And so the Elizabethan drama found a people already prepared, by centuries of familiarity with the stage as an amusement, to respond to the demands good plays might make on their imagination and receptive faculties. The Mysteries were but young plants--Shakespeare was the fruit. The fact is, the whole country was given up to plays of this sort, and we know of more than one hundred towns and villages which enjoyed these entertainments. The annual play at Wymonham (or Windham), in Norfolk, lasted two days and two nights; and the inhabitants of Lydd, in Kent, were so keen that they went to the play on a Sunday, while watchmen were paid to keep guard on the shore against a surprise from the French. If the trade gilds showed any desire to shirk such representations, the Mayor could, and did, issue a notice commanding a performance; and it was also the Mayor’s duty, as officer of the King’s peace, to issue proclamations on all festive occasions of this sort. The ordinances of the Mayor of York, in 1394 and subsequently, show that the regulations to control the plays and populace were most stringent and comprehensive, and that the plays began as early as 4.30 A.M. In addition to the ordinary series of Chester Mystery Plays, we find that the play of the _Assumption_ was performed at the High Cross in 1488, and before Prince Arthur in 1497, both at the Abbey gates and at the High Cross; and also in 1515 in St. John’s Churchyard. We find, also, the Cappers, Pewterers, and Smiths undertaking plays in 1520-1; and that in 1529 _King Robert of Sicily_ had been performed at the High Cross. THE PLAYS The number of plays now existing is twenty-five, but we know that the _Assumption_ has been lost, and there are signs of two plays being compressed into one, as in the _Histories of Lot and Abraham_, so that the original number was no doubt larger. Fluctuations would undoubtedly take place with the rise and fall of City Companies, if for no other reasons. As the number of gilds expanded or were reduced, so the plays were increased or amalgamated.[38] The list of plays and the gilds that performed them will be found in the “Banes” already printed. The Chester series is noted for two plays that occur nowhere else, viz. No. 23, on _Prophecies_, and No. 24, on _Anti-Christ_. [38] At York the MS. of the plays (_c._ 1430) shows 48; but in 1415 there had been 51; and another earlier list shows 57. The English employed seems to be of the beginning of the fifteenth century, many of the stage directions are in Latin, and the Three Kings, Octavian, and Herod occasionally use French, that being the Court language.[39] [39] It is not generally considered to afford any argument as to the plays being derived from the French.