Note 203 — KENILWORTH CASTLE.

Hock-Tuesday, Hoke-day, or Hoke-tide. The origin of this once popular game, or play, which the author of Kenilworth describes as being represented to the Queen by the men of Coventry, is involved in considerable obscurity. By some writers it is supposed to be commemorative of the massacre of the Danes, in the reign of Ethelred, on the 13th of November, 1002; whilst by others, the deliverance of the English from the tyranny of the Danes by the death of Hardicanute, on Tuesday, the 8th of June, 1042, is pointed out as its origin. The weight of argument preponderates in favour of the national deliverance by Hardicanute’s death: and it must not be forgotten, that the festival was celebrated on a Tuesday, and that Hoke-Tuesday was the Tuesday in the second week after Easter. Spelman derives the term from the German Hocken, in reference to the act of binding, which was formerly practised by the women upon the men on Hoke-Tuesday; an opinion which Mr. Denne has well supported. [Archæolog. vol vii. p. 244.] A payment, called Hock-Tuesday money, was anciently made by the tenant to the landlord, for the permission given by the latter to the former to celebrate the festivities of this memorable day. [Jac. Law Dic. in verb.] Whatever the etymology of its name, or the origin of the game itself might be, its subject was the massacre of the Danes, expressed in actions and rhymes, and acted annually in the town of Coventry, till its suppression, shortly after the Reformation. It consisted of fierce sham contests between the English and Danish forces; first by the “launce knights,” on horseback, armed with spears and shields, who, being many of them dismounted, then fought with swords and targets. Afterwards succeeded two “hosts of footmen,” one after the other; first marching in ranks, then facing about in military array, then changing their form from ranks into squadrons, then into triangles, then into rings, and then, “winding out again, they joined in battle. Twice the Danes had the better; but at the last conflict they were beaten down, overcome, and many of them led captive for triumph by our English women.”—Illustration of the Waverley Novels, vol. iii. p. 45.