nd a beadle selected from the inhabitants of their respective
wards, who should be required in turn to render voluntary service in
guarding the city, from nine of the clock at night till seven in the
morning, from Michaelmas to the 1st of April; and from that date until
the 31st of March, from ten at night till five in the morning.

These rules were not, however, vigorously carried out; the volunteers
were frequently unwilling to do duty, or when, fearful of fine, they
went abroad, they usually spent their time in tippling in ale-houses,
so that, as Delaune remarks, "a great many wicked persons capable of the
blackest villainies do creep about, as daily and sad experience shows."
It was not only those who, with drawn swords, darted from some deep
porch or sheltering buttress, in hopes of enriching themselves at their
neighbour's expense, that were to be dreaded. It was a fashion of the
time for companies of young gentlemen to saunter forth in numbers after
route or supper, when, being merry with wine and eager for adventure,
they were brave enough to waylay the honest citizen and abduct his
wife, beat the watch and smash his lantern, bedaub signboards and
wrench knockers, overturn a sedan-chair and vanquish the carriers, sing
roystering songs under the casements of peaceful sleepers, and play
strange pranks to which they were prompted by young blood and high
spirits.

Among those who made prominent figures in such unholy sports was the
king's eldest son, my Lord Duke of Monmouth. He and his young grace
of Albemarle--son to that gallant soldier now deceased, who was
instrumental in restoring his majesty--together with some seven or eight
young gentlemen, whilst on their rounds one Sunday morning encountered
a beadle, whose quaint and ponderous figure presented itself to
their blithe minds as a fit object for diversion in lieu of better.
Accordingly they accosted him with rough words and unceremonious usage,
the which he resenting, they came to boisterous threats and many blows,
that ended only when the poor fellow lay with outstretched limbs stark
dead upon the pavement. Sir Charles Sedley and Lord Brockhurst were also
notable as having been engaged in another piece of what has been called
"frolick and debauchery," when "they ran up and down all night almost
naked through the streets, at last fighting and being beaten by the
watch, and clapped up all night."

It was not until the last years of the merry monarch's reign