"
The allegation that boys dressed up as women is confirmed by a Compotus
roll of St. Swithin's Priory at Winchester (1441), from which it appears
that the boys of the monastery, along with the choristers of St.
Elizabeth's Collegiate Chapel, near the city, played before the Abbess
and Nuns of St. Mary's Abbey--attired "like girls."
The custom was restored by an edict of Bishop Bonner on November 13,
1554, much to the satisfaction of the populace; and the spectacle of the
Boy-Bishop riding _in pontificalibus_--this was in 1556--all about the
Metropolis gave currency to the saying--"St. Nicholas yet goeth about
the city." Foxe tells us that at Ipswich the Master of the Grammar
School led the Boy-Bishop through the streets for "apples and
belly-cheer; and whoso would not receive him he made heretics, and such
also as would not give his faggot for Queen Mary's child." (By this
expression, which was common during this reign, was intended the
Boy-Bishop; the Queen had, of course, no child of her own.) Amidst the
sundry and manifold changes that marked the accession of Elizabeth the
Boy-Bishop again went down; and the memory of the festival lingered only
in certain usages like that at Durham, where the boys paraded the town
on May-day, arrayed in ancient copes borrowed from the Cathedral.
On one or two points connected with the subject there prevails some
degree of misapprehension, and thus it will be well--very briefly--to
touch upon them.
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