Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/223

 Rh market-place without being seen, except her fair legs, all the rest of her body being covered by her hair like a veil. He tells us nothing about a proclamation to the inhabitants to keep within doors; and of course Peeping Tom is an impossibility in this version of the tale.

Coventry has for generations honoured its benefactress by a periodical procession, wherein she is represented by a girl dressed as nearly like the countess on her ride as the manners of the day have permitted. When this procession was first instituted, is unknown. The earliest mention of it seems to be in the year 1678. Its object then was to proclaim the Great Fair, and Lady Godiva was merely an incident in it. The Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum contain an account of a visit to Coventry by the “captain, lieutenant, and ancient” of the military company of Norwich who travelled in the Midland Counties in August 1634. These tourists describe St. Mary’s Hall as adorned at the upper end “with rich hangings, and all about with fayre pictures, one more especially of a noble lady (the Lady Godiva) whose memory they have cause not to forget, for that shee purchas’d and redeem’d their lost infringed liberties and ffreedomes, and obtain’d remission of heavy tributes impos’d upon them by undertaking a hard and unseemly task, w’ch was to ride naked openly at high noone day through the city on a milk white steed, w’ch she willingly performed, according to her lord’s strict injunction. It may be very well discussed heere whether his hatred or her love exceeded. Her fayre long hayre did much offend the wanton’s glancing eye.” In this record we have no additional fact except the mention of “high noone day” as the time of the journey; for the allusion to “the wanton’s glancing eye” is too vague to be interpreted of Peeping Tom, and the writer does not refer to any commemorative procession. It is possible, therefore, that the carnival times of Charles the Second both begot the procession and tacked Peeping Tom to the legend. But it is more likely that the procession is as old as the fair, which was held