London

by Walter Besant

If it was a city of hard work, it was also a city of play in plenty. London citizens, old and young, have always delighted beyond measure in games, shows, sports, and amusements of every kind. There were many holidays, and Sunday was not a day of gloom.

The calendar of sport begins with the first day of the year, and ends with the last day.

The year began with New-year's gifts:

These giftes the husband gives his wife and father eke the child,
And master on his men bestows the like with favour milde,
And good beginning of the year they wish and wish again,
According to the ancient guise of heathen people vaine.
These eight days no man doth require his debtes of any man;
Their tables do they furnish forth with all the meat they can.

There were skating and sliding upon the ice in Moorfields, where the shallow ponds froze easily; or they played at quarter-staff, at hocking, at single-stick, at foot-ball, and at bucklers. In the evening they played at cards and "tables" and dice.

Now men and maids do merry make
At stool-ball and at barley-break

On Shrove Tuesday they had cock-fighting, a sport continued with unabated popularity until within the memory of man—nay, it is rumored that he who knows where to look for it may still enjoy that humanizing spectacle. Every Friday in Lent the young men went forth to Smithfield and held mock fights, but the custom was in time discontinued; at Easter they had boat tournaments. At this holy season also they had boar fights, and the baiting of bulls and bears. They had stage plays—the parish clerk in Chaucer "played Herod on a scaffold high." In the year 1391 the parish clerks had a play at Skinners Well, Smithfield, which lasted for three days. In 1409 they represented the creation of the world, and it lasted eight days.

Then there were the pageants, shows, and ridings in the city. Here are two, out of several described by Stow.

Of triumphant shows made by the citizens of London, ye may read, in the year 1236, the 20th of Henry III., Andrew Bockwell then being mayor, how Eleanor, daughter to Reymond, Earl of Provence, riding through the city towards Westminster, there to be crowned Queen of England, the city was adorned with silks, and in the night with lamps, cressets, and other lights without number, besides many pageants and strange devices there presented; the citizens also rode to meet the king and queen, clothed in long garments embroidered about with gold, and silks of divers colours, their horses gallantly trapped to the number of three hundred and sixty, every man bearing a cup of gold or silver in his hand, and the king's trumpeters sounding before them. These citizens did minister wine as bottlers, which is their service, at their coronation. More, in the year 1293, for victory obtained by Edward I. against the Scots, every citizen, according to their several trade, made their several show, but especially the fish-mongers, which in a solemn procession passed through the city, having, amongst other pageants and shows, four sturgeons gilt, carried on four horses; then four salmons of silver on four horses; and after them six-and-forty armed knights riding on horses, made like luces of the sea; and then one representing St. Magnus, because it was upon St. Magnus' day, with a thousand horsemen, &c.

One other show, in the year 1377, was made by the citizens for disport of the young prince, Richard, son to the Black Prince, in the feast of Christmas, in this manner: On the Sunday before Candlemas, in the night, one hundred and thirty citizens, disguised, and well horsed, in a mummery, with sound of trumpets, sackbuts, cornets, shalmes, and other minstrels, and innumerable torch-lights of wax, rode from Newgate, through Cheap, over the bridge, through Southwark, and so to Kennington beside Lambhith, where the young prince remained with his mother and the Duke of Lancaster his uncle, the earls of Cambridge, Hertford, Warwick, and Suffolk, with divers other lords. In the first rank did ride forty-eight in the likeness and habit of esquires, two and two together, clothed in red coats and gowns of say or sandal, with comely visors on their faces; after them came riding forty-eight knights in the same livery of colour and stuff; then followed one richly arrayed like an emperor; and after him some distance, one stately attired like a pope, whom followed twenty-four cardinals, and after them eight or ten with black visors, not amiable, as if they had been legates from some foreign princes. These maskers, after they had entered Kennington, alighted from their horses, and entered the hall on foot; which done, the prince, his mother, and the lords, came out of the chamber into the hall, whom the said mummers did salute, showing by a pair of dice upon the table their desire to play with the prince, which they so handled that the prince did always win when he cast them. Then the mummers set to the prince three jewels, one after another, which were a bowl of gold, a cup of gold, and a ring of gold, which the prince won at three casts. Then they set to the prince's mother, the duke, the earls, and other lords, to every one a ring of gold, which they did also win. After which they were feasted, and the music sounded, the prince and the lords danced on the one part with the mummers, which did also dance; which jollity being ended, they were again made to drink, and then departed in order as they came.

Whenever an excuse could be found, the Mayor, Sheriffs, and Aldermen held a solemn riding in all their bravery. Not even in Ghent or Antwerp were there such splendid ridings and so many of them. "Search all chronicles," says an old writer, "all histories and records, in what language or letter soever, let the inquisitive man waste the deere treasures of his time and eyesight, he shall conclude his life only in the certainty that there is no subject received into the place of his government with the like style and magnificence as is the Lord Mayor of the city of London." We shall see later on what kind of show would be held in the time of Queen Elizabeth.