Easter football on the Roodee

At Easter the mayor and corporation of Chester and the city’s twenty guilds went in procession to the Roodee to play football. The mayor stood before the cross with mace, sword and cap of maintenance while the Shoemakers, whose right it had always been, gave him the ball, worth three and fourpence or more. Because of the fighting it caused, under Henry VIII the ball became a gift of six silver gleaves from the shoemakers to the drapers, to be run for on foot, and the saddlers’ offering became a silver bell for the fastest horse. The women played too, and when the mayor’s daughter was carried off by her lover through the Pepper-gate during a game, the mayor had the gate shut for good, which gave Chester a proverb.