The ceremony of bearing palms on Palm Sunday was retained in England after some others were dropped, and was one of those which Henry VIII. in 1536 declared were not to be discontinued. In a proclamation in the library of the Society of Antiquaries, dated the 26th February, 1539, “Concernyng rites and ceremonies to be used in due fourme in the Churche of Englande,” occurs the following clause: “On Palme Sonday it shall be declared that bearing of palmes renueth the memorie of the receivinge of Christe in lyke maner into Jerusalem before his deathe.” Again, in Fuller’s _Church History_ (1655, p. 222), we read that “bearing of palms on Palm Sunday is in memory of the receiving of Christ into Jerusalem a little before his death, and that we may have the same desire to receive him into our hearts.” In Howe’s edition of _Stow’s Chronicle_ (1615, fol. p. 595), it is stated, under the year 1548, that “this yeere the ceremony of bearing of palmes on Palme Sunday was left off, and not used as before.”--_Med. Ævi Kalend._ vol. i. p. 181; Brand, _Pop. Antiq._ 1849, vol. i. p. 124. It is still customary with our boys, both in the south and north of England, to go out and gather slips with the willow-flowers or buds at this time. These seem to have been selected as substitutes for the real palm, because they are generally the only things which can be easily obtained at this season. This practice is still observed in the neighbourhood of London. The young people go _a-palming_; and the sallow is sold in London streets for the whole week preceding Palm Sunday. In the north it is called going a-palmsoning or palmsning.--Brand, _Pop. Antiq._ 1849, vol. i. p. 127. Stow in his _Survey of London_ (1603, p. 98) says that “in the weeke before Easter had ye great shewes made for the fetching in of a _twisted tree or with_, as they termed it, out of the woodes into the kinge’s house, and the like into every man’s house of honor or worship.” Probably this was a substitute for the palm. An instance of the great antiquity of this practice in England is afforded by the Domesday Survey, under Shropshire, vol. i. p. 252, where a tenant is stated to have rendered in payment a bundle of box twigs on Palm Sunday, “Terra dimid. car unus reddit inde _fascem buxi in die Palmarum_.” By an Act of Common Council, 1 and 2 Phil. and Mary, for retrenching expenses, it was ordered, “that from henceforth _there shall be no wyth fetcht home at the Maior’s or Sheriff’s Houses_. Neither shall they keep any lord of misrule in any of their houses.”--Strype’s _Stow_, 1720, book i. p 246. It was formerly the custom in some of the northern parts of England for the young men and maids who received the sacrament to walk after dinner into the corn-fields, and to bless the corn and fruits of the earth.--Kennett, MS. Brit. Mus. CORNWALL.