THEATRES
The latter half of the sixteenth century presents a remarkable
development of the Drama and of the Theatres in London. This
development was like the rising tide: it advanced with a force that was
irresistible. The Mayor and Aldermen did their best to drive out plays
and players from their boundaries; they went, but they established
themselves beyond the limits of the City jurisdiction. Preachers
denounced the theatre; moralists wrote pamphlets against it; yet it
flourished more and more. John Stockwood, preaching at Paul’s Cross,
says:—
“Have we not houses of purpose, built with great charges for the
maintenance of them, and that without the liberties, as who shall
say, ‘There, let them say what they will, we will play.’ I know not
how I might, with the godly-learned especially, more discommend the
gorgeous playing place erected in the Fields, than term it, as they
please to have it called, a Theatre.” In the same sermon he asks:
“Wyll not a fylthye playe wyth the blast of a trumpette sooner call
thyther a thousande than an houres tolling of a bell bring to the
sermon a hundred? Nay, even heere in the Citie, without it be at this
place and some other certaine ordinarie audience, where shall you
find a reasonable company? Whereas if you resorte to the Theatre, the
Curtayne, and other places of players in the Citie, you shall on the
Lord’s Day have these places, with many other that I cannot reckon, so
full as possible they can throng.”
[Illustration: THE BEAR GARDEN AND THE GLOBE THEATRE
From Visscher’s _Panorama of London_.]
The Londoners might change their religion, but they were not going to
change their sports. They were Protestant instead of Catholic; but they
kept up their bear-baiting, their bull-baiting, their archery, their
wrestlings, their fencing, their quarter-staff play, their running
at the quintain, their feats of tumbling, their Morris dances and
mummings, their plays and interludes. But the Reformation killed the
Miracle Play. The play of modern manners, or the tragedy, or the farce,
took the place of the religious play. And instead of acting on a stage
in a churchyard, the players now began to act in the broad and ample
courtyard of the inn, whose galleries afforded room for people to look
on. The authorities looked on the play from the beginning with eyes of
disfavour: the actor was considered a masterless man; he had no trade;
he was a strolling vagabond; he lived upon the largesse of those who
looked on at his performance; he was a buffoon who would assume any
character at will to make the people laugh and cry; he must be able to
dance and posture like the tumblers on the road. Again, all the idle
people in the City assembled to see the play; all the vicious people
crowded to take advantage of the throng; in the theatre every day arose
disorders and brawls; young men of sober parentage were seduced into
becoming players. Witness the words of Prynne:—
“Our own experience can sufficiently inform us, that plays and
playhouses are the frequent causes of many murders, duels,
quarrels, debates; occasioned sometimes by reason of some
difference about a box, a seat, a place, upon the stage; sometimes
by intruding too boldly into some female’s company; sometimes by
reason of some amorous, scurrilous, or disgraceful words, that are
uttered of or to some female spectators; sometimes by reason of
some speeches or passages of the play, particularly applied to some
persons present or absent; sometimes by reason of some husband, or
co-rival’s jealousy, or affront, whose wife, or mistress, being
there in person, is perhaps solicited, abused, or jeared at in his
presence; sometimes by reason of the apprentices who resort to
playhouses, especially on Shrove Tuesday; sometimes by means of
other accidents and occasions. Many have been the murders, more
the quarrels, the duels, that have grown from our stage-plays,
whose large encomiums of rash valour, duels, fortitude,
generosity, impatientcy, homicides, tyranny, and revenge, do so
exasperate men’s raging passions, and make them so impatient of
the very smallest injury, that nothing can satisfy, can expiate,
but the offender’s blood. Hence it is that some players, some
play-haunters, now living, not satisfied with the murder of one,
have embrued their barbarous un-christian hands in the blood of
two, of three, if not of four several men. And so far are they
from ruing the odiousness of these their bloody deeds, that they
glory in the number of their murders as the very trophies of their
valour.”
The Queen at the beginning of her reign issued a proclamation to
prevent players performing without license, and from handling politics
or religion. In 1572 the Mayor forbade the acting of plays in London
on the ground of the Plague and the danger of infection. Harrison says:—
“Plaies are banished for a time out of London, lest the resort unto
them should ingender a plague, or rather disperse it, being already
begonne. Would to God these comon plaies were exiled altogether,
as seminaries of impiety, and their theatres pulled downe, as no
better then houses of bawdrie. It is an evident token of a wicked
time when plaiers waxe so riche that they can build suche houses.
As moche I wish also to our comon beare-baitings used oin the
sabaothe daies.” (Holinshed’s _Chronicles_.)
In 1574 the first steps were taken towards the regulation of players
and plays. The preamble to the ordinances is set forth by Maitland,
with the ordinances themselves, as follows:—
“The citizens in Common-Council observing, that the antient and
innocent Recreation of Stage-Plays or Interludes, which in former Days
ingenious Tradesmen and Gentlemen’s Servants sometimes practised, to
expose Vice, or to represent the noble Actions of their Ancestors, at
certain Festival Times, or in private Houses at Weddings, and at other
Splendid Entertainments, for their own Profit, was now in process of
Time become an Occupation; and that many there were that followed it
for a livelihood; and, which was worse, that it was become the Occasion
of much Sin and Evil; great Multitudes of People, especially Youth, in
Queen _Elizabeth’s_ Reign, resorting to these Plays; and being commonly
acted on _Sundays_ and _Festivals_, the Churches were forsaken, and the
Playhouses thronged, and great Disorders and Inconvenience were found
to ensue to the City thereby, forasmuch as it occasioned Frays and evil
Practices of Incontinency; Great Inns were used for this Purpose, which
had secret Chambers and Places, as well as open Stages and Galleries;
where Maids, especially Orphans, and good Citizen’s Children, under
Age, were inveigled and allured to privy and unmeet Contracts; and
where unchaste, uncomely and unshamefaced Speeches and Doings were
published; where there was an unthrifty Waste of the Money of the Poor;
sundry robberies, by picking and cutting Purses, uttering of popular
and seditious Matter, many corruptions of Youth, and other Enormities;
besides sundry Slaughters and Maimings of the Queen’s Subjects, by
falling of Scaffolds, Frames, and Stages, and by Engines, Weapons, and
Powder, used in the Plays; and believing that, in the time of God’s
Visitation by the Plague, such Assemblies of the People in Throngs
and Presses were very dangerous for spreading the Infection; they
regulated these Plays, lest the People, upon God’s gracious withdrawing
of the Sickness, should, with sudden forgetting of the Visitation,
without Fear of God’s Wrath, and without some Respect of those good and
politick Means (as the Words of the Act ran) that were ordained for the
Preservation of the Commonwealth and People in Health and good Order,
return to the undue Use of such Enormities. Therefore, for the lawful,
honest, comely Use of Plays, Pastimes, and Recreations in good Sort
permitted by the Authority of the Common Council, it was enacted:—
‘I. That no Play should be openly played within the Liberty of the
City, wherein should be uttered any Words, Examples, or Doings of any
Unchastity, Sedition, or such-like unfit and uncomely Matter, upon
Pain of Imprisonment for the space of fourteen Days, and 5£ for every
such offence. II. That no Innkeeper, Tavernkeeper, or other Person
whatsoever, within the Liberties of the City, shall shew or play, or
cause to be shewed or played, within his House or Yard, any Play, which
shall not first be perused and allowed by the Lord Mayor and Court of
Aldermen’s Order. III. No Person shall suffer any Plays to be played
in his House or Yard, whereof he then shall have Rule, but only such
Persons, and in such Places, as, upon good Consideration, shall be
thereunto permitted and allowed by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen. IV. Nor
shall take and use any such Benefit or Advantage of such Permission,
until such person be bound to the Chamberlain of _London_, in certain
Sums, for the Keeping of good Order, and avoiding of Discords and
inconveniences. V. Neither shall use or exercise such Licence or
Permission at any Time, in which the same shall be by the Lord Mayor
and Aldermen restrained, or commanded to stay and cease, in any usual
Time of Divine Service on the _Sunday_ or Holiday, or receive any to
that Purpose in Time of Service, to the same, upon Pain to forfeit for
every Offence 5£. VI. And every Person to be licensed shall, during
the Time of such continuance of License, pay to the Use of the Poor in
Hospitals of the City, or of the Poor visited with Sickness, such Sums
and Payments, as between the Mayor and Aldermen, and the Person to be
licensed, shall be agreed upon; upon Pain that, on the Want of every
such Payment, such License shall be utterly void. VII. All sums and
Forfeitures to be incurred for any offence against this Act, and all
Forfeitures of Bonds, shall be employed to the Relief of the Poor of
the Hospitals, or of the Poor infected or diseased in the City: And the
Chamberlain, in his own Name, shall have and recover the same, to the
Purposes aforesaid, in the Court of the outer Chamber of _Guildhall_,
_London_, called _The Mayors Court_.
‘Provided, That this Act shall not extend to Plays shewed in private
Houses, Lodgings of a Nobleman, Citizen, or Gentleman, which shall have
the same then played in his Presence for the Festivity of any Marriage,
Assembly of Friends, or other like Cause, without publick or common
collection of Money of the Auditors or Beholders.’” (Maitland, vol. i.
pp. 262–263.)
Since the players could act no more in the City, there was nothing for
them but to go outside. In 1574, James Burbage and some of the Earl
of Leicester’s Company obtained the Queen’s license to act plays in
any part of England. After receiving this license Burbage proceeded
to build the first theatre, the house called simply “The Theatre.”
This theatre was built outside the jurisdiction of the City, close to
the remains of the Holywell Priory. After the Dissolution the church
of this House was pulled down with most of the buildings. Houses were
built upon its site, and the ruins themselves gradually disappeared.
At the south-west of these ruins, on a site now marked by Dean’s Mews,
Holywell Lane, Burbage built his theatre at a cost of £600, the money
being advanced by his father-in-law. The theatre was in shape either
circular or oval, probably the former. It was built for all kind of
shows and entertainments. If a large space was wanted the whole of
the area could be taken by the performers; raised galleries ran round
the house; for the performance of a play, a stage was erected in the
middle; from the nature of the case there could be no question of
any scenery. The house was built of wood and is said to have been
handsomely decorated; the central area was without a roof. There were
troubles and quarrels about the lease of the house, which was taken
down in the year 1598–99. The wood and timber of which the house was
built were removed to Bankside, where they were used for the erection
of the Globe Theatre.
The second theatre of London was that called The Curtain. It is a fact
which illustrates the popularity of Finsbury Fields as a place of
resort that there should have been a second theatre erected so close to
the first. The Curtain Theatre was built on the south side of Holywell
Lane, Shoreditch. In the house, too, feats of arms, sword-play,
quarter-staff, and other games took place.
The third theatre (if we count The Globe as a continuation of The
Theatre) was The Fortune, built near Golden Lane, Cripplegate.
The strongest charge against the theatres was the license allowed
to the clowns or jesters, who between the pieces, or between the
Acts, played “jigs” or “drolls” accompanied by songs and dances, and
impromptu jokes which were topical, and, as may be imagined, broad
and coarse. We may easily imagine that the civic authorities, the
preachers, and the pamphleteers, who were always assailing the player
and driving him from place to place, were not spared when the Clown had
the stage all to himself, with hundreds of grinning faces in front of
him, all of whom were egging him on with laughter and applause to say
or do something more outrageous still, and loved nothing so much as to
see before them acted to the life some sour Puritan who could see only
“filthie and beastlie” stuff in the noblest play by Shakespeare, or in
any sport.
Another favourite place of resort for the citizens, especially for
the more riotous sort, was Southwark, with its raised river-wall
or Bankside; its numerous inns and taverns; its low-lying fields
and its various amusements. There were amphitheatres for bear- and
bull-baiting; in the High Street itself there was a ring for the bull;
in Paris Gardens, on the east side of Blackfriars Bridge, were kept
bears and dogs for the favourite, almost the national, amusement;
there was a kind of sanctuary in Southwark: here were allowed to
reside the “Flemish Frows” still, in spite of Henry the Seventh’s
suppression; here were held May Day games; here was held every year
the pageant of St. George’s Day; and here, in the time of Henry VIII.,
were collected together idlers, vagabonds, and rogues in great numbers.
In this place, the resort of all the young bloods and the wild element
of London, the players settled down in force. The Rose, The Hope,
The Globe, The Swan, all built about the same time, show the steady
popularity of the Drama, in spite of the Puritanic attacks upon it,
which seem to have done it no manner of harm.
[Illustration: BANKSIDE, SOUTHWARK, IN 1648, WITH A VIEW OF HOLLAND’S
LEAGUER, ONE OF THE ANCIENT STEWS OR LICENSED BROTHELS SUPPRESSED
DURING THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII.]
At one end of Bankside stood the ruins of the Monastic House and
the Clink Prison; then followed a single row of houses, at the back
of which were the Bull-Baiting Ground and the Bear Garden; then the
theatres already mentioned; also the Falcon Tavern, and Paris Gardens.
All these places were built on a low-lying and marshy ground planted
thickly with trees, intersected with ponds, ditches, and running
streams—for instance, the Pudding Mill stream ran round two-thirds of
Paris Gardens. For an account of the interior of a theatre and the
presentation of a play I quote an imaginary account, in my own words:—
“The interior of the theatre was circular in shape. It contained three
galleries, one above the other: the lowest called the ‘rooms,’ for
seats in which we paid a shilling each, contained the better sorts. At
each side of the stage there were boxes, one of which contained the
music. The stage itself, a stout construction of timber, projected
far into the pit, or, as Stow called it, the ‘yarde.’ At the back was
another stage, supported on two columns, and giving the players a
gallery about ten or twelve feet high, the purpose of which we were
very soon to find out. On each side of the stage were seats for those
who paid an additional sixpence. Here were a dozen or twenty gallants,
either with pipes of tobacco, or playing cards or dice before the play
began. One of them would get up quickly with a pretence of impatience,
and push back his cloak so as to show the richness of his doublet
below. The young men, whether at the theatre, or in Paul’s Walk, or in
Chepe, seemed all intent upon showing the bravery of their attire: no
girls of our day could be more vain of their dress or more critical of
the dress worn by others. Some of them, however, I perceived among the
groundlings—that is, the people on the ‘yarde’—gazing about the house
upon the women in the galleries. Here there were many dressed very
finely, like ladies of quality, in satin gowns, lawn aprons, taffeta
petticoats, and gold threads in their hair. They seemed to rejoice in
being thus observed and gazed upon. When a young man had found a girl
to his taste, he went into the gallery, sat beside her, and treated her
to pippins, nuts, or wine.
It was already one o’clock when we arrived. As we took our seats the
music played its first sounding or flourish. There was a great hubbub
in the place: hucksters went about with baskets, crying pippins, nuts,
and ale; in the ‘rooms’ booksellers’ boys hawked about new books;
everybody was talking together; everywhere the people were smoking
tobacco, playing cards, throwing dice, cheapening books, cracking nuts,
and calling for ale. The music played a second sounding. The hubbub
continued unabated. Then it played the third and last. Suddenly the
tumult ceased. The piece was about to begin.
The stage was decorated with blue hangings of silk between the columns,
showing that the piece was to be—in part at least—a comedy. Across the
railed gallery at the back was stretched a painted canvas representing
a royal palace. When the scene was changed this canvas became the wall
of a city, and the actors would walk on the top of the wall; or a
street with houses; or a tavern with its red lattice and its red sign;
or a tented field. When night was intended, the blue hangings were
drawn up and exchanged for black.
The hawkers retired and were quiet; the house settled down to listen,
and the Prologue began. Prologue appeared dressed in a long black
velvet cloak: he assumed a diffident and most respectful manner; he
bowed to the ground.
‘In Troy there lies the scene. From Isles of Greece
The princes orgulous, their high blood chaf’d,
Have to the port of Athens sent their ships.’
In this way the mind of the audience was prepared for what was to
follow. We needed no play-bill. The palace before us could be no other
than Priam’s Palace. If there was a field with tents, it must be the
battle-field and the camp of the Greeks; if there was a wall, it must
be the wall of Troy. And though the scenery was rough, it was enough.
One wants no more than the unmistakable suggestion; the poet and the
actor find the rest. Therefore, though the intrusive gallants lay on
the stage; though Troilus was dressed in the armour of Tudor time, and
Pandarus wore just such a doublet as old Stow himself, we were actually
at Troy. The boy who played Cressida was a lovely maiden. The narrow
stage was large enough for the Council of Kings, the wooing of lovers,
and the battle-field of heroes. Women unfaithful and perjured, lovers
trustful, warriors fierce, the alarms of war, fighting and slaying,
the sweet whispers of love were drowned by the blare of trumpets; the
loss of lover forgotten in the loss of a great captain; and among
the warriors and the kings and the lovers, the creeping creatures
who live upon the weaknesses and the sins of their betters, played
their parts upon these narrow boards before a silent and enraptured
house. For three hours we were kept out of our senses. There was no
need, I say, of better scenery: a quick shifting of the canvas showed
a battle-field, and turned the stage into a vast plain covered with
armies of Greeks and Romans. Soldiers innumerable, as thick as motes in
the sun, crossed the stage fighting, shouting, challenging each other.
While they fought, the trumpets blew and the drums beat, the wounded
fell, and the fight continued over these prostrate bodies till they
were carried off by their friends. The chiefs rushed to the front,
crossed swords, and rushed off again. ‘Come both you cogging Greeks!’
said Troilus, while our cheeks flushed and our lips parted. If the
stage had been four times as broad, if the number of men in action
had been multiplied by ten, we could not have felt more vividly the
rage, the joy, the madness of the battle. When the play was finished,
the ale, the apples, and the nuts were passed round, and the noise
began again. Then the clown came in and began to sing, and the music
played—but oh, how poor it seemed after the great emotions of the play!
The old man plucked me by the sleeve and we went out, and with us most
of the better sort.” (_London_, pp. 237–239.)
In addition to the foregoing, or as confirming and supplementing that
account, I quote the following from Drake’s _Shakespeare and his
Times_:—
“The passion for the stage continued rapidly to increase, and before
the year 1590, not less than four or five theatres were in existence.
The patronage of dramatic representation made an equal progress at
Court; for though Elizabeth never, it is believed, attended a public
theatre, yet had she four companies of children who frequently
performed for her amusement, denominated the Children of St. Paul’s,
the Children of Westminster, the Children of the Chapel, and the
Children of Windsor. The public actors, too, who were sometimes,
in imitation of these appellations, called the Children of the
Revels, were, towards the close of Her Majesty’s reign especially,
in consequence of a greatly acquired superiority over their younger
brethren, often called upon to act before her at the royal theatre in
Whitehall. Exhibitions of this kind at Court were usual at Christmas,
on Twelfth Night, at Candlemas, and at Shrove-tide, throughout the
reigns of Elizabeth and James, and the plays of Shakspeare were
occasionally the entertainment of the night; thus we find _Love’s
Labour Lost_ to have been performed before our maiden Queen during
the Christmas-holydays, and _King Lear_ to have been exhibited
before King James on St. Stephen’s night. On these occasions, the
representation was generally at night, that it might not interfere
with the performances at the regular theatre, which took place early
in the afternoon; and we learn from the Council-books that the royal
remuneration, in the age of Elizabeth, for the exhibition of a single
play at Whitehall, amounted to ten pounds, of which twenty nobles, or
six pounds, thirteen shillings, and fourpence, formed the customary
fee; and three pounds, six shillings, and eightpence the free gift
or bounty. If, however, the performers were required to leave the
capital for any of the royal palaces in its neighbourhood, the fee, in
consequence of the public exhibition of the day being prevented, was
augmented to twenty pounds.
The protection of the Drama by Elizabeth and her Ministers, though it
did not exempt the public players, except in one instance, from the
penalties of statutes against vagabonds, yet it induced during the
whole of her long reign numerous instances of private patronage from
the most opulent of her nobility and gentry, who, possessing the power
of licensing their own domestics as comedians, and, consequently, of
protecting them from the operation of the Act of Vagrancy, sheltered
various companies of performers, under the denomination of their
servants, or retainers—a privilege which was taken away, by Act of
Parliament, on the accession of James, and, as Mr. Chalmers observes,
‘put an end for ever to the scenic system of prior times.’”
There were no fewer than fourteen companies of players, under private
patronage, who contributed to exhilarate the people of London and the
country. Of these, Drake furnishes a chronological enumeration. “Soon
after the accession of Elizabeth appeared Lord Leicester’s company,
the same which, in 1574, was finally incorporated by royal licence;
in 1572 was formed Sir Robert Lane’s company; in the same year Lord
Clinton’s; in 1575 companies were created by Lord Warwick, and the Lord
Chamberlain, the name of Shakspeare being enrolled among the servants
of the latter, who, in the first year of the subsequent reign, became
entitled to the appellation of His Majesty’s servants; in 1576, the
Earl of Sussex brought forward a theatrical body, and in 1577, Lord
Howard another, neither of which, however, attained much eminence; in
1578 the Earl of Essex mustered a company of players, and in 1579, Lord
Strange, and the Earl of Derby, followed his example; in 1591 the Lord
Admiral produced his set of comedians; in 1592 the Earl of Hertford
effected a similar arrangement; in 1593 Lord Pembroke protected an
association of actors, and at the close of Her Majesty’s reign the Earl
of Worcester had in pay also a company of theatrical performers.”
As regards the management of his property in the play the author had
the choice of two methods. He might sell the copyright to the theatre.
In this case, to which authors frequently had recourse in the age
of Shakespeare, the dramatist sold outright the whole rights of the
piece, so that the proprietors of the theatre secured its performance
exclusively to their own company. If it was a popular piece, of course,
they were not anxious to publish it. If, however, the author kept the
piece in his own hands, he not only had the right of publication, but
he had, likewise, a claim upon the theatre for a benefit. This, towards
the termination of the sixteenth century, took place on the second day,
and was soon afterwards, as early indeed as 1612, postponed to the
third day.
The price of a drama, when disposed of to the public players, was
twenty nobles, or six pounds, thirteen shillings, and fourpence; but
private companies would sometimes give more than that sum.
The price of a play when published was sixpence, and the poet received
about forty shillings of an honorarium for a dedication. It has been
stated, however, that Shakespeare received but five pounds for his
_Hamlet_.
[Illustration:
100. St. Mary Spittal.
102. Houndsditch.
103. Crutched Friars.
104. Priory of Holy Trinity.
105. Aldgate.
106. St. Botolph, Aldgate.
107. The Minories.
108. The Postern Gate.
109. Great Tower Hill.
110. Place of Execution.
111. Allhallow’s Church, Barking.
112. The Custom House.
113. Tower of London.
114. The White Tower.
115. Traitors’ Gate.
116. Little Tower Hill.
117. East Smithfield.
118. Stepney.
119. St. Catherine’s Church.
120. St. Catherine’s Dock.
121. St. Catherine’s Hospital.
122. Isle of Dogs.
123. Monastery of Bermondsey.
124. Says Court, Deptford.
125. Palace of Placentia.
126. Greenwich.
From the Panorama of “London, Westminster, and Southwark, in 1543.” By
Anthony Van den Wyngaerde. (Sutherland Collection, Bodleian Library,
Oxford.) _For continuation see pp. 234, 235._]
Hentzner, the German traveller, thus speaks of the theatres:—
“Without the City are some theatres, where English actors represent
almost every day Comedies and Tragedies to very numerous audiences;
these are concluded with variety of dances, accompanied by excellent
music and the excessive applause of those that are present. Not far
from one of these Theatres, which are all built of wood, lies the
Royal Barge, close to the river Thames; it has two splendid cabins,
beautifully ornamented with glass windows, painting and carving; it is
kept upon dry ground and sheltered from the weather.”
The entertainment offered to the French Ambassador at the Court of
Henry VIII. at Greenwich shows that acting and dressing formed part of
a courtly entertainment. They began with tournaments and contests on
foot and horse; they went on to an interlude in Latin, the altars being
all richly dressed.
“This being ended,” says the author of the _Life of Wolsey_, “there
came a great company of ladies and gentlemen, the chiefest beauties
in the realm of England, being as richly attired as cost could make,
or art devise, to set forth their gestures, proportions, or beauties,
that they seemed to the beholder rather like celestial angels than
terrestrial creatures, and in my judgment worthy of admiration, with
whom the gentlemen of France danced and masked; every man choosing his
lady as his fancy served; that done, and the maskers departed, came in
another masque of ladies and gentlewomen, so richly attired as I cannot
express; these ladies maskers tooke each of them one of the Frenchmen
to dance; and here note, that these noblewomen spoke all of them good
French, which delighted them much to hear the ladies speak to them in
their own language. Thus triumphantly did they spend the whole night
from five of the clock at the night into two or three of the clock in
the morning; at which time the gallants drew all to their lodgings to
take their rest.”
There was a kind of show called a Prolusion. This appears to have been
a representation of some well-known event or legend. Thus in 1587 there
was a Prolusion set forth by Hugh Offley, merchant-adventurer and
leather-seller, one of the Sheriffs of the year 1588. It represented
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. He chose 300 good
archers, personable men; and he dressed them in black satin doublets
and black velvet hose; every man carried a bow of yew and a dozen waxed
arrows. They marched in goodly array from Merchant Taylors to Mile End
Green. Queen Elizabeth in her chariot passed them, and stopped in order
to see the show. “In her whole life,” she said, “she had never seen a
finer company of archers.” They all fell on their knees and prayed God
to prosper and preserve Her Majesty. She thanked them and passed on her
way, while the archers proceeded to attack the sham forts which had
been set up, after which those who shot best took prizes, and Master
Hugh Offley provided a banquet for all.
It is interesting to remember that the Theatre had to contend for the
place of honour with the stately and courtly Masque. All that artist
could do for decoration, or stage manager could devise for machinery,
or that poet could imagine or invent for fable, was pressed into the
service of the Masque. The dresses the players wore were most gorgeous;
the speeches were fine; the dances and the songs were most beautiful.
Real mountains contained real caves; Dryads ran out of the woods;
Naiads lay beside running streams; all the Gods and Goddesses of Ovid
took part in the action; there were thrones of gold and silver; there
were star-spangled skies; sea gods and river gods appeared; Tritons
blew their shells; mermaids swam about the sea-shell of mother-of-pearl
in which sat Venus herself. And all this time the Theatre itself had no
scenery and no stage management and no machinery. The Masque, however,
did not assume its full development till the next century. It will
be found more fully treated in the chapter on the Theatre and Art in
_London in the Time of the Stuarts_. Even more popular than the theatre
were the sports of bear-baiting, bull-baiting, wrestling, quarter-staff
and single-stick. The favourite place for these sports was the Paris
Garden beyond Bankside.
“Yet everye Sondaye
They will surelye spende
One penye or two
The bearwardes lyvyng to mende.
At Paryse Garden eche Sondaye
A man shall not fayle
To fynde two or three hundreds
For the bearwardes vaile.
One halpenye a piece
They use for to give
When some have no more
In their purse, I believe.”
You shall read contemporary accounts of bear-baiting and bull-baiting.
“Some,” says John Houghton in 1694, “keep the bull on purpose for the
sport of baiting, cutting off the tips of his horns, and with pitch,
tow, and such like matter, fasten upon them the great horns of oxen,
with their tips cut off, and covered with leather, least they should
hurt the dogs. Because these papers go into several other countries,
I’ll say something of the manner of baiting the bull, which is, by
having a collar about his neck, fastened to a thick rope about three,
four, or five yards long, hung to a hook, so fastened to a stake that
it will turn round; with this the bull circulates to watch his enemy,
which is a mastiff dog (commonly used to the sport) with a short nose,
that his teeth may take the better hold; this dog, if right, will creep
upon his belly, that he may, if possible, get the bull by the nose,
which the bull as carefully strives to defend, by laying it close to
the ground, where his horns are also ready to do what in them lies to
toss the dog; and this is the true sport.”
But if more dogs than one come at once, if they are cowardly and come
under his legs, he will, if he can, stamp their guts out. I believe I
have seen a dog tossed by a bull thirty, if not forty foot high; and
when they are tossed either higher or lower, the men above strive to
catch them on their shoulders, lest the fall might mischief the dogs.
They commonly lay sand about, that if they fall upon the ground it may
be the easier. Notwithstanding this care, a great many dogs are killed,
more have their limbs broke, and some hold so fast, that by the bull’s
swinging them their teeth are often broke out.
To perfect the history of bull-baiting, I must tell you, that the famed
dogs have crosses or roses of various coloured ribbon stuck with pitch
on their foreheads, and such like the ladies are very ready to bestow
on dogs or bull that do valiantly; and when ’tis stuck on the bull’s
forehead, that dog is hollowed that fetches it off, though the true
courage and art is to hold the bull by the nose ’till he roars, which a
courageous bull scorns to do.
Often the men are tossed as well as the dogs; and men, bull, and dogs,
seem exceedingly pleased, and as earnest at the sport as if it were for
the lives or livelihoods. Many great wagers are laid on both sides,
and great journeys will men and dogs go for such a diversion. I knew
a gentleman that bought a bull in Hertfordshire on purpose to go a
progress with him, at a great charge, into most of the great towns in
the West of England.
This is a sport the English much delight in; and not only the baser
sort, but the greatest lords and ladies.”
And here is Laneham on the sport of bear-baiting:—
“It waz a sport very pleazaunt of theez beasts; to see the bear with
hiz pink eyez leering after hiz enemiez approch, the nimbleness and
wayt of the dog to take hiz avauntage, and the fors and experiens of
the bear agayn to avoyd the assaults; if he were bitten in one place,
hoow he woold pynch in an oother too get free; that if he wear taken
onez, then what shyft with byting, with clawyng, with roring, tossing
and tumbling he woold woork too wynde hymself from them; and when he
waz lose, to shake his earz twyse or thryse wyth the blud and slauer
aboout his fiznamy, waz a matter of a goodly releef.”
We have already heard Hentzner on theatres, he has a word to say also
on baiting:—
“There is still another place, built in the form of a Theatre, which
serves for the baiting of bulls and bears; they are fastened behind,
and then worried by those great English dogs and mastiffs, but not
without great risk to the dogs from the teeth of the one and the
horns of the other, and it sometimes happens they are killed on the
spot; fresh ones are immediately supplied in the places of those
that are wounded or tired. To this entertainment often follows that
of whipping a blinded bear, which is performed by five or six men,
standing in a circle with whips which they exercise upon him without
any mercy; although he cannot escape from them because of his chain, he
nevertheless defends himself vigorously, throwing down all who come
within his reach and are not active enough to get out of it, tearing
the whips out of their hands and breaking them. At these spectacles,
and everywhere else, the English are constantly seen smoking the
Nicotean weed, which in America is called Tobaca, and generally in this
manner: they have pipes on purpose made of clay, into the farther end
of which they put the herb, so dry that it may be rubbed into powder,
and lighting it, they draw the smoke into their mouths, which they
puff out again through their nostrils, along with plenty of phlegm and
defluxion from the head. In these Theatres, fruits, such as apples,
pears, and nuts, according to the season, are carried about to be sold,
as well as wine and ale.”
But besides these cruel forms of so-called “sport,” there were more
legitimate pleasures such as archery.
“During the holy days in summer,” Fitz Stephen says, “the young men
exercise themselves in the sports of leaping, archery, etc.” The
practice of archery was maintained in the City after the longbow had
to give way before gun and cannon. As a pastime of the citizens only,
no account of London would be complete without reference to archery.
There were, as every one knows, two kinds of bow: the longbow and the
crossbow. The former, for various reasons—its superiority in readiness
of handling, lightness in carrying, range of flight and sureness of
aim, caused it to be much more generally adopted in our armies than
its rival. At Cressy, for instance, our men were armed with longbows,
and the French with crossbows; when the rain fell the longbows could
be easily covered up, the crossbow could not, so that the strings
were wetted and the power of the weapon greatly injured. Edward the
First, who had a great opinion of the longbow as the superior weapon,
ordered, on the threat of war with France, every sheriff of a county
to provide 500 white bows and as many bundles of arrows. Edward the
Third issued repeated proclamations ordering the practice of archery.
It would seem as if the word archery in the fourteenth century included
the crossbow as well as the longbow, for Edward the Second, in 1314
(Riley, _Memorials_, p. 124), commanded the City of London to furnish
300 arbalesters “more powerful for defence,” and to provide them
with “haketons, bacinets, collerettes, arbalests and quarels.” (The
haketon was a jacket of quilted leather; the bacinet was a headpiece;
the collerette, an iron collar for the protection of the throat; the
arbalest is the crossbow; the quarel was the bolt.)
Richard the Second ordered that every man in his household should
exercise himself as occasion should permit in archery. And in 1392 an
Act was passed obliging all servants to practise archery on holydays.
In 1417 Henry V. ascribed his victory at Agincourt chiefly to his
archers, and orders the Sheriffs of the counties to pluck from every
goose six wing-feathers for the improvement of the arrow. These
feathers were the second, third, and fourth of each wing. Edward IV.
ordered that Englishmen in Ireland and every Irishman living with
Englishmen should be provided with a bow of his own height, which was
to be made of yew, wych, hazel, ash, or alder. Butts were to be erected
in every township, and the inhabitants were to practise on every feast
day. The same king sent a thousand archers to the Duke of Burgundy,
who was to pay them sixpence a day, about five shillings of our money.
Nothing can prove more conclusively the estimation in which archers
were held. The same king provided for his war both guns and bows. A
great deal of yew was imported at this time; it came in the Venetian
ships from Dalmatia and the countries on the eastern shores of the
Adriatic.
In the nineteenth year of Henry VII. the King finally decided for the
longbow against the crossbow, because “the longbow had been much used
in this realm, whereby honour and victory had been gotten against
outward enemies; the realm greatly defended; and much more the dread of
all Christian Princes by reason of the same.” Henry VII. himself shot
at the butts.
There were at least five statutes issued by Henry VIII. ordering the
practice of archery, but forbidding the crossbow.
The London Archers continued to hold their yearly contests in the
month of September, in spite of the fact that henceforth there would
be no use for the longbow in warfare. They formed a very fine corps,
had they been of any use; meantime, the City has always loved a show,
and a very fine show the Archers provided. Their captain was called
the Duke of Shoreditch; the captains of the different Companies were
called the Marquesses of Clerkenwell, Islington, Hoxton, and the Earl
of Pancras,[13] etc.; in the year 1583 they assembled at Merchant
Taylors Hall to the number of 3000 all sumptuously apparelled, “nine
hundred and forty-two having chains of gold about their necks.” They
were escorted by whifflers and bowmen to the number of 4000, besides
pages and footmen; and so marching through Broad Street, where the
Duke of Shoreditch lived, they proceeded by Moorfields and Finsbury to
Smithfield, where, after performing their evolutions, they shot at the
target for glory.
The Finsbury Archers continued to exist and to hold their meetings
till well into the eighteenth century. Mr. Daines Barrington, writing
for the Society of Antiquaries in 1787, mentions that there were still
living two old men who had obtained prizes in these contests as late
as 1753, when they ceased. The same writer gives a map of the butts or
archers’ marks in Finsbury Fields as they were standing in the year
1787. The distance between the marks varies from 120 feet to 300 feet.
It may be assumed that 200 feet was a fairly average distance for an
arrow. The proper weight for an arrow was considered to be one ounce
only; it was to be winged by three feathers: two white being plucked
from the gander, and one gray taken from the goose; this difference in
colour showed the archer when the arrow was properly placed.
The Artillery Company or Finsbury Archers, predecessors of the present
Artillery Company, enjoyed certain privileges as to dress, as to
shooting at birds, and immunity from the charge of murder should any
one be killed by these arrows, especially after they had cried “Fast!”
as a warning.
It appears that bows and arrows were employed long after they left
the field of battle for shooting rabbits and crows, partly because
gunpowder was dear, but chiefly because the arrow makes no noise to
frighten the game away. The London Archers continued, in spite of the
fact that henceforth there would be no use of the longbow in warfare,
to hold their yearly contests in the month of September.
The Honourable Artillery Company, before it received its letters
patent, had been in the habit of practising archery in the fields of
Islington, Hoxton, and Shoreditch. In these fields targets or butts
were fixed to shoot at. Two of these butts or targets were still in
existence in 1860: one at the end of Dorchester Street, Hoxton, on the
east side of the New North Road near the Canal Bridge, and the other in
the brickwork of the Canal Bridge above the towing-path. Two others had
been destroyed about the year 1845: one in the Britannia Fields, and
the other in the ground now called Wellington Square. That standing at
the end of Dorchester Road was called “Whitehall.” A drawing of it is
given in the _L. and M. Arch. Society_ (vol. ii. p. 15).
The other sports, feasts, and festivals of the City remained in the
sixteenth century much as they had been before the change of Faith with
certain exceptions, such as the Boy Bishop, the Feast of All Fools in
the Church, and the Miracle Play with its profanity and coarseness.
These vanished. There remained the Feasts of Christmas and Easter; the
celebration of May Day; the Vigils of St. John, St. Peter, and St.
Paul; and the Midsummer Watch. There were also Shrove Tuesday, Hocking
Day, Whitsuntide, and Martinmas, with some others. The ceremonies of
a Christmas banquet are preserved in Gerard Leigh’s _Accidence of
Armory_, and have been reproduced by Nichols. The feast was that of the
year 1561. The place was the Temple. The person called Palaphilos was
the Constable and Marshall, Dudley, Earl of Leicester.
“The next day I thought for my pastime to walk to this Temple,
and entring in at the gates, I found the building nothing costly;
but many comely Gentlemen of face and person, and thereto very
courteous, saw I pass to and fro, so as it seemed a Prince’s port
to be at hand; and passing forward, entred into a Church of antient
building, wherein were many monuments of noble personages armd in
knightly habit, with their cotes depainted in ancient shields,
whereat I took pleasure to behold. Thus gazing as one bereft
with the rare sight, there came unto me an Hereaught, by name
Palaphilos, a King of Armes, who curteously saluted me, saying,
‘For that I was a stranger, and seeming by my demeanour a lover of
honour, I was his guest of right’: whose curtesy (as reason was)
I obeyed; answering ‘I was at his commandment.’ ‘Then,’ said he,
‘ye shall go to mine own lodging here within the Palace, where we
will have such cheer as the time and country will yield us’: where,
I assure you, I was so entertained, as no where I met with better
cheer or company, etc.
Thus talking we entred the Prince his Hall, where anon we heard the
noise of drum and fyfe. ‘What meaneth this drum?’ said I. Quoth
he, ‘This is to warn Gentlemen of the Houshold to repair to the
dresser; wherefore come on with me, and ye shall stand where ye may
best see the Hall served; and so from thence brought me into a long
gallery, that stretched itself along the Hall neer the Prince’s
table, where I saw the Prince set: a man of tall personage, a
manly countenance, somewhat brown of visage, strongly featured,
and thereto comely proportioned in all lineaments of body. At the
nether end of the same table were placed the Embassadors of sundry
Princes. Before him stood the carver, sewer, and cup-bearer, with
great number of gentlemen wayters attending his person; the ushers
making place to strangers of sundry regions that came to behold
the honour of this mighty Captain. After the placing of these
honourable guests, the Lord Steward, Treasurer, and Keeper of
Pallas Seal, with divers honourable personages of that Nobility,
were placed at a side-table neer adjoining the Prince on the
right hand, and at another table on the left side were placed the
Treasurer of the Household, Secretary, the Prince his Serjeant at
the Law, four Masters of the Revels, the King of Arms, the Dean of
the Chappel, and divers Gentlemen Pensioners to furnish the same.
At another table on the other side were set the Master of the Game,
and his Chief Ranger, Masters of Houshold, Clerks of the Green
Cloth and Check, with divers other strangers to furnish the same.
On the other side against them, began the table, the Lieutenant of
the Tower, accompanied with divers Captains of foot-bands and shot.
At the nether end of the Hall began the table, the High Butler, the
Panter, Clerks of the Kitchin, Master Cook of the Privy Kitchin,
furnished throughout with the souldiers and guard of the Prince;
all which, with number of inferior officers placed and served in
the Hall, besides the great resort of strangers I spare to write.
[Illustration: ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL OF LEICESTER (1532(?)-1588)
From the painting by Zuccaro in the National Portrait Gallery, London.]
The Prince so served with tender meats, sweet fruits, and dainty
delicates confectioned with curious cookery, as it seemed wonder a
world to observe the provision; and at every course the trumpetters
blew the couragious blast of deadly war, with noise of drum and
fyfe, with the sweet harmony of violins, sackbutts, recorders, and
cornetts, with other instruments of music, as it seemed Apollo’s
harp had turned their stroke. Thus the Hall was served after the
most ancient order of the Island; in commendation whereof I say,
I have also seen the service of great Princes, in solemn seasons
and times of triumph, yet the order hereof was not inferior to
any. But to proceed, this Hereaught Palaphilos, even before the
second course came in, standing at the high table said in this
manner: ‘The mighty Palaphilos, Prince of Sophie, High Constable
Marshall of the Knights Templars, Patron of the Honourable Order of
Pegasus’; and therewith cryeth ‘A Largess.’ The Prince, praysing
the Hereaught, bountifully rewarded him with a chain to the value
of an hundred talents.
I assure you, I languish for want of cunning, ripely to utter that
I saw so orderly handled appertaining to service; wherefore I
cease, and return to my purpose.
The supper ended, and tables taken up, the High Constable rose,
and a while stood under the place of honour, where his achievement
was beautifully embroidered and devised of sundry matters, with
the Ambassadors of foreign nations, as he thought good, till
Palaphilos, King of Armes, came in, his Hereaught Marshal, and
Pursivant before him; and after followed his messenger and Caligate
Knight; who putting off his coronal, made his humble obeysance to
the Prince, by whom he was commanded to draw neer, and understand
his pleasure; saying to him, in few words, to this effect:
‘Palaphilos, seeing it hath pleased the high Pallas to think me
to demerit the office of this place; and thereto this night past
vouchsafed to descend from heavens to increase my further honour,
by creating me Knight of her Order of Pegasus; as also commanded
me to join in the same Society such valiant Gentlemen throughout
her province whose living honour hath best deserved the same,
the choice whereof most aptly belongeth to your skill, being the
watchman of their doings and register of their deserts; I will
ye choose as well throughout our whole armyes, as elsewhere, of
such special gentlemen, as the gods hath appointed, the number of
twenty-four, and the names of them present us: commanding also
those chosen persons to appear in our presence in knightly habit,
that with conveniency we may proceed in our purpose. This done
Palaphilos obeying his Prince’s commandement, with twenty-four
knights, all apparelled in long white vestures, with each man a
scarf of Pallas colours, and them presented, with their names, to
the Prince; who allowed well his choice, and commanded him to do
his office. Who, after his duty to the Prince, bowed towards these
worthy personages, standing every man to his antienty, as he had
born armes in the field, and began to shew his Prince’s pleasure;
with the honour of the Order.”
And here is a note from Stow on Christmas Customs:—
“Against the feast of Christmas, every man’s house, as also their
parish churches, were decked with holm, ivie, bayes, and whatsoever the
season of the yeere aforded to be greene; the conduits and standards
in the streets were likewise garnished. Amongst the which, I read,
that in the yeere 1444, by tempest of thunder and lightning, on the
first of February at night, Paul’s steeple was fired, but with great
labour quenched, and toward the morning of Candlemas day, at the Leaden
Hall in Cornhill, a standard of tree, beeing set up in the midst of
the pavement fast in the ground, nayled full of holme and ivy, for
disport of Christmas to the people, was torne up and cast downe by the
malignant spirit (as was thought), and the stones of the pavement all
about were cast in the streetes, and into divers houses, so that the
people were wore agast at the great tempests.”
Let us pass on to the great Festival of May Day.
“Forth goeth all the court both most and lest,
To Fetch the floures fresh, and braunch and blome—
And namely hauthorn brought both page and grome
And than rejoysen in their great delite;
Eke ech at other throw the floures bright,
The primerose, the violete, and the gold.
With freshe garlants party blew and white.”
Philip Stubbes says:—“Against Maie, Whitsondaie, or some other tyme
of the yeare, every parishe, towne, and village assemble themselves
together, bothe men, women, and children; and either goyng all
together, or deviding themselves into companies, they goe some to the
woodes and groves, some to the hilles and mountaines, some to one
place, some to another, where they spend all the night in pleasant
pastymes, and in the mornyng they returne bringing with them, birch,
bouwes, and braunches of trees to deck their assemblies withal. But
their chiefest jewel they bring from thence is their Maie poole, which
they bring home with greate veneration, as thus:—They have twentie or
fortie yoke of oxen, every oxe havyng a swete nosegaie of flowers tyed
on the tippe of his hornes, and these oxen drawe home the Maie poole
(this stinckyng idoll rather), which is covered all over with flowers
and hearbes, bounde rounde aboute with stringes from the top to the
bottome, and sometyme painted with variable colours, with two or three
hundred men, women, and children followyng it with greate devotion.
And thus being reared up, with handkerchiefes and flagges streamyng on
the toppe, they strawe the grounde aboute, binde greene boughs about
it, sett up sommer halles, bowers, and arbours hard by it; and then
fall they to banquet and feast, to leape and daunce aboute it, as the
heathen people did at the dedication of their idolles.... I have heard
it credibly reported,” he sarcastically adds, “by men of great gravity,
credite, and reputation, that of fourtie, three score, or a hundred
maides goyng to the wood over night, there have scarcely the third
parte of them returned home againe as they went.” (_The Anatomie of
Abuses_, 1836 edition, p. 171.)
Herrick says:—
“Get up ... and see
The dew bespangling herbe and tree;
Each flower has wept, and bow’d toward the east,
Above an hour since; ... it is sin,
Nay profanation, to keep in;
When as a thousand virgins on this day,
Spring sooner than the larks to fetch in May!
Come, my Corinna, come; and comming marke
How each field turns a street, each street a parke
Made green and trimmed with trees; see how
Devotion gives each house a bough,
Or branch; each porch, each doore ere this,
An arke or tabernacle is,
Made up of white-thorn neatly interwove,
As if here were those cooler shades of love.
Can such delights be in the street,
And open fields, and we not see’t?
Come, we’ll abroad; and let’s obey
The Proclamation made for May,
And sin no more, as we have done, by staying.
There’s not a budding boy, or girle, this day
But is got up, and gone to bring in May;
A deale of youth, ere this, is come
Back, and with white-thorn laden home.
Some have dispatcht their cakes and creame,
Before that we have left to dreame;
And some have wept, and woo’d, and plighted troth,
And chose their priest, ere we can cast off sloth;
Many a green gown has been given;
Many a kisse, both odde and even;
Many a glance too has been sent
From out the eye, Love’s firmament;
Many a jest told of the keyes betraying
This night, and locks pickt, ye w’are not a Maying!”
Of the festive appearance of the streets in summer, and the hospitality
of the citizens, and the setting of the Midsummer Watch, Stow speaks at
length (Thoms’s edition, p. 39):—
“In the months of June and July, on the vigils of festival days, and
on the same festival days in the evenings after the sun setting, there
were usually made bonfires in the streets, every man bestowing wood or
labour towards them; the wealthier sort also, before their doors, near
to the said bonfires, would set out tables on the vigils, furnished
with sweet bread and good drink, and on the festival days with meats
and drinks plentifully, whereunto they would invite their neighbours
and passengers also to sit and be merry with them in great familiarity,
praising God for His benefits bestowed on them. These were called
bonfires as well of good amity amongst neighbours that being before at
controversy were there, by the labour of others, reconciled, and made
of bitter enemies loving friends; and also for the virtue that a great
fire hath to purge the infection of the air. On the vigil of St. John
the Baptist, and on St. Peter and Paul the apostles, every man’s door
being shadowed with green birch, long fennel, St. John’s wort, orpin,
white lilies, and such like, garnished upon with garlands of beautiful
flowers, had also lamps of glass, with oil burning in them all the
night; some hung out branches of iron curiously wrought, containing
hundreds of lamps alight at once, which made a goodly show, namely in
New Fish Street, Thames Street, etc.”
[Illustration:
_Drawn by Grignon, photographed by D^r Diamond_ _J. Hale Keur Sr._
A FÊTE AT HORSELYDOWN IN 159O
From a picture by G. Hoffnagle at Hatfield House.]
At Whitsuntide 1900 I was at Treves. It is the custom on Whit Sunday
to hold a great procession in which, apparently, the whole population
takes part through the principal streets to the Cathedral. The girls
are dressed in white with white flowers in their hair; the younger
girls carry baskets filled with white flowers; men, women, and children
are all chanting as they go; groups of priests, boys in scarlet,
beadles and other ecclesiastical selections, adorn the procession. If
that were all I should not notice it in this place. But in addition
every street through which the procession passed was decorated with
branches. And here for the first time I understood the lines already
quoted, how
“Each field turns a street, each street a parke
Made green and trimmed with trees; see how
Devotion gives each house a bough,
Or branch; each porch, each doore, ere this,
An arke or tabernacle is,
Made up of white-thorn neatly interwove.”
For the decking of the house did not consist of a branch or a bunch
over a porch or a window, but the whole ground-floor of every house was
covered with great boughs closely placed side by side so as to look
like a lane of trees. Herrick did not exaggerate.
Stow goes on to speak of the Marching Watch:—
“Besides the standing Watches all in bright Harness, in every Ward
and Street in this city and Suburbs, there was also a Marching Watch,
that passed through the principal Streets thereof, to wit, from the
little conduit by Paul’s Gate to West Cheap, by the Stocks through
Cornhill, by Leaden Hall to Aldgate, then back down Fenchurch Street,
by Grasse church, about Grasse church conduit, and up Grasse church
street into Cornhill, and through it into West Cheap again, and so
broke up. The whole way ordered for this marching watch extendeth to
three thousand two hundred Taylor’s Yards of Assize; for the furniture
whereof with Lights, there were appointed seven hundred cressets, five
hundred of them being found by the Companies, the other two hundred
by the Chamber of London. Besides the which Lights every Constable in
London, in number more than two hundred and forty, had his Cresset;
the charge of every Cresset was in Light two shillings and fourpence,
and every cresset had two men, one to bear or hold it, another to bear
a Bag with Light, and to serve it, so that the Poor Men pertaining
to the Cressets, taking Wages, besides that every one had a strawen
Hat, with a Badge painted, and his breakfast, amounted in number to
almost two thousand. The marching Watch contained in number about two
thousand men, part of them being old Soldiers, of skill to be Captains,
Lieutenants, Serjeants, Corporals, etc., Wiflers, Drummers, and Fifes,
Standard and Ensign Bearers, Demilances on great Horses, Gunners with
hand guns, or half Hakes, Archers in coats of white Fustian, signed
on the breast and back with the Arms of the City, their Bows bent in
their Hands, with Sheafs of Arrows by their Sides; Pikemen in bright
Corslets, Burganets, etc., Halbards, the like the Billmen in Almain
Rivets, and Aprons of Mail in great Number. There were also divers
Pageants, Morris Dancers, Constables, the one-half, which was one
hundred and twenty on St. John’s Eve, the other half on St. Peter’s
Eve, in bright harness, some over Gilt, and every one a jornet of
Scarlet thereupon, and a Chain of Gold, his henchman following him, his
Minstrels before him, and his Cresset Light passing by him, the Waits
of the City, the Mayor’s officers for his Guard before him, all in a
livery of woosted, or Sea Jackets party-coloured, the Mayor himself
well mounted on Horseback, the Swordbearer before him in fair Armour
well mounted also, the Mayor’s Footmen, and the like Torch Bearers
about him, Henchmen twain upon great stirring Horses, following him.
The Sheriffs’ Watches came one after the other in like Order, but not
so large in Number as the Mayor’s; for where the Mayor had, besides his
Giant, three Pageants, each of the Sheriffs had, besides their Giants,
but two Pageants; each their Morris Dance, and one Henchman, their
Officers in jackets of woosted or Sea, party-coloured, differing from
the Mayor’s and each from other, but having harnessed Men a great many.
This Midsummer Watch was thus accustomed yearly, time out of Mind,
until the year 1539, the 31st of Henry VIII., in which year, on the 8th
of May, a great Muster was made by the Citizens at the Mile’s End, all
in bright Harness, with Coats of White Silk, or Cloth and Chains of
Gold, in three great Battels, to the number of fifteen thousand, which
passed through London to Westminster, and so through the Sanctuary, and
round about the Park of St. James, and returned home through Oldborne.
King Henry, then considering the great Charges of the Citizens for the
Furniture of this unusual Muster, forbad the Marching Watch provided
for at Midsummer for that Year; which being once laid down, was not
raised again till the year 1548, the 2nd of Edward VI., Sir John
Gresham then being Mayor, who caused the Marching Watch, both on the
eve of St. John Baptist and of St. Peter the Apostle, to be revived and
set forth in as comely order as it hath been accustomed, which Watch
was also beautified by the number of more than three hundred Demilances
and light Horsemen, prepared by the citizens to be sent into Scotland
for the rescue of the town of Haddington, and others kept by the
Englishmen.” (Stow, vol. i.)
As for dancing, never was there a time when it was more popular.
Everybody danced: the Queen at Whitehall danced the brawl; the
kitchen-maid in the street danced the ney. They danced the solemn
_pavane_, the _Cassamezzo galliard_, the _canary_ dance, the _Coranto_,
the _Cavolta_, the _jig_, the _galliard_, the _fancy_, and the _Ney_,
and perhaps many more. They played cards: they played at primiero,
trumpe, gleek, gresso, new cut, knave out of doors, ruff, noddy, most
and pace; they got through the long winter evenings mainly with the
help of cards. Bowling was a summer amusement; tournaments belonged
to the Court; hunting was an amusement for the richer sort; the
people also fought cocks, wrestled, practised archery, and played
quarter-staff. The old Catholic feasts and sports—such as the Feast of
Fools, the Boy Bishop, the Mysteries in the Churches, were abolished;
but in their own houses they had mumming and mummers; for the ladies
there was embroidery; there was also fine work of all kinds. And there
was a great demand for monsters: a pig with eight legs; strange fishes
caught in the river; a mermaid quite fresh, unfortunately dead, caught
off the Yarmouth Roads; a calf with two backs; a lobster with six
claws; these things were always on exhibition, for the most part, in
Fleet Street. Their Morris dances, their Maypoles, Whitsun Ales, their
fairs and wakes, and, in fact, every occasion for meeting together,
singing, feasting, and dancing, this Protestant city kept up.
[Illustration: THE DANCING PICTURE
By Holbein and Janet, in the possession of Major-General F. E. Sotheby.]
Among the amusements of the people must not be forgotten the common
custom of telling stories. The long evenings when the family gathered
round the fire, the only light in the room, were tedious: they could
hardly go to bed much before eight, though they rose long before
daybreak. Story-telling was an amusement which had long ago pleased the
Saxons and the Danes, who recounted the great deeds of their ancestors
to wile away the winter evening. Perhaps many of the stories which
found their way into books during the sixteenth century served this
purpose, while the merry jests of Skogan, and Peele, and the rest,
certainly formed part of the story-teller’s _répertoire_.
Another amusement was that of reading. We have already seen what an
immense field was opened up for those who loved books, by the shoals
which during Elizabeth’s reign were issued from the press.
The first Lottery was set on foot in the year 1559. The drawing took
place at the west door of St. Paul’s, and continued daily from the
11th of January to the 6th of May following. The Lottery did not gain
its full power until the eighteenth century. It is sufficient here
to record the first appearance of this baleful institution, fruitful
mother of crime.