Cheshire.
The annual setting of the watch on St. John’s Eve, in the city of Chester, was an affair of great moment. By an ordinance of the mayor, aldermen, and common councilmen, of that corporation, dated in the year 1564, and preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, a pageant which is expressly said to be “according to ancient custom,” is ordained to consist of four giants, one unicorn, one dromedary, one camel, one luce, one dragon, and six hobby-horses, with other figures. By another MS. in the same library, it is said that Henry Hardware, Esq., the mayor in 1599, caused the giants in the Midsummer show to be broken, “and not to goe the devil in his feathers;” and it appears that he caused a man in complete armour to go in their stead; but in the year 1601, John Ratclyffe, being mayor, set out the giants and Midsummer show as of old it was wont to be kept. In the time of the Commonwealth the show was discontinued, and the giants with the beasts were destroyed. At the Restoration of Charles II. the citizens of Chester replaced their pageant, and caused all things to be made new, because the old models were broken.—See Every Day Book, vol. i. p. 834.