beside his giant, three pageants; whereas the sheriff had only two besides their giants, each with their morris-dancer and one henchman.” [71] _Cresset-light._--A kind of fire-basket let into an iron frame at the end of a long pole, and so contrived that the basket remained in a horizontal position, whichever way the pole was carried. These poles were usually borne on men’s shoulders. Cresset-lights were also used as beacons and served instead of lighthouses for signals along the coast. The badge of the Admiralty was anciently a cresset.--Shakspeare makes Glendower say, in “Henry IV.” (Act iii. s. 1): “At my nativity, The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, Of burning cressets.” Douce, in his _Illustrations of Shakspeare_, imagines the word to have been derived from the French word _croiset_--a cruet, or earthen pot. Stow says that King Henry VIII., in the first year of his reign, came privately into Westcheap to view the setting of this watch, “being clothed in one of the coates of his guard,” and at the next muster, which was on St. Peter’s night, “the king and queene came roially riding to the signe of the King’s Head in Cheape, and there beheld the watche of the citie, which watche was set out with divers goodly shewes, as had been accustomed.” In the 31st year of this reign (1539), however, the Midsummer Watch was discontinued; but it was revived, for one year only, by Sir Thomas Gresham, then Lord Mayor, in the second year of Edward the Sixth’s reign.--Stow’s _Survey of London_; Jupp, _History of the Carpenter’s Company_, 1848, pp. 40-44. NORTHUMBERLAND. In the ordinary of the Company of Cooks at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1575, quoted by Brand (_Pop. Antiq._ 1849, vol. i. p. 318), is the following clause:--“And alsoe that the said fellowship of Cookes, shall yearelie of theire owne cost and charge mainteigne and keep the bonefires, according to the auntient custome of the said towne on the Sand-hill; that is to say, one bone-fire on the even of the Feast of the Nativitie of St. John Baptist, commonly called Midsomer Even, and the other on the even of the Feast of St. Peter the Apostle, if it shall please the Maior and Aldermen of the said towne for the time being to have the same bone-fires.” NOTTINGHAMSHIRE.