“The Lord of Misrule,” in the inns of court, latterly did not conduct himself with any recollection of “Medio tutissimus ibis,” being unreasonable; but the “sparks of the Temple,” as a contemporary calls them, had gradually, in the early part of Charles the First’s reign, yielded themselves up to excessive disorders.  Sir Symonds D’Ewes, in his MS. diary in 1620, has noticed their choice of a lieutenant, or lord of misrule, who seems to have practised all the mischief he invented; and the festival days, when “a standing table was kept,” were accompanied by dicing, and much gaming, oaths, execrations, and quarrels:  being of a serious turn of mind, he regrets this, for he adds, “the sport, of itself, I conceive to be lawful.”

I suspect that the last memorable act of a Lord of Misrule of the inns of court occurred in 1627, when the Christmas game became serious.  The Lord of Misrule then issued an edict to his officers to go out at Twelfth-night to collect his rents in the neighbourhood of the Temple, at the rate of five shillings a house; and on those who were in their beds, or would not pay, he levied a distress.  An unexpected resistance at length occurred in a memorable battle with the Lord Mayor in person:—­and I shall tell how the Lord of Misrule for some time stood victor, with his gunner, and his trumpeter, and his martial array:  and how heavily and fearfully stood my Lord Mayor amidst his “watch and ward:”  and how their lordships agreed to meet half way, each to preserve his independent dignity, till one knocked down the other:  and how the long halberds clashed with the short swords:  how my Lord Mayor valorously took the Lord of Misrule prisoner with his own civic hand:  and how the Christmas prince was immured in the Counter; and how the learned Templars insisted on their privilege, and the unlearned of Ram’s-alley and Fleet-street asserted their right of saving their crown-pieces:  and finally how this combat of mockery and earnestness was settled, not without the introduction of “a god,” as Horace allows on great occasions, in the interposition of the king and the attorney-general—­altogether the tale had been well told in some comic epic; but the wits of that day let it pass out of their hands.

I find this event, which seems to record the last desperate effort of a “Lord of Misrule,” in a manuscript letter of the learned Mede to Sir Martin Stuteville; and some particulars are collected from Hammond L’Estrange’s Life of Charles the First.

     “Jan. 12, 1627-8.

“On Saturday the Templars chose one Mr. Palmer their Lord of Misrule, who, on Twelfth-eve, late in the night, sent out to gather up his rents at five shillings a house in Ram-alley and Fleet-street.  At every door they came they winded the Temple-horn, and if at the second blast or summons they within opened not the door, then the Lord of Misrule cried out, ‘Give fire, gunner!’ His gunner was a robustious Vulcan, and the gun or petard itself