Illustrations from “York Music”

York Music

James Merryweather

Sessions Book Trust. ISBN 1 85072 034 7.

Update available from the author – James Merryweather ([email protected]).

Drawn by Ingrid Johnson

The Girdler family at home, 1645

The York Waits at Micklegate Bar
for the welcome of James I & VI;
16 April 1603

Edward Millington, city trumpeter,
heading for Cadiz
to help singe the King of Spain’s beard
in 1596

A civic procession through York
in the 1580s

How to wear an old red hood:
15th, 16th and 17th century styles

Ricardus Twysday, mynstral et brewer,
1493 [a case for caution:
‘mynstral’ might mean
administrator sensu lato]

21 Oct. 1584. “John Clarke & John Balderston two of the waites of this cittie did personallie appere in this court,
and were examined towching their evill and disorderlie behaviour, to the discredit of this cittie viz.
for that they have gone abroad, in the country in very evill apparel, with their hose forth at their heeles,
also for that they are common drunkerdes and cannot so cunninglie play upon their instruments as they ought to do …”

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The Illustrated London News, Dec. 19, 1896. – 853
THE RIVAL WAITS, By A. Forester.

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The Illustrated London News, Dec. 28, 1901. – 1002
“WELCOME THE COMING, SPEED THE PARTING GUEST.”
Drawn by F. W. Burton.

There is, philosophers declare,
A law of compensation,
Which soon or late with balance fair
Adjusts the situation;

Though parting guests the landlord’s till
Have slyly circumvented,
The coming guest will find his bill
In like degree augmented.