company and went thither (I thought I should have found a great company in the church); when I came there, the church door was fast locked. I tarried there half an hour and more; at last the key was found, and one of the parish comes to me and says: This is a busy day with us, we cannot heare you; this is Robin Hoode's daye, the parish is gone abroad to gather for Robin Hoode.' I thought my rochet should have been regarded, though I were not: but it would not serve, but was fayne to give place to Robin Hoode's men."1

We read, in Skene's Regiam Majestatem, "Gif anie provest, baillie, counsell, or communitie, chuse Robert Hude, litell John, Abbat of Unreason, Queens of Maii, the chusers sall tyne their friedome for five zeares; and sall bee punished at the King's will; and the accepter of sick ane office salbe banished furth of the realme." And under "pecuniall crimes,"

all persons, quha a landwort, or within burgh, chuses Robert Hude, sall pay ten pounds, and sall be warded induring the King's pleasure." 2

رو

Douce thinks "the introduction of Robin Hood into the celebration of May, probably suggested the addition of a King or Lord of May. The Summer King and Queen, or Lord and Lady of the May, however, are characters of very high antiquity. In the Synod at Worcester, A.D. 1240, can. 38, a strict command was given, "Ne intersint ludis inhonestis nec

In Coates's History of Reading, p. 214, in the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Lawrence Parish, 1499, is the following article: "It. rec. of the gaderyng of Robyn-hod, xixs." In the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Helen's, Abingdon, 1566, we find eighteen pence charged for setting up Robin Hood's bower. See Nichols's Illustrations of Ancient Manners and Expences, p. 143.

2 Ihre, in his Suio-Gothic Glossary, makes the following mention of the King or Lord of May upon the Continent:-"Maigrefwe dicebatur, qui mense Maijo serto floreo redimitus solenni pompa per plateas et vicos circumducebatur. Commemorant Historici, Gustavum I. Suionum Regem anno 1526, sub nundinis Ericianis vel d. 18. Maii ejusmodi Comitem Majum creasse Johannem Magnum, Archiep. Upsaliensem. Et quum moris esset, ut Comes hic imaginarius satellitium, quod eum stipaverat, convivio exciperet, fecit id Johannes non sine ingenti impensa, ut ipse in Historia Metropolitana conqueritur. Conf. Westenhielms Hist. Gust. I. ad annum, necnon Tegel in Historia hujus Reg. Part. 1. In Anglia quoque ejusmodi Reges et Reginæ Majales floribus ornati a juventute olim creabantur, quo facto circa perticam eminentiorem, nostris Maistang dictam, choreas ducebant, et varios alios ludos exercebant." Tom. ii. p. 118, sub v.

sustineant ludos fieri de rege et regina, nec arietes levari, nec palestras publicas."1

Lysons, in his extracts from the Churchwardens' and Chamberlains' Accounts at Kingston-upon Thames, affords us some curious particulars of a sport called the "Kyngham," or Kinggame. "Be yt in mynd, that the 19 yere of King Harry the 7, at the geveng out of the Kynggam by Harry Bower and Harry Nycol, cherchewardens, amounted clerely to £4. 2s. 6d. of that same game.

"Mem. That the 27 day of Joun, ao. 21 Kyng H. 7, that we, Adam Bakhous and Harry Nycol, hath made account for the Kenggam, that same tym don Wylm Kempe, Kenge, and Joan Whytebrede, quen, and all costs deducted.

£ s. d.

4 5 0

0 33

23 Hen. 7. Paid for whet and malt and vele and motton
and pygges and ger and coks for the Kyngam
To the taberare

To the leutare

1 Hen. 8. ham

Paid out of the Churche-box at Walton Kyng

Paid to Robert Neyle for goyng to Wyndesore
for maister doctor's horse agaynes the Kyngham day
For bakyng the Kyngham brede
To a laborer for bering home of the geere after

000

262

080

036

0 4 0

0 0 6

0 1 0"

the Kyngham was don The contributions to the celebration of the same game, Lysons observes, in the neighbouring parishes, show that the Kyngham was not confined to Kingston. In another quotation from the same accounts, 24 Hen. VII., the "cost of the Kyngham and Robyn-hode" appears in one entry, viz.

"A kylderkin of 3 halfpennye bere and a kilderkin of singgyl bere .

7 bushels of whete

2 bushels and of rye

The coks for their labour

1 [This passage is quoted by Kennett, in his Glossary, p. 15 in his explanation of the quintain.]

The clear profits, 15 Henry VIII. (the last time Lysons found it mentioned), amounted to £9 10s. 6d., a very considerable sum for that period.

In a comedy by Beaumont and Fletcher, entitled the Knight of the burning Pestle, 1613, Rafe, one of the characters, appears as Lord of the May;

"And, by the common-councell of my fellows in the Strand,

With gilded staff, and crossed skarfe, the May-Lord here I stand." He adds:

"The Morrice rings while Hobby Horse doth foot it featously;" and, addressing the group of citizens assembled around him, "from the top of Conduit-head," he says:

"And lift aloft your velvet heads, and, slipping of your gowne,
With bells on legs, and napkins cleane unto your shoulders tide,
With scarfs and garters as you please, and hey for our town cry'd:
March out and shew your willing minds by twenty and by twenty,
To Hogsdon or to Newington, where ale and cakes are plenty.
And let it nere be said for shame, that we, the youths of London,
Lay thrumming of our caps at home, and left our custome undone.
Up then, I say, both young and old, both man and maid, a Maying,
With drums and guns that bounce aloude, and merry taber playing."

In Sir David Dalrymple's extracts from the Book of the Universal Kirk, in the year 1576, Robin Hood is styled King of May.

[The following curious account is extracted from Stow's Survay of London, 1603, p. 98: "In the moneth of May, namely on May-day in the morning, every man, except impediment, would walke into the sweete meadowes and greene woods, there to rejoyce their spirites with the beauty and savour of sweete flowers, and with the harmony of birds, praysing God in their kind, and for example hereof, Edward Hall hath noted that K. Henry the Eight, as in the 3. of his raigne and divers other yeares, so namely in the seaventh of his raigne, on May-day in the morning, with Queene Katheren his wife, accompanied with many lords and ladies, rode a Maying from Greenwitch to the high ground of Shooters Hill, whereas they passed by the way, they espied a companie of tall yeomen cloathed all in greene, with greene whoodes, and with bowes and arrowes to the number of two hundred. One, being their chieftaine, was called Robin Hoode, who required the king and his companie to stay and see his men

shoote, whereunto the king graunting, Robin Hoode whistled, and all the 200 archers shot off, loosing all at once, and when he whistled againe, they likewise shot againe, their arrowes whistled by craft of the head, so that the noyse was straunge and loude, which greatly delighted the king, queene, and their companie. Moreover, this Robin Hoode desired the king and queene, with their retinue, to enter the greene wood, where, in harbours made of boughes and decked with flowers, they were set and served plentifully with venison and wine by Robin Hoode and his meynie, to their great contentment, and had other pageants and pastimes." This description has been already slightly alluded to.]

:

FRIAR TUCK.

Tollett describes this character upon his window, as in the full clerical tonsure, with a chaplet of white and red beads in his right hand and, expressive of his professed humility, his eyes are cast upon the ground. His corded girdle and his russet habit denote him to be of the Franciscan Order, or one of the Grey Friars. His stockings are red; his red girdle is ornamented with a golden twist, and with a golden tassel. At his girdle hangs a wallet for the reception of provision, the only revenue of the mendicant orders of religious, who were named Walleteers, or Budget-bearers. Steevens supposes this Morris Friar designed for Friar Tuck, chaplain to Robin Hood, as King of May. He is mentioned by Drayton, in lines already quoted at p. 257.

He is known to have formed one of the characters in the May-games during the reign of Henry the Eighth, and had been probably introduced into them at a much earlier period. From the occurrence of this name on other occasions, there is good reason for supposing that it was a sort of generic appellation for any friar, and that it originated from the dress of the order, which was tucked or folded at the waist by means of a cord or girdle. Thus Chaucer, in his Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, says of the Reve:

"Tucked he was, as is a frere aboute:"

and he describes one of the friars in the Sompnour's Tale : "With scrippe and tipped staff, y-tucked hie."

This Friar maintained his situation in the Morris under the

reign of Elizabeth, being thus mentioned in Warner's Albion's England:

Tho' Robin Hood, litell John, frier Tucke, and Marian, deftly play : but is not heard of afterwards. In Ben Jonson's Masque of Gipsies, the clown takes notice of his omission in the dance: "There is no Maid Marian nor Friar amongst them, which is a surer mark."

The Friar's coat, as appears from some of the extracts of Churchwardens' and Chamberlains' Accounts of Kingston, already quoted, was generally of russet. In an ancient drama, called the Play of Robin Hood, very proper to be played in May-games, a friar, whose name is Tuck, is one of the principal characters. He comes to the forest in search of Robin Hood, with an intention to fight him, but consents to become chaplain to his lady.

THE FOOL.

He

Tollett, describing the Morris-dancers in his window, calls this the counterfeit Fool, that was kept in the royal palace, and in all great houses, to make sport for the family. appears with all the badges of his office; the bauble in his hand, and a coxcomb hood, with asses' ears, on his head. The top of the hood rises into the form of a cock's neck and head, with a bell at the latter: and Minshew's Dictionary, 1627, under the word Cock's-comb, observes, that "natural idiots and fools have [accustomed] and still do accustome themselves to weare in their cappes cocke's feathers, or a hat with the necke and head of a cocke on the top, and a bell thereon." His hood is blue, guarded or edged with yellow at its scalloped bottom; his doublet is red, striped across, or rayed, with a deeper red, and edged with yellow; his girdle yellow; his left-side hose yellow, with a red shoe; and his right-side hose blue, soled with red leather. 1

In the Churchwardens' Accounts of the parish of St. Helen's,

1 There is in Olaus Magnus, 1555, p. 524, a delineation of a Fool, or Jester, with several bells upon his habit, with a bauble in his hand; and he has on his head a hood with asses' ears, a feather, and the resemblance of the comb of a cock. It seems, from the Prologue to the play of King Henry the Eighth, that Shakespeare's Fools should be dressed" in a long motley coat guarded with yellow."