And thus we march’d:  First with my golden Mace
  I pac’d along, and after followed mee
  The Burgesses by senioritee. 
  Our Praetour first (let me not misse my Text),
  I think the Clergie-men came marching next;
  Then came our Justice, with him a Burger sage,
  Both marched together, in due equipage. 
  The rest oth’ Burgers, with a comely grace,
  Walked two and two along to th’ market-place.

And when the procession arrived at the steps of the cross—­

  The Clerk was call’d, and he a Bible took,
  The hundred and sixt Psalme he out did look;
  Two thousand Quoristers their notes did raise
  And warbled out the Great Creator’s praise!

After this came bonfires and wine and beer, and then the musketeers with rattling drums and fifes and colours flying, under the “skilfull Sergeant Corderoy,” who fired off a barrel of powder before the well-known “Antelope Inn.”

Abingdon was rather roughly handled during the Civil War, for, in addition to the “sawing off” of the cross, the horses of the Parliamentary Army were stabled in St. Helen’s Church, an entry being afterwards made in the churchwardens’ book of a sum paid “for nailes and mending the seats that the soldiers had toorne.”  The fines recorded during the Commonwealth were:  “For swearing one oath, 3s. 4d.; for drawing Beere on the Sabboth Day, 10s. 0d.; a Gent for travelling on the Sabboth, 10s. 0d.”  Our journey might have been devised on a plan to evade all such fines, for we did not swear, or drink beer, or travel on Sundays.  We might, however, have fallen into the hands of highway robbers, for many were about the roads in that neighbourhood then, and many stage-coaches had been held up and the passengers robbed.

There was a rather imposing County Hall at Abingdon, built towards the close of the seventeenth century, at which an ancient custom was performed on the coronation of a king.  The mayor and corporation on those occasions threw buns from the roof of the market-house, and a thousand penny cakes were thus disposed of at the coronation of George IV, and again at the accession of William IV and of Queen Victoria.

An apprentice of a cordwainer in the town ran away in 1764, or, as it was worded on the police notice, “did elope from service.”  He was described as a “lusty young fellow, wearing a light-coloured surtout coat, a snuff-coloured undercoat, a straw-coloured waistcoat, newish leather breeches, and wears his own dark brown hair tied behind,” so it appeared to us that he had not left his best clothes at home when he “did elope,” and would be easily recognised by his smart appearance.  We also noticed that about the same period “Florists’ Feasts” were held at Abingdon, perhaps the forerunners of the “Flower Shows” held at a later period.  In those days the flowers exhibited were chiefly “whole-blowing carnations,” while the important things were the dinners which followed the exhibitions, and which were served at the principal inns.