At this maiyng was a greate number of people to beholde, to their great solace and confort” (fo. lvi. b). That this sort of May-games was not peculiar to London appears from a passage in Richard Robinson’s “Third assertion Englishe historicall, frendly in favour and furtherance of English archery:”[80] {xcix} “And, heare because of archery I do by penne explane, The use, the proffet, and the praise, to England by the same, Myselfe remembreth of a childe in contreye native mine,  (1553) A May-game was of Robyn Hood, and of his traine that time,  (7. E. 6.) To traine up young men, stripplings, and eche other younger childe, In shooting, yearely this with solempne feast was by the guylde Or brotherhood of townsmen don, with sport, with joy, and love, To proffet which in present tyme, and afterward did prove.” The games of Robin Hood seem to have been occasionally of a dramatic cast. Sir John Paston, in the time of King Edward IV., complaining of the ingratitude of his servants, mentions one who had promised never to desert him, “and ther uppon,” says he, “I have kepyd hym thys iii yer to pleye seynt Jorge, and Robyn Hod and the sheryf off Notyngham,[81] and now when I wolde have good horse he is goon into Bernysdale, and I withowt a keeper.” In some old accounts of the churchwardens of St. Helen’s at Abingdon, Berks, for the year 1556, there is an entry For setting up Robin Hoodes Bower; I suppose, says {c} Warton, for a parish interlude. (See History of English Poetry, ii. 175.)[82] {ci} In some places, at least, these games were nothing more, in effect, than a morris-dance, in which Robin Hood, Little John, Maid Marian, and Frier Tuck were the principal personages; the others being a clown or fool, the hobby-horse (which appears, for some reason or other, to have been frequently forgot[83]), the taborer, and the dancers, who were more or less numerous. Thus Warner: “At Paske began our morrise, and ere penticost our May, Tho Roben Hood, liell John, frier Tuck, and Marian deftly play, And lard and ladie gang till kirke with lads and lasses gay.”[84] Perhaps the clearest idea of these last-mentioned games, about the beginning of the 16th century, will be derived from some curious extracts given by Mr. Lysons in his valuable work intitled “The Environs of London” (vol. i. 1792, p. 226), from the contemporary accounts of the “churchwardens of the parish of Kingston upon Thames.” “Robin Hood and May-game.