[506] On Hock-tide and the Hock-play generally see Brand-Ellis, i. 107; Strutt, 349; Sharpe, 125; Dyer, 188; S. Denne, Memoir on Hokeday in Archaeologia, vii. 244.
[507] Cf. Appendix H. An allusion to the play by Sir R. Morrison (†1542) is quoted in chap. xxv.
[508] Laneham, or his informant, actually said, in error, 1012. On the historical event see Ramsay, i. 353.
[509] There were performers both on horse and on foot. Probably hobby-horses were used, for Jonson brings in Captain Cox ‘in his Hobby-horse,’ which was ‘foaled in Queen Elizabeth’s time’ in the Masque of Owls (ed. Cunningham, iii. 188).
[510] Cf. Representations, s. v. Coventry.
[511] Rossius, Hist. Regum Angliae (ed. Hearne, 1716), 105 ‘in cuius signum usque hodie illa die vulgariter dicta Hox Tuisday ludunt in villis trahendo cordas partialiter cum aliis iocis.’ Rous, who died 1491, is speaking of the death of Hardicanute. On the event see Ramsay, i. 434. Possibly both events were celebrated in the sixteenth century at Coventry. Two of the three plays proposed for municipal performance in 1591 were the ‘Conquest of the Danes’ and the ‘History of Edward the Confessor.’ These were to be upon the ‘pagens,’ and probably they were more regular dramas than the performance witnessed by Elizabeth in 1575 (Representations, s. v. Coventry).
[512] Leland, Collectanea (ed. Hearne), v. 298 ‘uno certo die heu usitato (forsan Hoc vocitato) hoc solempni festo paschatis transacto, mulieres homines, alioque die homines mulieres ligare, ac cetera media utinam non inhonesta vel deteriora facere moliantur et exercere, lucrum ecclesiae fingentes, set dampnum animae sub fucato colore lucrantes, &c.’ Riley, 561, 571, gives London proclamations against ‘hokkyng’ of 1405 and 1409.
[513] Brand-Ellis, i. 113; Lysons, Environs of London, i. 229; C. Kerry, Accts. of St. Lawrence, Reading; Hobhouse, 232; N. E. D. s. vv. Hock, &c.
[514] Owen and Blakeway, Hist. of Shrewsbury, i. 559.
[515] Dyer, 191; Ditchfield, 90.