The father of Miss Ray, the singer, and mistress of old Lord Sandwich, is said to have been a well-known staymaker in Holywell Street, now Booksellers’ Row. His daughter was apprenticed in Clerkenwell, from whence the musical lord took her to load her with a splendid shame. On the day she went to sing at Covent Garden in “Love in a Village,” Hackman, who had left the army for the church, waited for her carriage at the Cannon Coffee-house in Cockspur Street. At the door of the theatre, by the side of the Bedford Coffee-house, Hackman rushed out, and as Miss Ray was being handed from her carriage he shot her through the head, and then attempted his own life[290]. Hackman was hanged at Tyburn, and he died declaring that shooting Miss Ray was the result of a sudden burst of frenzy, for he had planned only suicide in her presence. The Strand Maypole stood on the site of the present church of St. Mary le Strand, or a little northward towards Maypole Alley, behind the Olympic Theatre. In the thirteenth century a cross had stood on this spot, and there the itinerant justices had sat to administer justice outside the walls. A Maypole stood here as early as 1634[291]. Tradition says it was set up by John Clarges, the Drury Lane blacksmith, and father of General Monk’s vulgar wife. The Maypole was Satan’s flag-staff in the eyes of the stern Puritans, who dreaded Christmas pies, cards, and dances. Down it came when Cromwell went up. The Strand Maypole was reared again with exulting ceremony the first May day after the Restoration. The parishioners bought a pole 134 feet high, and the Duke of York, the Lord High Admiral, lent them twelve seamen to help to raise it. It was brought from Scotland Yard with drums, music, and the shouts of the multitude; flags flying, and three men bare-headed carrying crowns.[292] The two halves being joined together with iron bands, and the gilt crown and vane and king’s arms placed on the top, it was raised in about four hours by means of tackle and pulleys. The Strand rang with the people’s shouts, for to them the Maypole was an emblem of the good old times. Then there was a morris dance, with tabor and pipe, the dancers wearing purple scarfs and “half-shirts.” The children laughed, and the old people clapped their hands, for there was not a taller Maypole in Europe. From its summit floated a royal purple streamer; and half way down was a sort of cross-trees or balcony adorned with four crowns and the king’s arms. It bore also a garland of vari-coloured favours, and beneath three great lanterns in honour of the three admirals and all seamen, to give light in dark nights. On this spot, a year before, the butchers of Clare Market had rung a peal with their knives as they burnt an emblematical Rump.[293]