successively chancellor, vicar-general and prebendary. In 1545 he was made a prebendary of St Paul’s, and in the following year dean. His favourable report on the Cambridge colleges saved them from dissolution. He was dispossessed during the reign of Mary, but restored to the deanery on Elizabeth’s accession. He died on the day of his election to the archbishopric of York.
MAY, the fifth month of our modern year, the third of the
old Roman calendar. The origin of the name is disputed;
the derivation from Maia, the mother of Mercury, to whom
the Romans were accustomed to sacrifice on the first day of
this month, is usually accepted. The ancient Romans used
on May Day to go in procession to the grotto of Egeria. From
the 28th of April to the 2nd of May was kept the festival in
honour of Flora, goddess of flowers. By the Romans the month
was regarded as unlucky for marriages, owing to the celebration
on the 9th, 11th and 13th of the Lemuria, the festival of the
unhappy dead. This superstition has survived to the present
day.
In medieval and Tudor England, May Day was a great public holiday. All classes of the people, young and old alike, were up with the dawn, and went “a-Maying” in the woods. Branches of trees and flowers were borne back in triumph to the towns and villages, the centre of the procession being occupied by those who shouldered the maypole, glorious with ribbons and wreaths. The maypole was usually of birch, and set up for the day only; but in London and the larger towns the poles were of durable wood and permanently erected. They were special eyesores to the Puritans. John Stubbes in his Anatomy of Abuses (1583) speaks of them as those “stinckyng idols,” about which the people “leape and daunce, as the heathen did.” Maypoles were forbidden by the parliament in 1644, but came once more into favour at the Restoration, the last to be erected in London being that set up in 1661. This pole, which was of cedar, 134 ft. high, was set up by twelve British sailors under the personal supervision of James II., then duke of York and lord high admiral, in the Strand on or about the site of the present church of St Mary’s-in-the-Strand. Taken down in 1717, it was conveyed to Wanstead Park in Essex, where it was fixed by Sir Isaac Newton as part of the support of a large telescope, presented to the Royal Society by a French astronomer.
For an account of the May Day survivals in rural England see P. H. Ditchfield, Old English Customs extant at Present Times (1897).
MAY, ISLE OF, an island belonging to Fifeshire, Scotland,
at the entrance to the Firth of Forth, 5 m. S.E. of Crail and
Anstruther. It has a N.W. to S.E. trend, is more than 1 m.
long, and measures at its widest about 13 m. St Adrian, who
had settled here, was martyred by the Danes about the middle
of the 9th century. The ruins of the small chapel dedicated
to him, which was a favourite place of pilgrimage, still exist.
The place where the pilgrims—of whom James IV. was often
one—landed is yet known as Pilgrims’ Haven, and traces may
yet be seen of the various wells of St Andrew, St John, Our
Lady, and the Pilgrims, though their waters have become
brackish. In 1499 Sir Andrew Wood of Largo, with the “Yellow
Carvel” and “Mayflower,” captured the English seaman
Stephen Bull, and three ships, after a fierce fight which took
place between the island and the Bass Rock. In 1636 a coal
beacon was lighted on the May and maintained by Alexander
Cunningham of Barns. The oil light substituted for it in 1816
was replaced in 1888 by an electric light.
MAYA, an important tribe and stock of American Indians,
the dominant race of Yucatan and other states of Mexico and
part of Central America at the time of the Spanish conquest.
They were then divided into many nations, chief among them
being the Maya proper, the Huastecs, the Tzental, the Pokom,
the Mame and the Cakchiquel and Quiché. They were spread
over Yucatan, Vera Cruz, Tabasco, Campeche, and Chiapas
in Mexico, and over the greater part of Guatemala and Salvador.
In civilization the Mayan peoples rivalled the Aztecs. Their
traditions give as their place of origin the extreme north;
thence a migration took place, perhaps at the beginning of the
Christian era. They appear to have reached Yucatan as early
as the 5th century. From the evidence of the Quiché chronicles,
which are said to date back to about A.D. 700, Guatemala was
shortly afterwards overrun. Physically the Mayans are a
dark-skinned, round-headed, short and sturdy type. Although
they were already decadent when the Spaniards arrived they
made a fierce resistance. They still form the bulk of the
inhabitants of Yucatan. For their culture, ruined cities, &c.
see Central America and Mexico.
MAYAGUEZ, the third largest city of Porto Rico, a seaport,
and the seat of government of the department of Mayaguez,
on the west coast, at the mouth of Rio Yaguez, about 72 m. W.
by S. of San Juan. Pop. of the city (1899), 15,187, including 1381
negroes and 4711 of mixed races; (1910), 16,591; of the municipal
district, 35,700 (1899), of whom 2687 were negroes and 9933 were
of mixed races. Mayaguez is connected by the American
railroad of Porto Rico with San Juan and Ponce, and it is served
regularly by steamboats from San Juan, Ponce and New York,
although its harbour is not accessible to vessels drawing more
than 16 ft. of water. It is situated at the foot of Las Mesas
mountains and commands picturesque views. The climate is
healthy and good water is obtained from the mountain region.
From the shipping district along the water-front a thoroughfare
leads to the main portion of the city, about 1 m. distant. There
are four public squares, in one of which is a statue of Columbus.
Prominent among the public buildings are the City Hall (containing
a public library), San Antonio Hospital, Roman Catholic
churches, a Presbyterian church, the court-house and a theatre.
The United States has an agricultural experiment station here,
and the Insular Reform School is 1 m. south of the city. Coffee,
sugar-cane and tropical fruits are grown in the surrounding
country; and the business of the city consists chiefly in their
export and the import of flour. Among the manufactures
are sugar, tobacco and chocolate. Mayaguez was founded
about the middle of the 18th century on the site of a hamlet
which was first settled about 1680. It was incorporated as
a town in 1836, and became a city in 1873. In 1841 it was nearly all destroyed by fire.
MAYAVARAM, a town of British India, in the Tanjore district
of Madras, on the Cauvery river; junction on the South Indian
railway, 174 m. S.W. of Madras. Pop. (1901), 24,276. It possesses
a speciality of fine cotton and silk cloth, known as Kornad
from the suburb in which the weavers live. During October
and November the town is the scene of a great pilgrimage to
the holy waters of the Cauvery.
MAYBOLE, a burgh of barony and police burgh of Ayrshire,
Scotland. Pop. (1901), 5892. It is situated 9 m. S. of Ayr and
5014 m. S.W. of Glasgow by the Glasgow & South-Western railway.
It is an ancient place, having received a charter from Duncan II.
in 1193. In 1516 it was made a burgh of regality, but for
generations it remained under the subjection of the Kennedys,
afterwards earls of Cassillis and marquesses of Ailsa, the most
powerful family in Ayrshire. Of old Maybole was the capital
of the district of Carrick, and for long its characteristic feature
was the family mansions of the barons of Carrick. The castle
of the earls of Cassillis still remains. The public buildings include
the town-hall, the Ashgrove and the Lumsden fresh-air fortnightly
homes, and the Maybole combination poorhouse. The leading
manufactures are of boots and shoes and agricultural implements.
Two miles to the south-west are the ruins of Crossraguel (Cross
of St Regulus) Abbey, founded about 1240. Kirkoswald,
where Burns spent his seventeenth year, learning land-surveying,
lies a little farther west. In the parish churchyard lie “Tam
o’ Shanter” (Douglas Graham) and “Souter Johnnie” (John
Davidson). Four miles to the west of Maybole on the coast
is Culzean Castle, the chief seat of the marquess of Ailsa, dating
from 1777; it stands on a basaltic cliff, beneath which are the
Coves of Culzean, once the retreat of outlaws and a resort of
the fairies. Farther south are the ruins of Turnberry Castle,
where Robert Bruce is said to have been born. A few miles
to the north of Culzean are the ruins of Dunure Castle, an
ancient stronghold of the Kennedys.
