{17} Sir William Lewis, one of the eleven members who had been impeached
by the army.
{18} Col. Giles Strangwaies, of Dorsetshire, taken with Sir Lewis Dives,
at the surrender of Sherborne, was committed to the Tower on the 28th
August, 1645. He was member for Bridport in the Long Parliament, and was
one of those who attended Charles’s “Mongrel” Parliament at Oxford.
{19} Sir Lewis Dives, an active Royalist, was governor of Sherborne
Castle for the King, and had been made a prisoner by Fairfax in August,
1645, when that fortress was taken by storm. He was brother-in-law to
Lord Digby.
{20} Sir John Morley, of Newcastle, committed to the Tower on the 18th
of July, 1645.
{21} King was a Royalist general, in the north, who was slain July,
1643.
{22} Sir William Morton, of Gloucestershire, committed to the Tower on
the 17th August, 1644. Cardinal Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury,
brought about the marriage between King Henry VII. and the daughter of
Edward IV., and thus effected the unison of the rival houses of York and
Lancaster.
{23} Thomas Coningsby, Esq., of Northmyus in Hertfordshire, committed to
the Tower in November, 1642, for reading the King’s commission of array
in that county.
{24} Sir Wingfield Bodenham, of the county of Rutland, committed to the
Tower on the 31st of July, 1643.
{25} Sir Henry Vaughan, a Welsh knight, committed to the Tower on the
18th July, 1645.
{26} Lilburn was, as has been observed, in the Tower for his practices
against the present order of things, he being an advocate of extreme
democratic principles; and he was there instructed in knotty points of
law by Judge Jenkins, to enable him to torment and baffle the party in
power. It was Jenkins who said of Lilburne that “If the world were
emptied of all but John Lilburne, Lilburne would quarrel with John, and
John with Lilburne.”—T. W.
{27} Mr Thomas Violet, of London, goldsmith, committed to the Tower
January 6th, 1643(–4), for carrying a letter from the King to the mayor
and common council of London.
{28} Dr Hudson had been concerned in the King’s transactions with the
Scots, previous to his delivering himself up to them, and he and
Ashburnham had been his sole attendants in his flight from Oxford for
that purpose.—T. W.
{29} Poyntz and Massey were staunch Presbyterians, and their party
counted on their assistance in opposing the army: but they withdrew, when
the quarrel seemed to be near coming to extremities.
{30} Glynn was one of the eleven members impeached by the army.
{31} It was believed at this time that Fairfax was favourable to the
restoration of the King.
{32} The “Jack Ketch” of the day.
{33} The copy in the “Rump Songs” has “Smee and his tub.”
{34} The old proverbial expression of “the devil and his dam” was
founded on an article of popular superstition which is now obsolete. In
1598, a Welshman, or borderer, writes to Lord Burghley for leave “to
drive the devill and his dam” from the castle of Skenfrith, where they
were said to watch over hidden treasure: “The voyce of the countrey goeth
there is a dyvell and his dame, one sitts upon a hogshed of gold, the
other upon a hogshed of silver.” (Queen Elizabeth and her Times, ii.
397.) The expression is common in our earlier dramatic poets: thus
Shakespeare,—
—“I’ll have a bout with thee;
Devil, or devil’s dam, I’ll conjure thee:
Blood will I draw on thee, thou art a witch.”
(Hen. V. Part I. Act I. sc. 5.)
T. W.
{35} The prediction was not _quite_ so speedily verified.
{36} Colonel Hewson, originally a shoemaker.
{37} Newspapers.
{38} In the seventeenth century Lancashire enjoyed an unhappy
pre-eminence in the annals of superstition, and it was regarded
especially as a land of witches. This fame appears to have originated
partly in the execution of a number of persons in 1612, who were
pretended to have been associated together in the crime of witchcraft,
and who held their unearthly meetings at the Malkin Tower, in the forest
of Pendle. In 1613 was published an account of the trials, in a thick
pamphlet, entitled “The Wonderful Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of
Lancaster. With the Arraignment and Triall of nineteene notorious
Witches, at the Assizes and general Goale Deliverie, holden in the Castle
of Lancaster, on Monday, the seventeenth of August last, 1612. Published
and set forth by commandment of his Majesties Justices of Assize in the
North Parts, by Thomas Potts, Esquier.” “The famous History of the
Lancashire Witches” continued to be popular as a chap-book up to the
beginning of the nineteenth century.—T. WRIGHT.
{39} An allusion to the Dutch War of 1651 and 1652.
{40} Oliver Cromwell.
{41} The Welsh were frequently the subject of satirical allusions during
the civil wars and the Commonwealth.
{42} Speaker of the Long Parliament.
{43} Cromwell’s wife.
{44} Cromwell’s two sons, Richard and Henry.
{45} Cromwell’s daughter.
{46} Col. Pride, originally a brewer’s drayman.
{47} Walter Strickland, M.P. for a Cornish borough.
{48} Monk was with his troops in Scotland, but had declared himself an
approver of the proceedings of the Parliament.
{49} Dr John Owen, Joseph Caryl, and Philip Nye, were three of the most
eminent divines of this eventful age. Caryl, who was a moderate
independent, was the author of the well-known “Commentary on Job.” Dr
Owen enjoyed the especial favour of Cromwell, who made him Dean of
Christchurch, Oxford; in his youth he had shown an inclination to
Presbyterianism, but early in the war he embraced the party of the
Independents. He was a most prolific writer. Nye was also an eminent
writer: previous to 1647 he had been a zealous Presbyterian, but on the
rise of Cromwell’s influence he joined the Independents, and was employed
on several occasions by that party.—T. W.
{50} Col. John Ireton was the brother of the more celebrated Henry
Ireton, and was an alderman of London. He appears to have been clerk of
the Council of Officers at Wallingford House.
{51} Col. Robert Tichbourne was also an alderman, and had been Lord
Mayor in 1658. He was an enthusiast in religion of the Independent
party, and published several books, among which one was very celebrated,
and is often referred to in the tracts of this period, entitled, “A
Cluster of Canaan’s Grapes. Being severall experimented truths received
through private communion with God by his Spirit, grounded on Scripture,
and presented to open view for publique edification.” London, 4to, Feb.
16, 1649. In a satirical tract of the year 1660 he is made to say, “I
made my mother, the city, drunk with the clusters which I brought from
Canaan, and she in her drink made me a colonel.” After the return of the
secluded members to the House, and the triumph of the city and the
Presbyterian party, Ireton and Tichbourne were committed to the Tower,
charged with aiming at the overthrow of the liberties of the city, and
other grave misdemeanours. There are in the British Museum two satirical
tracts relating to their imprisonment: 1. “The Apology of Robert Tichborn
and John Ireton. Being a serious Vindication of themselves and the Good
old Cause, from the imputations cast upon them and it by the triumphing
city and nation in this their day of desertion. Printed for everybody
but the light-heeled apprentices and head-strong masters of this wincing
city of London.” (March 12, 1659–60.) 2. “Brethren in Iniquity: or, a
Beardless Pair; held forth in a Dialogue betwixt Tichburn and Ireton,
Prisoners in the Tower of London.” 4to. (April 30, 1660.)
{52} George Monk and John Lambert.
{53} The eleventh of February was the day on which Monck overthrew the
Rump, by declaring for the admission of the secluded members.
{54} On the tenth of February Monk, by order of the Parliament, had
entered the city in a hostile manner. “Mr Fage told me,” says Pepys,
“what Monck had done in the city, how he had pulled down the most parts
of the gates and chains that he could break down, and that he was now
gone back to Whitehall. The city look mighty blank, and cannot tell what
in the world to do.” The next day he turned from the Parliament, and
took part with the city.
{55} Thomas Scot and Luke Robinson were sent by the Parliament to
expostulate with Monk, but without effect.
{56} Pepys gives the following description of the rejoicings in the city
on the evening of the eleventh of February:—“In Cheapside there were a
great many bonfires, and Bow bells and all the bells in all the churches
as we went home were a-ringing. Hence we went homewards, it being about
ten at night. But the common joy that was everywhere to be seen! The
number of bonfires! there being fourteen between St Dunstan’s and Temple
Bar, and at Strand Bridge I could at one time tell thirty-one fires. In
King-street seven or eight; and all along burning, and roasting, and
drinking for Rumps, there being rumps tied upon sticks and carried up and
down. The butchers at the May Pole in the Strand rang a peal with their
knives when they were going to sacrifice their rump. On Ludgate Hill
there was one turning of a spit that had a rump tied upon it, and another
basting of it. Indeed it was past imagination, both the greatness and
the suddenness of it. At one end of the street you would think there was
a whole lane of fire, and so hot that we were fain to keep on the further
side.”
{57} In a satirical tract, entitled “Free Parliament Quæries,” 4to,
April 10, 1660, it is inquired “Whether Sir Arthur did not act the Raging
Turk in Westminster Hall, when he saw the admission of the secluded
members?” Pepys gives the following account of the reception of Monck’s
letter from the city on the 11th of February:—“So I went up to the lobby,
where I saw the Speaker reading of the letter; and after it was read Sir
A. Haselrigge came out very angry, and Billing, standing by the door,
took him by the arm and cried, ‘Thou man, will thy beast carry thee no
longer? thou must fall!’”
{58} Haselrigge was accused of having been a dupe to Monck’s cunning
intrigues.
{59} The celebrated Praise-God Barebone, at the head of a body of
fanatics, had (February 9th) presented a strong petition to the House in
support of the Good old Cause, which gave great offence to the
Presbyterian party and the citizens, although it was received with
thanks. According to Pepys, one of Monck’s complaints against the
Parliament was, “That the late petition of the fanatique people presented
by Barebone, for the imposing of an oath upon all sorts of people, was
received by the House with thanks.” The citizens did not omit to show
their hostility against the presenter of the petition. On the 12th,
Pepys says, “Charles Glascocke . . . told me the boys had last night
broke Barebone’s windows.” And again, on the 22nd, “I observed this day
how abominably Barebone’s windows are broke again last night.”
{60} Miles Corbet, as well as Tichbourn, had sat upon the King in
judgment. In a satirical tract, published about the same time as the
present ballad, Tichbourn is made to say, “They say I am as notorious as
Miles Corbet the Jew.” In another, entitled “The Private Debates, etc.,
of the Rump,” 4to, April 2, 1660, we read, “Call in the Jews, cryes
Corbet, there is a certain sympathy (quoth he), methinks, between them
and me. Those wandering pedlers and I were doubtless made of the same
mould; they have all such blote-herring faces as myself, and the devil
himself is in ’um for cruelty.” He was one of those who fled on the
Restoration, but he was afterwards taken treacherously in Holland, and,
being brought to London, was executed as a regicide. In another
satirical tract, entitled “A Continuation of the Acts and Monuments of
our late Parliament” (Dec. 1659), it is stated that, “July 1, This very
day the House made two serjeants-at-law, William Steele and Miles Corbet,
and that was work enough for one day.” And, in a fourth, “Resolved, That
Miles Corbet and Robert Goodwin be freed from the trouble of the Chief
Register Office in Chancery.” _Mercurius Honestus_, No. 1. (March 21,
1659–60.)
{61} William Lord Monson, Viscount Castlemaine, was member for Ryegate
in the Long Parliament. He was degraded from his honour at the
Restoration, and was condemned to be drawn on a sledge with a rope round
his neck from the Tower to Tyburn, and back again, and to be imprisoned
there for life. It appears, by the satirical tracts of the day, that he
was chiefly famous for being beaten by his wife. In one, entitled “Your
Servant, Gentlemen,” 4to, 1659, it is asked, “Whether that member who
lives nearest the church ought not to ride Skimmington next time my Lady
Mounson cudgels her husband?” And in another (“The Rump Despairing,”
4to, London, March 26, 1660) we find the following passage:—“To my Lord
Monson. A sceptre is one thing, and a ladle is another, and though his
wife can tell how to use one, yet he is not fit to hold the other.”
{62} Pudding John, or Jack Pudding, was a proverbial expression of the
times for a Merry Andrew. In an old English-German Dictionary it is
explained thus:—“_Jack-Pudding_, un buffon de theatre, deliciæ populi,
ein Hanswurst, Pickelhering.” The term was applied as a soubriquet to
any man who played the fool to serve another person’s ends. “And first
Sir Thomas Wrothe (_Jack Pudding_ to Prideaux the post-master) had his
cue to go high, and feele the pulse of the hous.” History of
Independency, p. 69 (4to, 1648).
{63} An allusion to James Harrington’s “Oceana.”
{64} James Harrington, a remarkable political writer of this time, had
founded a club called the Rota, in 1659, for the debating of political
questions. This club met at Miles’s Coffee-house, in Old Palace Yard,
and lasted a few mouths. At the beginning of the present year was
published the result of their deliberations, under the title of “The
Rota: or, a Model of a Free State, or Equall Commonwealth; once proposed
and debated in brief, and to be again more at large proposed to, and
debated by, a free and open Society of ingenious Gentlemen.” 4to,
London, 1660 (Jan. 9).
{65} William Prynne, the lawyer, who had been so active a member of the
Long Parliament when the Presbyterians were in power, was one of the
secluded members. He returned to the House on the 21st of January, this
year. Pepys says, “Mr Prin came with an old basket-hilt sword on, and
had a great many shouts upon his going into the hall.”
{66} John Wilde was one of the members for Worcestershire in the Long
Parliament. In Cromwell’s last Parliament he represented Droitwich, and
was made by the Protector “Lord Chief Baron of the publick Exchequer.”
In a satirical pamphlet, contemporary with the present ballad, he is
spoken of as “Sarjeant Wilde, best known by the name of the Wilde
Serjeant.” Another old song describes his personal appearance:
“But, Baron Wild, come out here,
Show your ferret face and snout here,
For you, being both a fool and a knave,
Are a monster in the rout here.”
Loyal songs II. 55.
{67} See footnote {60}.
{68} Alderman Atkins.
{69} Ludlow was well known as a staunch Republican. The incident
alluded to was a subject of much merriment, and exercised the pen of some
of the choicest poets of the latter half of the seventeenth century.—T.
W.
{70} Lambert, with his army, was in the North, and amid the
contradictory intelligence which daily came in, we find some people who,
according to Pepys, spread reports that Lambert was gaining strength.—T.
W.
{71} Marchamont Nedham.
{72} Lambert and “his bears” are frequently mentioned in the satirical
writings of this period. Cromwell is said to have sworn “by the living
God,” when he dissolved the Long Parliament.—T. W.
{73} Speaker of the Long Parliament.
{74} Harry Marten, member for Berkshire, a man of equivocal private
character. In the heat of the civil wars he had been committed to the
Tower for a short time by the Parliament, for speaking too openly against
the person of the King. When he attempted to speak against the violent
dissolution of the Long Parliament by Cromwell, the latter reproached him
with the licentiousness of his life.—T. W.
{75} William Lord Monson, Viscount Castlemaine, was member for Ryegate.
He was degraded from his honours at the Restoration, and was condemned to
be drawn on a sledge with a rope round his neck from the Tower to Tyburn,
and back again, and to be imprisoned there for life. It appears, by the
satirical tracts of the day, that he was chiefly famous for being beaten
by his wife.—T. W.
{76} Sir Arthur Haselrigge, member for Leicestershire.
{77} Noise or disturbance.
{78} Dr John Hewit, an episcopal clergyman, executed for high treason in
1658, for having held an active correspondence with the Royalists abroad,
and having zealously contributed to the insurrection headed by
Penruddock.
{79} John Lowry, member for Cambridge.
{80} Sir Edmund Prideaux, Bart., member for Lyme Regis. He was
Cromwell’s Attorney-General.
{81} Oliver St John, member for Totness, and Lord Chief Justice of the
Common Pleas.
{82} John Wilde, one of the members for Worcestershire. In Cromwell’s
last Parliament he represented Droitwich, and was made by the Protector
“Lord Chief Baron of the Public Exchequer.”
{83} Sir Henry Slingsby and Dr Hewet were executed for treason against
the government of Oliver Cromwell in 1658. Colonel John Gerard was
brought to the block at the beginning of the Protectorate, in 1654, for
being engaged in a plot to assassinate Cromwell.
{84} John Lord Lisle represented Yarmouth in the Long Parliament. He
sat for Kent in the Parliament of 1653, and was afterwards a member of
Cromwell’s “other House,” and held the office of Lord Commissioner of the
Great Seal. He was president of the High Courts of Justice which tried
Gerard, Slingsby, and Hewet.
{85} Nathaniel Fiennes, member for Banbury. In the Parliament of 1654
he represented Oxfordshire. He was afterwards, as Nathaniel Lord
Fiennes, a member of Cromwell’s “other House.” Fiennes was accused of
cowardice in surrendering Bristol (of which he was governor) to Prince
Rupert, somewhat hastily, in 1643. His father, Lord Say and Sele,
opposing Cromwell, was obliged to retire to the Isle of Lundy.
{86} John Lord Glynn, member of Cromwell’s “other House,” was “Chief
Justice assigned to hold pleas in the Upper Bench.” He was engaged in
the prosecution of the Earl of Strafford. He was one of the eleven
members impeached by the army in 1647. In the Long Parliament, as well
as in Cromwell’s Parliaments, he was member for Carnarvon.—T. W.
{87} Henry Nevil, member for Abingdon. In Cromwell’s last Parliament he
represented Reading. In a satirical tract, he is spoken of as “religious
Harry Nevill;” and we find in Burton’s Diary, that some months before the
date of the present song (on the 16th Feb. 1658–9) there was “a great
debate” on a charge of atheism and blasphemy which had been brought
against him.—T. W.
{88} In the satirical tract entitled “England’s Confusion,” this member
is described as “hastily rich Cornelius Holland.” He appears to have
risen from a low station, and is characterized in the songs of the day as
having been a link-bearer.—T. W.
{89} Major Salwey was an officer in the Parliamentary array. On the
17th January, 1660, he incurred the displeasure of the House, and was
sequestered from his seat and sent to the Tower. He is described as “a
smart, prating apprentice, newly set for himself.” He appears to have
been originally a grocer and tobacconist; a ballad of the time speaks of
him as,
“Salloway with tobacco
Inspired, turned State quack-o;
And got more by his feigned zeal
Then by his, _What d’ye lack-o_?”
In another he is introduced thus,
“The tobacco-man Salway, with a heart tall of gall
Puffs down bells, steeples, priests, churches and all,
As old superstitions relicks of Baal.”