Ben Jonson, Drayton, and other poets[61] of that age, wrote verses on this festivity, which, in 1636, were collected into one volume, and published under the title of Annalia Dubrensia.
[61] Thomas Randolph, Thomas Heywood, Owen Feltham, and Shackerly Marmyon.
These diversities were at length terminated by the breaking out of the civil wars, but were revived at the Restoration; and the memory of their founder is still preserved in the name Dover’s Hill, applied to an eminence of the Cotswold range, about a mile from the village of Campden.—Britton and Brayley, Beauties of England and Wales, 1803, vol. v. p. 655; see Book of Days, vol. i. 712.
May 16.]
Norfolk.
May 16.]
Norfolk.
In the parish of Rockland, annually on the 16th of May, a sort of country fair is held, called by the villagers the “Guild,” and which is evidently a relic of the Guild of St. John the Baptist, held here in St. Peter’s Church before the Reformation. On this occasion a mayor of the Guild is elected, and he is chaired about the three parishes of Rockland, and gathers largess, which is afterwards spent in a frolic. There is another antique custom connected with the guild which yet obtains: the inhabitants of certain houses in the “Street” have the privilege of hanging oaken-boughs outside their doors (and their houses are thence called “bough houses”), and on the day of the guild they draw home-brewed ale for all customers, and are not interfered with for so doing, either by the village licensed publican or the excise authorities.—N. &. Q. 2nd S. vol. vii. p. 450.