[22] A pageant was originally the structure on which the performance took place. Archdeacon Rogers, who saw the performance at Chester in 1594, says that ‘Every company had its pagiant, or parte, whiche pagiants weare a high scafolde with 2 roomes, a higher and a lower, upon 4 wheeles. In the lower they apparelled themselves, and in the higher they played, being all open on the tope, that all behoulders mighte heare and see them.’
[23] One is reminded of Falstaff’s words (1 Henry IV. Act i., Scene 2): ‘For we, that take purses, go by the moon and seven stars; and not by Phœbus,—he, that wandering knight so fair.’ Again, Pistol says; ‘Sweet knight, I kiss thy nief. What! we have seen the seven stars.’
[24] King Richard II. had two badges: the Sun in splendour, and the White Hart. The former is shown on the mainsail of the vessel in which he returned from Ireland, in an illumination to a manuscript account of Richard, by a gentleman of his suite (Harl. MS. 1319). It is also mentioned by the poet Gower. The Sun in splendour, encircled with a cloud distilling drops of rain, is a charge in the arms of the Distillers’ Company. I may add that the Three Crowns appear in the arms of the Skinners’ Company, which according to Strype were granted in the 4th year of Edward VI.
[25] ‘Some Account of the Parish of St. Clement Danes,’ by John Diprose. 1868. Vol. i., p. 257.
[26] Guillim intimates the reason for representing the bear muzzled in heraldry: ‘The beare by nature is a cruell beast, but this here demonstrated unto you, is (to prevent the mischief it might otherwise do, as you may observe) as it were, bound to the good behaviour with a muzle.’—‘Heraldry,’ sec. iii., chap. xv., p. 199. 1660.
[27] Hicks Hall was a session-house for Middlesex. At the corner of St. John Street, Clerkenwell, and Peter’s Lane, affixed to the wall of the Queen’s Head tavern, is a stone tablet with the following inscription:
‘Opposite this Place Hicks Hall formerly stood, 1 mile 1 furlong from the Standard in Cornhill, 4 furlongs 205 yards from Holborn Barrs down Holborn, up Snow Hill, Cow Lane and through Smithfield.’
A Jacobean chimney-piece from Hicks Hall, and a portrait of Sir Baptist, are in the Sessions House, Clerkenwell Green. See an amusing article on Suburban Milestones, in Knight’s ‘London.’
[28] Whitechapel Mount was an elevation of ground generally thought to have been composed, in part at least, of rubbish from the Great Fire: Lysons, however, denies this. Another idea is, that it was a great burial-place for victims of the Plague of 1665. A fort was built here in 1642, one of the series then thrown round London. The Mount is shown in Strype’s map of 1720, and in a view of London Hospital, by Chatelain. Towards the end of last century it was a place of resort for pugilists and dog-fighters. Mount Street and Mount Place, immediately west of the London Hospital, Whitechapel Road, now occupy the ground, which is still slightly raised.
[29] This letter is among the Remembrancia at the Guildhall, and is noted on page 355 of the Analytical Index, published in 1878.