some dressed as Robin Hood and Little John, others as Adam and Eve "in a single-horse chair, with an orange-tree fixed before them and oranges growing thereon," proceeded to Barton and various parts of the parish of Eccles, with drums beating, colours flying, trumpets sounding, music playing, and about sixteen couples of morris-dancers. The Barton subscription of £37 would seem to have included a communion-plate for the church. Their pageant of August 4 is not described in detail. The Eccles pageant of September 1 was the month of Eccles wakes, and their procession of more than a hundred and fifty men and women marched to Pendleton Pole, with a king and queen at their head. The £347, 11s. 6d. was "tendered" in vain pomp, by way of doubling the enemy's amount of cash. Barton next mustered about two hundred and twenty men and women, with about twenty-one guns, cannons, and muskets, which they began firing at five o'clock in the morning of the 24th of September, after which, with a bull at their head with bells about his neck, they marched to Eccles. The pamphlet describes the order of the procession, which consisted of many guisers on horseback. The queen had thirty-four maids of honour, and there were twenty couple of morris-dancers, several bands of music, many colours, and a "grand garland drawn by four good horses and proper attendance." In the evening, the treasurer exhibited his cash, £649, 17s. The last of these rival guisings was that of Eccles, on the 20th October, when their procession numbered two hundred and sixteen horsemen, and nearly a hundred footmen. They assembled at Pendleton. The queen had fifty-six maids of honour, every one handsomely dressed, and with a watch by her side. After marching as far as Salford, they returned to Eccles, and the cash
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Lancashire Pageants.
