Deering, in his _Nottinghamia Vetus et Nova_ (1751, p. 123), quoting from an old authority, gives the following curious account of the watch once held at Nottingham. He says: “Every inhabitant of any ability sets forth a man, as well voluntaries as those who are charged with arms, with such munition as they have; some pikes, some muskets, calivers, or other guns; some partisans, or halberts; and such as have armour send their servants in their armour. The number of these are yearly about two hundred, who at sun-setting meet on the Row, the most open part of the town, where the Mayor’s serjeant-at-mace gives them an oath, the tenor wherof followeth in these words: ‘You shall well and truly keep this town till to-morrow at the sun-rising; you shall come into no house without license or cause reasonable. Of all manner of casualties, of fire, of crying of children, you shall due warning make to the parties, as the case shall require. You shall due search make of all manner of affrays, bloudsheds, outcrys, and all other things that be suspected,’ &c. Which done, they all march in orderly array through the principal streets of the town, and then they are sorted into several companies, and designed to several parts of the town, where they are to keep the watch until the sun dismisses them in the morning. In this business the fashion is for every watchman to wear a garland, made in the fashion of a crown imperial, bedecked with flowers of various kinds, some natural, some artificial, bought and kept for that purpose, as also ribbands, jewels; and for the better garnishing whereof, the townsmen use the day before to ransack the gardens of all the gentlemen within six or seven miles round Nottingham, besides what the town itself affords them: their greatest ambition being to outdo one another in the bravery of their garlands.” This custom was kept up till the reign of Charles I. OXFORDSHIRE. About the year 750, says Plott, a battle was fought near Burford, perhaps on the place still called Battle-Edge, west of the town, towards Upton, between Cuthred or Cuthbert, a tributary king of the West Saxons, and Ethelbald, king of Mercia, whose insupportable exactions the former king not being able to endure, he came into the field against Ethelbald, met and overthrew him there, winning his banner, whereon was depicted a golden dragon; in memory of which victory, the custom of making a dragon yearly, and carrying it up and down the town in great jollity on Midsummer Eve, to which they added the picture of a giant, was in all likelihood first instituted.--Plott, _Natural History of Oxfordshire_, 1705, p. 356. WORCESTERSHIRE.