Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 5/The cockhorse regiment
THE COCKHORSE REGIMENT.
When the Thirty Years War was finally brought to a termination by the treaty of peace of Westphalia, which was concluded at Nüremburg in 1560, the civic authorities of that place ordered in commemoration public rejoicings of various kinds,—banquets, balls, fireworks, &c. But among all these public diversions, none was more distinguished for singularity and originality, and perhaps childish simplicity, than the procession of lads and boys on sticks or cockhorses. Thus mounted they rode, regularly divided into companies, through the streets, and halted before the hotel of the Red-Horse, where was staying the Imperial Commissioner Octavius Piccolomini, Duc d’Amali. The duke was so pleased with the novel cavalcade that he requested a repetition of the same procession at an early day of the following week, which they performed in much larger numbers. On arriving before his hotel, the duke distributed amongst them small square silver medals (of the value of about 5d. each) which he had in the interval caused to be struck. The coin represented on the obverse, a boy on a hobbyhorse with whip in hand, and the year 1560 was inscribed in the centre, while the reverse represented the double eagle and armorial bearings of Austria, with the inscription: “Vivat Ferdinandus III. Rom. Imp. vivat!”