Again, at the Whitsuntide fair held at Hinckley in Leicestershire, one of the principal attractions was the procession of the millers, who, having assembled from all the neighbouring villages, marched in grand array with the ‘king of the millers’ at their head. From the various accounts recorded of this ceremony, it appears that the dresses were generally most elaborate; and one writer, in 1787, describing these shows, says: ‘The framework knitters, wool-combers, butchers, carpenters, &c., had each their plays, and rode in companies bearing allusions to their different trades.’ Then there was the well-known practice of ‘Crying the Fair.’ Thus, in connection with Stourbridge fair we read how in the year 1548 a proclamation was issued by the university of Cambridge in ‘crying the fair,’ in which it was directed, among other clauses, that ‘no brewer sell into the fayer a barrell of ale above two shillings; no longe ale, no red ale, no ropye ale, but good and holsome for man’s body, under the penaltie of forfeyture.’
Ravenglass fair, celebrated annually at Muncaster in Cumberland, was the scene of a peculiar ceremony, which is thus described in Lyson’s Magna Britannia: ‘The lord’s steward was attended by the sergeant of the borough of Egremont with the insignia called the bow of Egremont, the foresters with their bows and horns, and all the tenantry of the forest of Copeland, whose special service was to attend to the lord and his representatives at Ravenglass fair, and remain there during its continuance.’ In order, also, to attract visitors, various modes of diversion were contrived; these generally succeeding in bringing together large concourses of people from outlying districts. Thus, occasionally, a mock-mayor was appointed, whose duty it was to try any unfortunate person who on some trumped-up charge might be brought before him. It has been suggested that these mock-trials may have originated in the courts which were granted at fairs ‘to take notice of all manner of causes and disorders committed upon the place, called pie-powder, because justice was done to any injured person before the dust of the fair was off his feet.’ A notable instance of this custom was kept up at Bodmin Riding in Cornwall, on St Thomas à Becket’s Day. A mock-court having been summoned, presided over by a Lord of Misrule, any unpopular individual so unlucky as to be captured was dragged to answer a charge of felony; the imputed crime being such as his appearance might suggest—a negligence in his attire or a breach of manners. With ludicrous gravity, we are told in the Parochial History of Cornwall, ‘a mock-trial was then commenced, and judgment was gravely pronounced, when the culprit was hurried off to receive his punishment. In this, his apparel was generally a greater sufferer than his person, as it commonly terminated in his being thrown into the water or the mire’—‘Take him before the Mayor of Halgaver;’ ‘Present him in Halgaver Court,’ being old Cornish proverbs.
A similar institution has existed from time immemorial at the little town of Penryn in Cornwall, at the annual festival of Nutting, when the ‘Mayor of Mylor’ is chosen. According to popular opinion, says Mr Hunt, in his Romances of the West of England, ‘there is a clause in the borough charter compelling the legitimate mayor to surrender his power to the “Mayor of Mylor” on the day in question, and to lend the town-sergeant’s paraphernalia to the gentlemen of the shears.’ At the yearly fair, too, held in the village of Tarleton, a mock-mayor was until a very few years ago elected, this ceremony forming part of the after-dinner proceedings. ‘Three persons,’ says a correspondent of Notes and Queries, ‘were nominated, and it was the rule that each candidate on receiving a vote should drink a glass of wine—a “bumper” to the health of the voter—so that the one elected was not very steady on his feet when all the company had polled and the newly elected mayor had to be installed.’
Lastly, referring to the days on which fairs were formerly held, it appears from The Book of Fairs that they were kept up on Good-Friday at St Austell, Cornwall; Droitwich, Worcestershire; Grinton, Yorkshire; High-Budleigh, Devonshire; and at Wimborne, Dorsetshire. A correspondent of Notes and Queries says that he saw a ‘brisk fair going on in the little village of Perran’s Porth, Cornwall, not far from the curious oratory of St Piran, on Good-Friday in 1878.’ In some places, too, Sunday seems to have been selected; for in Benson’s Vindication of the Methodists we find the following paragraph, with special reference to Lincolnshire: ‘Wakes, feasts, and dancing begin in many parishes on the Lord’s Day, on which also some fairs and annual markets are held.’
THE LAST OF THE STUARTS.
A MODERN ROMANCE.
I.—THE DISINHERITED PRINCE.
It was the proud boast of the late Mr Charles James Stuart, of Balquhalloch, N.B., that he was the direct representative and lawful heir of the unfortunate royal family of Scotland. I do not quite know how he derived his descent, or from whom; but I feel sure that, had he lived at the beginning of the eighteenth instead of the nineteenth century, he would, with considerable confidence, have contested the right of Queen Anne and the earlier Georges to reign over the northern, if not also the southern portion of Great Britain. He was not born, however, until 1796; and at that time there were in the Highlands but few people who still chafed under Hanoverian rule. When, therefore, as a young man, he first went to London, instead of plotting rebellion against the authority of King George III., he fell in love with an English girl named Eleanor Tudor, who also claimed, and, I think, not without justice, to be lineally descended from royal ancestors. A portrait of this lady was until quite recently in the possession of her daughter, Miss Stuart. She was not beautiful; and I strongly suspect that Mr Stuart would not have wooed her, had she borne any other name than Tudor; but the prospect of once more uniting the old kingly stocks of England and Scotland proved too seductive to be resisted; and in the summer of 1817, the laird married Miss Tudor at St James’s, Piccadilly, and at once carried her off to his northern home. In the following year, Mrs Stuart gave birth to the above-mentioned daughter, who in due course received the name of Henrietta Maria; and when in 1820 a son was also born at Balquhalloch, he was, with equal fittingness, baptised Charles Augustus.
The old laird died in 1861; but in the meantime his son had grown up and married a pretty but penniless governess; and in 1857 a son, who was named Charles Edward, had been born to him. Mr Charles Augustus Stuart, who, I regret to say, had more respect for whisky than for his magnificent ancestry, was seized with apoplexy in 1878, shortly afterwards departing this life; and in 1880, when the events which I am about to narrate began, the only living representatives of the old laird were his daughter Henrietta Maria, an eccentric lady of sixty-two; and his grandson Charles Edward, a lively and, I may add, rather unscrupulous fellow of three-and-twenty.
Miss Stuart was a tall and very dignified person. Twenty years ago, the thirsty cravings of Charles Augustus had dragged him into pecuniary difficulties, from which he only extricated himself by selling Balquhalloch and all its contents to his sister; and from that time, Miss Stuart was mistress of the fine old house, and maintained herself there in a style almost worthy of the descendant of a hundred kings. She was rich, her mother’s relations having at different times bequeathed to her sums amounting in the aggregate to nearly three-quarters of a million; and she was generous, as all the poor of her neighbourhood would gladly testify; but, as I have already said, she was eccentric. She regarded herself as a British princess; she insisted upon her servants treating her as such; she lived in considerable state, and had a large household; and whenever she had occasion to sign her name, she signed it magnificently, ‘Henrietta Maria, P.’