Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/31

 11 S. X. JULY 11, 1914.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

but under the wrong year 1458. The event happened on 28 Aug., on a Sunday, which agrees with the correct year 1457.

According to the French chronicler, his countrymen landed " a deux lieues " from Sandwich, " et cheminerent iusques a un bouleuert rempare nouuellement, duquel les fossez estoient plain d'eaue." This new " bulwark of brick to be built at Fishers' gate " in 1457 is mentioned in Boys's ' History of Sandwich ' (Canterbury, 1792), p. 674. L. L. K.

'THE CHRONICLE OF THE KINGS OF ENG- LAND.' This parody in its various forms was before the public for over a century. To- wards its bibliography I contribute a few examples from what was part of William Hone's collection of parodies :

The Chronicle of the Kings of England from William the Norman to the Death of George III., &c. 1821. Fairburn's re-issue with chart chro- nology of the reign of George III.

The Chronicle of the Kingdom of the Cassiter- ides, under the Reign of the House of Lunen. A fragment translated from an ancient manu- script. 1783.

The New Book of Chronicles ; delineating in excentrical sketches of the Times a variety of modern Characters of the Great and Small Vulgar London. (1785) ?)

The Chronicle of Abomilech, King of the Isles. Translated from a Latin Manuscript written in the year 1220 by William of Salisbury. London, 1820.

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

SHROVETIDE THROWING AT THE COCK. Cockfighting and shooting at the cock are forms of (so-called) English sport of great antiquity, but the custom so long practised in the old grammar schools of allowing the boys to throw sticks at a live cock on Shrove Tuesday is of comparatively more recent origin. We find no evidence that such a custom obtained in the pre -Reformation schools, if we except the statement made by H}ne ('Every Day Book,' i. 126) that the scholars of Ramena in 1355 presented a petition to the schoolmaster for a cock he owed them upon Shrove Tuesday " to throw sticks at." As he gives no authority for tliis, and does not even say where Ramena is situated, it cannot be accepted as proof.

Sir Thomas Moore, writing in the sixteenth century, speaks with pride of the skill which, as a schoolboy, he had " in casting a cok-stele." The word " stele " is to-day used in Lancashire for the handle of a house- hold brush.

By the foundation charter of the Man- chester Grammar School, dated 1 April, 16 Hen. VIII. (1525). it is provided that the

" scollers shall use no Cokke feghts ne other unlawful gammes and rydynge about for Victours," and that neither the master nor usher shall receive any money " as cokk^ peny, victor peny, potacion peny."

Notwithstanding this, the payment of cock-penny was not abolished there until 1867. Cock-fighting was no doubt given, up, and throwing at cocks took its place. The cock-penny was paid in probably all the old grammar schools until quite a recent date. In Lancaster it was given up in 1824. a capitation grant being given to the master and usher in lieu thereof.

In some schools in the seventeenth century, instead of throwing with sticks, the use of the bow and arrow was introduced. I am able to give two instances of this.

James Clegg, a Nonconformist minister and Doctor of Medicine, in his Diary records that, whilst he was at the Rochdale Gram- mar School in 1686, on Shrove Tuesday, "ye young men of ye upper end of the school were shooting with bows and arrows at a cock, and the rest of us made a lane for the arrows to pass- through."

Being anxious to see the sport, he put his head too far forward, and received the arrow on his temple ; and he adds : " The wound at first was said to be mortal."

The Rev. Henry Newcome sent his chil- dren to the Manchester Grammar School, and in his ' Autobiography ' (Chet. Soc., xvi. 147, 162), under the date of Tuesday, 31 Jan., 1665, writes :

"The children shot at school for their cocks this day, and I was moved with fear about them. I had cause, for Daniel's [his son] hat on his head was shot through with an arrow " ;

and again on Shrove Tuesday (13 Feb., 1666) :

" It was their shooting day at the cocks. W& prayed that God would keep our children from doing or receiving any hurt."

This form of sport died hard. The editor of The Gentleman's Magazine in 1753 issued a caveat against

" the wretched custom of throwing or shooting at cocks, a custom that initiates the youth into- cruelty and vice."

It would be interesting to know in what schools the " throwing " continued longest in practice.

As early as 1430 the public exliibitioii of this description of sport was in ill repute. In a poem of this date, ' How the Good Wive taught hir Doughter ' (E.E. Text Soc., xxxii. 40), the mother's advice is :

Go not to wrastelinge, ne to schotinge at cok,

As it were a strumpet or a gigglelot.

HENRY FISHWICK.