“Henry the Eighth was remarkably expert at the games then in practice; such as bearing off the ring, wrestling, casting the bar, &c. Shooting, singing, dancing, and music, seem likewise frequently to have engaged him; and it will afford you some idea of the mixture of simplicity and ostentation of the age, when I tell you, that, in the second year of his reign, he rose early on _May-day_, to gather hawthorn and green boughs. Richly dressed himself, and, accompanied by his knights, squires, yeomen, and guard, arrayed in white satin and sarcenet, with bows and arrows, he went shooting into the wood; and returned again to court, every man wearing a green bough in his cap. These rural festivities seem often to have been repeated, and accompanied with more or less splendour. Nor could the royal party have had far to ride, ere they could procure those symbols of the beautiful month they were about to commemorate. For it was only late in the preceding reign, that the gardens, which had been continued, time out of mind, without Moorgate, now called Moorfields, were destroyed, and a plain field made of them, for archers to shoot in. And a few years after the excursion of the youthful monarch, which I have just mentioned, the citizens of London, disliking the enclosures of the common fields about Islington, Shoreditch, Hoxton, and other places near the city, whereby they could not be suffered to exercise their bows, nor other popular games, as they had before been accustomed to, assembled themselves one morning, and went with spades and shovels into the said fields, and there worked so diligently, that all the hedges about town were cast down, and the ditches filled.” [Illustration: Page 88. Page 92.] “Another _May morning_ was celebrated with far more variety than that before mentioned. The court lying at Greenwich, the royal party rode out for an airing. Passing by Shooter’s-hill, they observed a company of yeomen, amounting to about two hundred, clad in green, with hoods of the same colour. One of them, calling himself Robin Hood, stepped forwards, and addressing the king, begged permission to shoot before the sovereign. The request being of course granted, he whistled, and instantly the whole band discharged their arrows at once. A second signal called forth a similar proof of skill. These arrows, it seems, whistled as they flew, in consequence of some ingenious contrivance in the head; and the noise was so singular and great, that the illustrious spectators, and their train, expressed both astonishment and delight.