London boasted several maypoles before the days of Puritanism. Many parishes vied with each other in the height and adornment of their own. One famed pole stood in Basing Lane, near St. Paul’s Cathedral, and was in the time of Stow kept in the hostelry called Gerard’s Hall. “In the high-roofed hall of this house,” says he, “sometime stood a large fir pole, which reached to the roof thereof—a pole of forty feet long and fifteen inches about, fabled to be the justing staff of Gerard the Giant.” A carved wooden figure of this giant, pole in hand, stood over the gate of this old inn until March 1852, when the whole building was demolished for city improvements.—Book of Days, vol. i. p. 576. See Every Day Book, vol. ii. p. 612.
A maypole was annually erected on May-day morning in Leadenhall Street, then called Cornhill, before the south door of the church known as that of St. Andrew the Apostle; and, in order to distinguish this church from others dedicated to the same saint, it was termed in consequence St. Andrew’s-Under-Shaft.[48] On the 1st May, 1517 (9th of Henry VIII.), a violent tumult occurred in the city, and this pole was not raised afterwards.[49] The inhabitants had long regarded with much jealousy the numerous foreigners who about that time took up their abode in London[50] and practised various trades, to the great injury, as was then thought, of the citizens, and on the 28th of April a quarrel took place between some of the London apprentices—at that time a powerful body—and two or three foreigners whom they met in the street, when blows were exchanged. This disturbance, however, was quickly quelled, but a rumour suddenly became general, although none knew on what grounds, that on the ensuing May-day, taking advantage of the sports and pastimes which were expected, all foreigners then in the city would be slain. In consequence of this various precautions were adopted by the authorities with a view to prevent if possible any contemplated outrage, and all men were commanded to stay in their houses. Notwithstanding this injunction, on the evening before May-day two striplings were found in Cheapside “playing at the bucklers,” and having been commanded to desist, the cry of “’Prentices, ’prentices, bats and clubs!” the usual gathering words at that period, was heard through the streets, and many hundreds of persons, armed with clubs and other weapons, assembled from all quarters, broke open the prisons, destroyed many houses occupied by foreigners, and committed other excesses. After some exertions on the part of the city authorities,[51] nearly three hundred of the rioters were captured. A commission was appointed to inquire into the insurrection, and a great number of the prisoners were condemned to die, but with the exception of one John Lincolne, who was hung, they were all ultimately pardoned. After this circumstance, which acquired for the day on which it happened the title of “Evil May-day,” and induced those in power to discountenance sports which led to large congregations, the Cornhill shaft was hung on a range of hooks under the “pentises[52]” of a neighbouring row of houses, where it remained till 1549. In that year, one Sir Stephen, curate of St. Catherine Cree, in a sermon which he preached at Paul’s Cross, persuaded the people that this pole had been made into an idol by naming the church of St. Andrew with the addition of Under that Shaft; and so worked upon them, that in the afternoon of the same day, “after they had dined,” the inhabitants with great labour raised the pole off the hooks on which it had rested thirty-two years, and each man sawing off for himself a piece equal to the length of his house, it was quickly demolished and burned.—Godwin and Britton, Churches of London, 1839; Brayley, Londiniana, 1829, vol. iii. p. 223; Hall’s Chronicle, 1517.
[48] This pole, when it was fixed in the ground, was higher than the church steeple; and it is to this that Chaucer the poet refers when he says, speaking of a vain boaster, that he bears his head “as he would bear the great shaft of Cornhill.”—Stow’s Survey, B. ii. p. 65; Godwin and Britton, Churches of London, 1839.
[49] Pennant, London (5th edition, p. 587), says this shaft gave rise to the insurrection. Godwin and Britton deny this was the case.
[50] Hall, in his Chronicle, says these foreigners “compassed the citie rounde aboute, in Southwarke, in Westminster, Temple Barre, Holborne, Sayncte Martynes, Sayncte John’s Strete, Algate, Toure Hyll, and Sainct Katherines.”
[51] Cholmondeley, constable of the Tower, discharged some guns into the streets, while the Earls of Shrewsbury and Surrey, collecting the gentlemen of the Inns of Court, restrained the violence of the populace.—Lyttleton, History of England, vol. ii. p. 167.
[52] Of the pent-house, or shelving roof projecting from the main wall, by which the shops at that period were ordinarily protected, many examples, Godwin and Britton say, existed in their time.
Brayley in his Londiniana (vol. iv. p. 318) says, nearly opposite to Craven Buildings is a low public-house, bearing the sign of the Cock and Pye (a contraction for the Cock and Magpye), which two centuries ago was almost the only dwelling in the eastern part of Drury Lane, except the mansion of the Drewries. Hither the youths and maidens of the metropolis, who, in social revelry on May-day threaded the jocund dance around the maypole in the Strand, were accustomed to resort for cakes and ale and other refreshments.
May Fair.
—This saturnalia was held by a grant of the Abbot of Westminster, “with revelry for fourteen days.” It took place annually, commencing on the first of May. The locality was anciently called Brook Field, the site of which is now covered with Curzon Street, Hertford Street, and Chesterfield House. Frequent allusions to the fair are found in plays and pamphlets of Charles II.’s time, and hand-bills and advertisements of the reign of James II. and his successors are in existence.