John Jones, of Felix Terrace, Islington, corroborated this evidence.
Mr. Benett said, that the Act of Parliament laid down that no tradesman, labourer, or other person shall exercise his worldly calling on the Lord’s day, it not being a work of necessity or charity. He would ask whether it was not a work of necessity for the vicar to proceed to church to preach. A dissenter might say it was not a work of necessity. The coachman was not an artificer who was paid by the hour or the day, but he was engaged by the year, or the quarter, and was not to be viewed in the light of a grocer, or tradesman, who opened his shop for the sale of his goods on the Sabbath day. After explaining the law upon the subject, he said that he was of opinion that the defendant driving the vicar to church on Sundays, to perform his religious duties, was an act of necessity, and did not come within the meaning of the law, and he dismissed the case.
The clergy did not seem to be much in favour with their flocks, for I read in the Annual Register, 1 Aug., of “A New Way of Paying Church Rates.—Mr. Osborne, a dissenter, of Tewkesbury, having declined to pay Church Rates, declaring that he could not conscientiously do so, a sergeant and two officers of the police went to his house for the purpose of levying under a distress warrant to the amount due from him. The officers were asked to sit down, which they did, and Mr. Osborne went into his garden, procured a hive of bees, and threw it into the middle of the chamber. The officers were, of course, obliged to retreat, but they secured enough of the property to pay the rate, and the costs of the levy, besides which, they obtained a warrant against Mr. Osborne, who would, most likely, pay dearly for his new and conscientious method of settling Church Rate accounts.”
CHAPTER X.
The Eglinton Tournament—Sale of Armour, &c.—The Queen of Beauty and her Cook—Newspapers and their Sales.
The Earl of Eglinton had a “bee in his bonnet,” which was none other than reviving the tournaments of the Age of Chivalry, with real armour, horses and properties; and he inoculated with his craze most of the young aristocracy, and induced them to join him in carrying it out. The preliminary rehearsals took place in the grounds of the Eyre Arms Tavern, Kilburn. The last of these came off on 13 July, in the presence of some 6,000 spectators, mostly composed of the aristocracy. The following is a portion of the account which appeared in the Times of 15 July:
“At 4 o’clock the business of the day commenced. There might be seen men in complete steel, riding with light lances at the ring, attacking the ‘quintain,’ and manœuvering their steeds in every variety of capricole. Indeed, the show of horses was one of the best parts of the sight. Trumpeters were calling the jousters to horse, and the wooden figure, encased in iron panoply, was prepared for the attack. A succession of chevaliers, sans peur et sans reproche, rode at their hardy and unflinching antagonist, who was propelled to the combat by the strength of several stout serving-men, in the costume of the olden time, and made his helmet and breastplate rattle beneath their strokes, but the wooden
. . . Knight
Was mickle of might,
And stiff in Stower did stand,grinning defiance through the barred aventaile of his headpiece. It was a sight that might have roused the spirit of old Froissart, or the ghost of Hotspur. The Knight had, certainly, no easy task to perform; the weight of armour was rather heavier than the usual trappings of a modern dandy, and the heat of the sun appeared to be baking the bones of some of the competitors. Be this as it may, there was no flinching. The last part of the tournament consisted of the Knights tilting at each other. The Earl of Eglinton, in a splendid suit of brass armour, with garde de reins of plated chain mail, and bearing on his casque a plume of ostrich feathers, was assailed by Lord Cranstoun, in a suit of polished steel, which covered him from top to toe, the steel shoes, or sollarets, being of the immense square-toed fashion of the time of Henry VIII. The lances of these two champions were repeatedly shivered in the attack, but neither was unhorsed; fresh lances were supplied by the esquires, and the sport grew ‘fast and furious.’ Lord Glenlyon and another knight, whose armour prevented him from being recognized, next tilted at each other, but their horses were not sufficiently trained to render the combat as it ought to have been, and swerved continually from the barrier. It was nearly eight o’clock before the whole of the sports were concluded and the company withdrawn. We believe no accident happened, though several gentlemen who essayed to ‘witch the world with noble horsemanship’ were thrown, amidst the laughter of the spectators. Captain Maynard proved himself a superior rider, by the splendid style at which he leaped his horse, at speed, repeatedly over the barrier, and the admirable manner in which he performed the modern lance exercise, and made a very beautiful charger curvet round and round his lance placed upright on the ground. The whole of the arrangements were under the direction of Mr. Pratt, to whose discretion the ordering of the tilting, the armour and arming, and all the appliances for the tournament have been entrusted.
“Considering that the business of Saturday was but a rehearsal, and, putting entirely out of the question the folly, or wisdom, of the whole thing, it must be acknowledged that it has been well got up. Some of the heralds’ and pursuivants’ costumes are very splendid. There is an immense store of armour of all sorts, pennons, lances, trappings, and all the details of the wars of the middle ages. The display in Scotland will, certainly, be a gorgeous pageant, and a most extraordinary, if not most rational, piece of pastime.”
The three days’ jousting and hospitality at Eglinton Castle, Ayrshire, which commenced on the 28th, and ended on the 30th, August, are said to have cost the Earl of Eglinton the sum of £40,000. He invited the flower of the aristocracy to attend—all the armour was choice and old, and the costumes were splendid. Every accessory was perfect in its way; and so it should have been, for it was two years in preparation. The Marquis of Londonderry was King of the Tourney, and Lady Seymour, a grand-daughter of the Sheridan, was the “Queen of Love and Beauty.”
By the evening of the 27th, Eglinton Castle was not only filled from cellar to garret, but the surrounding towns and villages were crammed full, and people had to rough it. Accommodation for man, or beast, rose from 500 to 1,000 per cent.; houses in the neighbourhood, according to their dimensions, were let from £10 to £30 for the time; and single beds, in the second best apartments of a weaver’s cabin, fetched from 10/- to 20/- a night, while the master and mistress of the household, with their little ones, coiled themselves up in any out of the way corner, as best they might. Stables, byres, and sheds were in requisition for the horses, and, with every available atom of space of this description, it was found all too little, as people flocked from all parts of the country.
The invitation given by the Earl was universal. Those who applied for tickets of admission to the stands were requested to appear in ancient costume, fancy dresses, or uniforms, and farmers and others were asked to appear in bonnets and kilts, and many—very many—did so; but although all the bonnet makers in Kilmarnock, and all the plaid manufacturers in Scotland, had been employed from the time of the announcement, onwards, they could not provide