(Vol. vii., p. 106.)
I have no doubt that the particular instance of _Zeal in the cause of the
Church_ at Banbury, which Addison had in mind when he wrote No. 220. of the
_Tatler_, published Sept. 5, 1710, was a grand demonstration made by its
inhabitants in favour of Dr. Sacheverell, whose trial had terminated in his
acquittal on March 23 of that year. And my opinion is strengthened by the
introduction almost immediately afterwards of a passage on the party use of
the terms High Church and Low Church.
On June 3, 1710, the High Church champion made a triumphal entry into
Banbury, which is ridiculed in a pamphlet called _The Banb..y Apes, or the
Monkeys chattering to the Magpye; in a Letter to a Friend in London_. On
the back of the title is large woodcut, representing the procession which
accompanied the doctor; among the personages of which the Mayor of Banbury
(as a wolf), and the aldermen (as apes), are conspicuous figures. Dr.
Sacheverell himself appears on horseback, followed by a crowd of persons
bearing crosses and rosaries, or strewing branches. The accompanying
letter-press describes this procession as being closed by twenty-four
tinkers beating on their kettles, and a "vast mob, hollowing, hooping, and
playing the devil." There is another tract on the same subject, which is
extremely scarce, entitled--
"An Appeal from the City to the Country for the Preservation of Her
Majesty's Person, Liberty, Property, and the Protestant Religion, &c.
Occasionally written upon the late impudent Affronts offer'd to Her
Majesty's Royal Crown and Dignity by the People of BANBURY and WARWICK:
Lond. 8vo. 1710."
To your correspondent H.'s (p. 222.) quotation from Braithwait's "Drunken
Barnaby" may be added this extract from an earlier poem by the same writer,
called "A Strappado for the Divell:"
"But now for Bradford I must haste away:
Bradford, if I should rightly set it forth,
Stile it I might _Banberry_ of the North;
And well this title with the town agrees,
Famous for twanging _ale_, _zeal_, _cakes_, and _cheese_."
A few words on "Banbury _Cakes_," and I have done. The earliest mention of
them I am aware of (next to that in Camden's _Britannia_, published by
Philemon Holland in 1608, and already referred to), is by Ben Jonson, in
his _Bartholomew Fair_, written 1614; where he introduces "Zeal-of-the-Land
Busy" as "a Banbury Man," who "was a _baker_--but he does dream now, and
see visions: he has given over his trade, out of a scruple he took, that,
in spiced conscience, _those cakes he made_ were served to bridales,
maypoles, morrisses, and such profane feasts and meetings." I do not know
whether the sale of Banbury cakes flourished in the last century; but I
find recorded in Beesley's _Hist. of Banbury_ (published 1841) that Mr.
Samuel Beesley sold in 1840 no fewer than 139,500 twopenny cakes; and in
1841, the sale had increased by at least a fourth. In Aug. 1841, 5,400 were
sold weekly; being shipped to America, India, and even Australia. I fancy
their celebrity in early days can hardly parallel this, but I do not vouch
for the statistics.