The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1884-09-20
English reverence for the Mace.

The object called mace and the store
that is set by it may be considered as con-
snicuous among the curiosities of public
life in England The swords of justice and
of mercy, the sceptre, the orb, the crown
itself, are all easily comprehensive symbols
of royal Justice or royal authority and
prerogative. But why mace should be
held to be, and jealousy preserved as an
emblem of corporate jurisdiction and sway,
has puzzled many Of the longest-headed
students of the past, and may equally per-
pick those of the present day. What is
macep 1t was originally a weapon of war,
and one of very formidable nature, which
was used in European warfare as late as
the sixteenth century. The weapon, how
ever, from which our parliamentary, NUM-
cipal and academical maces sprang, was,
without doubt, staff of wood about five
feet long, with heavy metal head, fire.
auently in the form of spiked ball. 1t
was a fayorite instrument with medieval
priests of bellicose turn of mind; for, al
though canon of the church specially
forbade to clerics the use of the sword,
nothing was said to prevent an ecclesiastical
person when of militant mood from shifting
his antagonist over the sconce with his
iron-headed cudgel. But when and why
the mace Of civil and Legislative life lost its
offensive spikes and became an ornamented
staff of silver or gilded copper, to be borne
before magistrates and other persons in au-
thority, has never been with precision as
certained. 1t is sufficiently demonstrated
that the normal use of mace was to knock
somebody down with it. The italian for
mace is "mazza," and its function is signi-
cantly pointed out in the verb ''ammaz-
zare," to fell or ''mace" any one. 1t was
with the mace which hung at his saddle-bow
that Walworth, Lord Mayor of London, hit
Wat Tyler over the mazzard in Smithfeld,
after which the cautious Fishmonger, dis
mounting, dispatched the PROSTATE rebel
with his dagger. From this historic fact
the deduction has been made that, as there
was not room in the city escutcheon for a
mace as well as dagger, to the poniard
only was given heraldic distinction, while
the mace was ever thereafter carried by one
of the officers of the Lord Mayors house
hold not only as an emblem Of authority,
but as a memorial of Walworth's prowess
against the seditious Tyler. This assump-
ton, however, is not borne out by the cir
cumstance that at leasta century before the
time of our Richard H., continental kings
and princes were not only preceded but
surrounded by mace-bearers, and that the
reason given for their being attended by
such special guard was the widely spread
fear of the assassins dispatched from Syria
by the Old Man of the Mountain to murder
conspicuous Franks who had been marked
down for destruction. When the sect of
the assassins died out, the military mace
bearers, as guards to crowned heads, were
superseded by halberdiers, of whom we may
see the modern survivals in our quantity
clad Beef-eaters and Tower Wardens, and
in the partisan-bearing Royal Body guard,
formerly known as Gentlemen-at-arms"
and Gentlemen Pensioners" while, instead
of the mace-bearers, who formerly accom-
panied the judges when riding circuit, they
were escorted by '.javelin-men," officers who
still form part of a well-ordered judicial
cortege on its entrance to an assize town,
and for neglecting to provide a sufficient
contingent of such javelin-men a high
sheriff has, within our own generation,
been heavily fined by a judge. As for the
mace, the last vestige of it as militant
weapon was observable in the long slaves,
at the end of which iron or leaden balls,
armed with spikes, were suspended which
were carried until late in the last century
by the pioneer company of the train-bands
or city militia. 1t is curious to note that
the older of the two gigantic figures in
Guildhall, enormously called Cog and Ma
Cog, instead of Gomagog and Corinaus
which were carved in the reign of Queen
Anne, carries staff with spiked ball sus
pended from a chain, precisely answering
to the description of the modified kind of
maces formerly borne by trainband pioneers