The good people of Chester were particularly fond of shows and pageants, and processions. On Midsummer Day the mayor and aldermen of the city marched with banners through the streets to S. Oswald's Church. With them went 'four giants, one unicorn, one dromedary, an ass and a dragon, and six hobby horses'. The giants were made of pasteboard and repainted every year, and 'dosed with arsenic to keep the rats from eating them'. Some of their amusements were, however, of a more degrading kind. The High Cross of Chester, from which the friars and Wyclif's 'poor priests' had preached in former days, now became the scene of brutal pastimes. For at this spot bulls were baited in the bull-ring when a mayor finished his year of office, the mayor himself paying the expenses. The Bear's Head and White Bear Inn at Congleton remind us that the natives of Congleton were so fond of bear-baiting, that a local proverb says that they 'sold their Church Bible to buy a new bear'. Few towns or villages were without a cock-pit, for cock-fighting was a favourite amusement of all classes. Happily, these degrading sports are now forbidden by law, and we do not regret their disappearance. [Illustration: Cross and Stocks, Warburton] Little mercy was shown to those who were guilty of brawling or breaches of the peace. Often by the lichgate of a Cheshire churchyard, or near the village cross, you will see the remains of the wooden stocks in which drunkards were placed and exposed to the jeers and gibes of the passers-by. In the museums at Chester, Stockport, and Macclesfield, you will see a still more barbarous form of punishment. The scolding or brawling woman was compelled to have her head encased in a 'brank' or skeleton helmet of iron, with a spiked iron piece pressing on the tongue. A chain was attached to the woman's waist, and she was led through the town. Another instrument of punishment is to be seen in the Museum at West Park, Macclesfield. It is a girdle or cage, consisting of a number of iron hoops fastened together by chains which were placed round the body of a woman, who was then tied to a plank called a 'ducking-stool', and dipped in a pond. There was also an iron strait-jacket at Macclesfield for drunkards and lunatics. CHAPTER XXIII THE RULE OF THE STUARTS In the 'Stag Parlour' of Lyme Hall is a framed piece of needlework done by Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, when she stayed at Lyme. When she was deposed by her Scottish subjects she threw herself on the mercy of Queen Elizabeth, who permitted her to live in England. But plots were made against the life of Elizabeth, and Mary was suspected of having a hand in them, and in the end Mary had to pay the penalty of death.