under a charter of Henry the Third, granted in 1217. Such pageants were not uncommon in municipal life, and were everywhere to the taste of the people. Whether Lady Godiva was a primitive part of it is another question: there seems no improbability in supposing that she was, since the legend was then current. Much more doubt exists as to the episode of Peeping Tom. Looking out of a house at the corner of Smithford Street is a wooden figure called by the name of the notorious tailor. It is in reality a statue of a man in armour, dating no further back than the reign of Henry the Seventh; and it could not have been appropriated to its present purpose until its original design had been forgotten, and the incongruity of its costume passed unrecognised. This is said to have been in 1678, when a figure, identified with the one in question, was put up in Grey Friars Lane by Alderman Owen.[1]
It must not be overlooked that there may have been from the first more than one version of the legend, and that a version rejected by, or perhaps unknown to, Roger of Wendover and the writers who followed him may have always included the order to the inhabitants to keep within doors, of which Peeping Tom would seem to be the necessary accompaniment. Unfortunately, we have no evidence on this point; and in such a case it becomes of importance to inquire whether there are any traditions in other places from which we may reason. In the History of Gloucestershire, printed by Samuel Rudder of Cirencester in 1779, we read that the parishioners of St. Briavels, hard by the Forest of Dean, “have a custom of distributing yearly upon Whitsunday, after divine service, pieces of bread and cheese to the congregation at church, to defray the expenses of which every householder in the parish pays a penny to
- ↑ I am indebted to Mr. Samuel Timmins, F.S.A., and also through him to Mr. William George Fretton, F.S.A., for the local information in this paragraph, and for much trouble which they have kindly taken on my behalf.
