaste performances with his body, without using any words," within the church of Bag- ynhoff within the city, "provided he cease during the preaching of God's word, and that the poor orphans here have half the profits."^ As a set off, however, against this exportation, we have an importation recorded of a famous Dutch woman, about the year 1689, of whom Grainger says that, " when she first danced and vaulted upon the rope in London, the spectators beheld her with pleasure mixed with pain, as she seemed every moment in danger of breaking her neck." A bill of her per- formance at Bartholomew Fair, quoted by Dr. Bim- bault,* mentions her " side- capers, upright-capers, cross-capers, and back-capers on the tight rope. She walks too on the slack rope, which no woman but herself can do." And Ned Ward praises her per- formance and her modesty, at the same Fair, in his "London Spy."* After the Restoration, rope-dancing and tumbling were very favourite amusements among all classes of the people. One of the most celebrated of the rope dancers and managers of tumbling companies about this time was Jacob Hall, of whom an account is given in Grainger's " Biographical History." In the account for the year 1670 we meet with the first notice of that class of vagrant stage-performers. ' See "Notes and Queries," vol vii. (1853), p. 114. = Ibid. vol. viii. (1859), p. 161. 2 Edit. 1706, p. 243. 150 Mountebanks . the Mountebanks, or itinerant dealers in nostrums and physic, " whose show," says Strutt,* " is usually enlivened with mimicry, music, and tumbling "... who has " called to his assistance some of the per- formances practised by the jugglers {jongleurs) ; and the bourdour, or merry-andrew, seems to have been his inseparable companion." Mr. Wright tells us,'' that, in the middle ages, the minstrels or jongleurs, who formed a very important class of society, " possessed many methods of enter- taining, for they joined the profession of mountebank, posture-master, and conjurer with that of music and story-telling," and that, consequently, " they were always welcome." In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, how- ever, the mountebank does not appear to have been looked upon with so favourable an eye, for we find Shakespeare several times referring to these " wan- dering empirics" in very disparaging terms. Thus, in the " Comedy of Errors : "^ " They say this town is full of cosenage ; As nimble jugglers that deceive the eye, Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind, Soul-killing witches that deform the body. Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks, And such like libertines of sin." And again, in the same play,* " They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-faced villain, A mere anatomy, a mountebank, A thread-bare juggler, and a fortune-teller." The character is also referred to in " Coriolanus," " Othello," and " Hamlet." ' " Sports and Pastimes," p. 236. ^ "Domestic Manners," p. 165. ' Act i., so. 2. * Act v., sc. 1. Mountebanks. 151 The entry in the account is as follows — " Paid to y" Cryer and Beadle for looke- ing to y* Conduits, when y* Moun- tybancks were in Town ij'" And again, in 1673, the sum of 2s. 6