Note 159 — MANNINGHAM'S DIARY. (continued 3)

It is stated in Heywood's Apology for Actors, that "to this day [1612], in divers places of England there be townes that hold the priviledge of their fairs and other charters by yearly stage-playes, as at Manningtree in Suffolke, Kendall in the North, and others." (Shakespeare Soc. ed. p. 61.) The Lawless Court of Rochford has been described in various places, especially in Morant's Essex, i. 272, and in Notes and Queries, ix. 11. W. H. Black, Esq. F.S.A. has made it the subject of a privately printed ballad entitled "The Court of the Honor of Rayleigh," in which it is stated that the parties assemble at a post in a close called the King's Hill, and that whatever is spoken during their proceedings is whispered to the post.