When the Parish Captains went to Tynwald Hill for the annual gathering, they were escorted by Four Horsemen from each parish, who formed a guard for the Lord of Man or his representative. The Horsemen were usually men of substance in the country, who provided their own horses and equipment, and oversaw the arms of the Watch. The earliest reference to them is found in 1643, when they were made an allowance of 3/6d a week on entry into the Lord’s service (at the beginning of the English Civil War). In 1797, John Feltham wrote that “agreeable to ancient custom, every parish sent Four Horsemen, properly accoutred, and the Captain of every Parish presided over those of his own district”. In his History of the Isle of Man (1900), A W Moore, himself Captain of Onchan from 1885 to 1895, recalled that, up to the middle of the nineteenth century, the Captains wore a dark blue uniform with red facings. The horsemen continued their ceremonial duties at Tynwald as long as the Governors travelled to the meeting from Castletown on horseback.
