The second of the Robin Hood plays is described in the title as “very proper to be played in May-games.” These games were in the sixteenth century, and, it would seem, before, often a medley of many things. They were not limited to the first day of May, or even to the month of May; they might occur in June as well. They were not uniform, and might include any kind of performance or spectacle which suited the popular taste. “I find,” says Stow, “that in the moneth of May, the citizens of London, of all estates, lightlie in every parish, or sometimes two or three parishes joyning together, had their several Mayinges, and did fetch in Maypoles, with divers warlike shewes, with good archers, morrice-dancers, and other devices for pastime all the day long; and towards the evening they had stage-playes and bonefires in the streetes.”[48] In the Diary of Henry Machyn we read that on the twenty-sixth of May, 1555, there was a goodly May-game at St Martins in the Field, with giant and hobby-horses, morris-dance and other minstrels; and on the third day of June following, a goodly May-game at Westminster, with giants and devils, and three morris-dancers, and many disguised, and the Lord and Lady of the May rode gorgeously, with divers minstrels playing. On the thirtieth of May, 1557, there was a goodly May-game in Fenchurch Street, in which the Nine Worthies rode, and they had speeches, and the morris-dance, and the Sowdan, and the Lord and Lady of the May, and more besides. And again, on the twenty-fourth of June, 1559, there was a May-game, with a giant, the Nine Worthies, with speeches, a goodly pageant with a queen, St George and the Dragon, the morris-dance, and afterwards Robin Hood and Little John, and Maid Marian and Friar Tuck, and they had speeches round about London. (Pp 89, 137, 201.)[49] In the rural districts the May-game was naturally a much simpler affair. The accounts of the chamberlains and churchwardens of Kingston upon Thames for Mayday, 23 Henry VII–28 Henry VIII, 1507–36, contain charges for the morris, the Lady, Little John, Robin Hood, and Maid Marian; the accounts for 21 Henry VII–1 Henry VIII relate to expenses for the Kyngham, and a king and queen are mentioned, presumably king and queen of May; under 24 Henry VII the “cost of the Kyngham and Robyn Hode are entered together.”[50] “A simple northern man” is made to say in Albion’s England, 1586: At Paske began our Morris, and ere Penticost our May; Tho Robin Hood, Liell John, Frier Tucke and Marian deftly play, And Lard and Ladie gang till kirk, with lads and lasses gay.[51] Tollet’s painted window (which is assigned by Douce to about 1460–70, and, if rightly dated, furnishes the oldest known representation of a May-game with the morris) has, besides a fool, a piper and six dancers, a Maypole, a hobby-horse, a friar, and a lady, and the lady, being crowned, is to be taken as Queen of May.