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bucklers in Cheap, with many others looking on, commanded them to leave off. One of them asked, why? Upon which the alderman would have sent him to the Compter; but that formidable body, the 'prentices of London, was at this time in full vigour the cry of 'Prentices! 'Prentices! Clubs! Clubs! resounded through the street, and the alderman found safety only in flight. The mischief was now set on foot. The throng of excited people was swelled from all quarters; serving-men, watermen, and even courtiers, left their houses to join in the fray. The prisoners before mentioned were soon released. At St. Martin's Gate Sir Thomas More met them, and earnestly and kindly exhorted them to go to their respective homes. But at this moment the people within St. Martin's threw out stones and bats, and, among several others, hurt one Nicholas Dennis, a sergeant-at-arms, who cried in a fury, “Down with them!" The doors and windows of the neighbouring houses were forced instantly, and the insides completely gutted. After that they ran into Cornhill, in the neighbourhood of which dwelt a Frenchman, with whom various other foreigners lodged. This man's house they likewise spoiled. Others went to different parts, broke open the strangers' houses, and committed similar excesses. Thus they were engaged till about three in the morning, when they began to withdraw. But the Mayor was on the watch, and at once captured and sent to the Tower and other places of confinement three hundred of their number, including women, and lads not above thirteen or fourteen years old. They were tried in the Guildhall on the 4th, and on the 7th John Lincoln and some twelve others were brought forth for execution. When the former had suffered, a respite arrived for the others. For what followed we must borrow the graphic pen of Hall, who most probably witnessed the scene he describes :

Thursday, the 22nd day of May, the King came into Westminster Hall, for whom at the upper end was set a cloth of estate, and the place hanged with arras: with him went the Cardinal, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, &c. *** The Mayor and aldermen were there, in their best livery, by nine of the clock. Then the King commanded that all the prisoners should be brought forth. Then came in the poor younglings and old false knaves, bound in ropes, all along, one after another, in their shirts, and every one a halter about his neck, to the number of four hundred men and eleven women. And when all were come before the King's presence, the Cardinal rose, laid to the Mayor and commonalty their negligence, and to the prisoners he declared they had deserved death for their offence. Then all the prisoners together cried, Mercy, gracious lord, mercy! Then the lords all together besought his Grace of mercy, at whose request the King pardoned them all. And then the Cardinal gave unto them a good exhortation, to the great gladness of the hearers. And when the general pardon was pronounced, all the prisoners shouted at once, and all together cast up their halters into the hall roof, so that the King might perceive they were none of the discreetest sort."* Not the least interesting feature of this scene is the conduct of the rioters not apprehended. These sly fellows, keeping among the crowd without till they heard how matters were going, "suddenly stripped them into their shirts, with halters," and with penitent faces took their places among the other offenders just in time to hear the pardon pronounced. The device succeeded,

* Hall, p. 591.

and some who would certainly have otherwise been dealt with hardly, as leaders in the affair, escaped. Thus ended for the present Evil May-day. But the real punishment of the people for this outbreak was the deprivation of their popular sports which they experienced when the 1st of May came round again. The great shaft of St. Andrew's lay for years unused over the doors and below the penthouses of the street. In the third year of the ensuing reign, probably in consequence of some rumours as to its restoration, a fanatic clergyman preached against it at St. Paul's Cross. "I heard his sermon," says Stow, "and I saw the effect that followed. For in the afternoon of that present Sunday

the neighbours and tenants *** over whose doors the shaft had lain, after they had dined to make themselves strong, gathered more help, and with great labour raising the shaft from the hooks whereon it had rested two-and-thirty years, they sawed it in pieces, every man taking for his share so much as had lain over his door and stall. Thus was this idol, as he, poor man, termed it, mangled, and after burned." Gradually, we presume, the May-poles resumed their former ascendancy, for in 1644 the Parliamentarians ordered that "all and singular May-poles be taken down." When Charles II. ascended the throne, the famous May-pole of the Strand was restored with great pomp and rejoicing, amidst multitudes of people, whose shouts and acclamations were heard from time to time through the whole day. When this pole had ceased to be any longer the centre of the merry May-day circles, and the interest with which it was originally regarded had faded away, it was given to Sir Isaac Newton, and by his directions removed to Wanstead to support the then largest telescope in the world.

Whilst the May-day games in the carly part of Henry's reign existed in all their splendour and popularity, archery also, after a long period of continual decline, suddenly revived. What the edicts of successive monarchs, from the time of the great national victories of Cressy, Agincourt, Poitiers, down almost to the accession of Henry,-now compelling every one to furnish himself with the necessary implements, now prohibiting all other sports, &c.-failed to do, was at once accomplished by the publication, through the novel agency of the press, of the ballads and traditionary stories that told of the great outlaw of Sherwood. Henceforward he and his Maid Marian generally formed companion figures in the May-day dances, and archery again became popular. The King, himself an admirable bowman, encouraged this noble amusement by every means in his power. He founded the establishment of archers, under the title of the Fraternity of St. George, who were authorized to "exercise shooting at all manner of marks and butts, and at the game of the popinjay, and other games, as at fowl and fowls, as well in the City as suburbs, and in all other places." There was a remarkable passage in the charter, to the effect that, in case any one slew another by an arrow shot in these sports, he was not to be sued or apprehended if he had immediately before he shot used the warning cry,-Fast! Scenes like that described in Hall's account of another of the King's Maying excursions must have also wonderfully popularized the revival of the use of the national weapon. On this occasion, "his Grace, being young, and not willing to be idle, rose in the morning very early to fetch May or green boughs, himself fresh and richly appareled, and clothed all his knights, squires, and gentlemen in white

satin, and all his guard and yeomen of the crown in white sarcenet. And so went every man with his bow and arrows shooting to the wood, and so repaired again to the court, every man with a green bough in his cap; and at his returning, many hearing of his going a-Maying were desirous to see him shoot; for at that time his Grace shot as strong and as great a length as any of his guard. There came to his Grace a certain man with bow and arrows, and desired his Grace to take the muster of him and to see him shoot. For (as) at that time his Grace was contented, the man put his one foot in his bosom, and so did shoot, and shot a very good shot, and well towards his mark; whereof not only his Grace, but all other, greatly marvelled. So the King gave him a reward for his so doing, which person afterwards of the people and of them in the court was called Foot in Bosom.'

An incident of a somewhat similar nature led to more important results. Whilst keeping his court at Windsor, Henry caused various matches to be made, in which many of the principal archers of the day were engaged. When these had all shot, and some so well that nothing better could have been possibly anticipated, the King noticed one Barlow, a member of his body-guard, who had yet to shoot. "Win them," cried he, "and thou shalt be Duke over all archers." Barlow did "win them," by surpassing the best of the previous shots; and the gratified King, having commended him for his skill, on learning that he resided in Shoreditch, named him Duke of that place. The dukedom was, it appears, hereditary, and an annual show preserved the memory of the event. So late as 1583 we find this show kept up with extraordinary magnificence. On the 17th of September of that year "the citizens set forth at their great charge a shootingmatch with much state, the Duke of Shoreditch and all his nobility and officers marching through the City of London to the shooting-place. And first he gave a summons to all his Marquises, Earls, and Barons, with all their trains of archery in and about the City of London, to be in readiness to accompany him into the field, every one with a long bow and four shafts, on the aforesaid day, to meet him in Smithfield. And so they did. The Duke with his company set forth from Merchant Tailors' Hall. There repaired unto him all those that were appointed for conducting of his person to the place of meeting, as true Barons, and a multitude of good archers in their habits, under his own ensign. Who, with sound of trumpet, drums, and other instruments, passed along Broad Street (where the Duke dwelt), through Moorfields, to Finsbury, and from thence to Smithfield. There was also the Marquis Barlo (who presented to his nobleness a wedge of gold, whilst a page flung abroad from a box glistering spangles), and the Marquis of Clerkenwell, with hunters, who wound their horns; and the Earl of Pancridge, and the Marquis of Islington, and the Marquis of Hogsden, and the Marquis of Shakelwell, and other such nobility, with all their trains, making a surprising show. For they marched in very great pomp, oddly habited, through several places and chief streets of London. The number of archers that now shot were three thousand. The number of them that accompanied the archers as whifflers and those that guarded them with bills was four thousand, besides pages and henchmen. Their attire was very gorgeous, a great many wearing chains of

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gold; the number of these chains were nine hundred and forty-two." The Duke of Shoreditch was not the only member of the aristocracy of archers in London formally recognised by the King. There was a Prince Arthur, at the head of another band, who held their meetings at Mile End. Coming one day to see their performances, the King was so pleased that he took them under his direct patronage, and confirmed by charter their "famous order of Knights of Prince Arthur's Round Table, or Society:" and from that time, whenever he saw a "good archer indeed," he chose him, and ordained such a one for a knight of the same order. It is satisfactory to find that these contemporary, and in some respects rival potentates, and their descendants, were on exceedingly good terms. On one of Prince Arthur's field-days, held in the same year as the Duke of Shoreditch's pageant just described, and with scarcely less magnificence, a deputation from the Duke presented a buck of the season to the Prince, then in his tent at Mile End, to regale him and his illustrious knights after the toils of the day.

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This was the golden age of archery as an amusement; but it was almost as brief as it was brilliant. As the introduction of gunpowder had already excluded the bow from the field, so now the growth of the City absorbed one after another all the places available for its pursuit as a pastime. Even in Hall and Henry VIII.'s time the system had begun of raising a hedge here, widening a ditch there, in the common fields around, but it was not as yet destined to be successful.

"Before this time the towns about London, as Islington, Hoxton, Shoreditch, and others, had so enclosed the common fields with hedges and ditches, that neither the young men of the City might shoot, nor the ancient persons might walk for their pleasure in the fields, except either their bows and arrows were broken or taken

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away, or the honest and substantial persons arrested or indicted, saying that no Londoners should go out of the City but in the highways. This saying sore. grieved the Londoners, and suddenly this year a great number of the City assembled themselves in a morning, and a turner in a fool's coat came crying through the city, Shovels and spades! and so many people followed, that it was wonder; and within a short space all the hedges about the towns were cast down, and the ditches filled and everything made plain, the workmen were so diligent. The King's Council, hearing of this assembly, came to the Grey Friars and sent for the Mayor and Council of the City to know the cause, which declared to them the nuisance done to the citizens, and their commodities and liberties taken from them. And so after the fields were never hedged." 99* The Chronicler's "never" applied to scarce half a century. What should I speak of the ancient daily exercises in the long bow by citizens of the City," exclaims Stow in 1598, "now almost clearly left off and forsaken? I overpass it. For, by the means of closing in of common grounds, our archers, for want of room to shoot abroad, creep into bowling-alleys, and ordinary dicing-houses, near home." A few years later James I. issued a commission to "view and survey on such grounds next adjoining to the City of London and the suburbs within two miles' compass, and the same to reduce in such order and state for the archers as they were in the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII., and to cause the banks, ditches, and quicksets to be made plain and reformed." At this period and for some time previous the great archery-grounds of London were Finsbury Fields. These extended from the open country down to the very wall of the City itself, where stood Moor Gate. The only buildings beyond Moor Gate were those scattered along a kind of avenue, then occupied by bowyers, fletchers, and stringers, but since known to fame as Grub Street, and more recently as Milton Street. Beyond Grub Street the broad meadows were dotted in every direction with the archers' marks, which were pillars of stone or wood supporting a target, the whole being crowned by a representation of a flying bird, a serpent, or a swan, according to the fancy of the individuals by whom they were generally erected. There were no less than one hundred and sixtyfour of these marks in 1594, each being distinguished by a name, most commonly of a fanciful kind, exhibiting a strange partiality for alliteration. One was called Daye's Deed, another Dunstan's Darling; others respectively, Pakes his Pillar, Partridge his Primrose. Some more than ordinarily skilful shot doubtless was often the immediate cause of the erection of a pillar. The shortest distance from one mark to another was nine score yards, the greatest nineteen! By 1737 the marks had been reduced to twenty-one only, and the archers had degenerated almost in the same proportion; the greatest distance being now only thirteen, and the least about three score yards. Compare this with the state of things in the reign of Henry VIII., when no man was allowed to shoot at a mark less distant than eleven score yards; or with the almost miraculous shots mentioned in our old ballads, when a slender hazel rod was set up to be shot at four hundred yards distant! This degeneracy afforded a fair mark to another kind of archers - the satirists, with whom Finsbury Fields and their visiters became a continual theme of amusement. One of them writes

*Hall, p. 568.

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