A.D. 1510. Perhaps the most splendid of the sights of Cheapside was the setting of the Marching Watch on the Vigil of St. John the Baptist, in June, and on that of Saints Peter and Paul in July. The City Watch was instituted in the year 1253 by Henry III., and consisted of a body of substantial citizens, with an alderman or magistrate at their head, for each ward, to protect the houses from robbery and the streets from outrages by night—crimes which had hitherto been very rife; and it was ordained that if anyone suffered loss or violence whilst the guard was on duty he should receive compensation from the ward. The Marching Watch was a grand processional display of fire and light, banners and music, glittering armour and flashing weapons, bonfires in the streets, and numberless cressets borne aloft. The citizens' wives and daughters, apparelled in their most fascinating costumes, occupied the windows; men and boys clambered on the gabled roofs; whilst in the street below tables were spread with viands and provided by the citizens, which were presided over by their 'prentices, attired in their blue gowns and yellow hosen, like the Christ's Hospital boys of our time, who invited the passers-by—more especially if they were young and pretty and of the other sex—to partake of their masters' cheer. On the Vigil of St. John in 1510, Henry VIII., then a frolicsome young man of nineteen, who had only been a year on the throne, with a companion or two, perhaps Charles Brandon, came from Westminster, disguised as a yeomen of the guard, to see this setting of the Watch, of which he had heard so much. He came from Westminster in a public wherry, and landing at Bridewell Stairs, proceeded on foot, like a modern Haroun al Raschid, mingling with the people and cracking jests with them as he went along. He stationed himself at the cross in West Cheap, where he saw the proceedings admirably, and after partaking, most probably, of a cake and a flagon of ale at some hospitable citizen's door, he returned, so much struck with the splendour of the festival that he vowed he would bring the Queen (Catherine of Arragon, whom he had married the previous year) to see it on the next occasion, in July.