Spayne and Rome Defeated.(London and Amsterdam, 1621.)
Spayne and Rome Defeated.(London and Amsterdam, 1621.)
Examine the two large caricatures, "Rome's Monster" and "Spayne and Rome Defeated," in the light of a mere catalogue of dates. The Field of the Cloth of Gold, which we may regard as the splendid close of the old state of things, occurred in 1520, three years after Luther nailed up his theses. Henry VIII. defied the Pope in 1533; and twenty years after, Bloody Mary, married to Philip of Spain, was burning bishops at Smithfield. Elizabeth's reign began in 1558, which changed, not ended, the religious strife in England. The massacre of St. Bartholomew occurred in 1572, on that 24th of August which, as Voltaire used to say, all the humane and the tolerant of our race should observe as a day of humiliation and sorrow for evermore. In 1579 began the long struggle between the New and the Old, which is called the Thirty Years' War. The Prince of Orange was assassinated in 1584, in the midst of those great events which Mr. Motley has made familiar to the reading people of both continents. Every intelligent Protestant in Europe felt that the weapon which slew the prince was aimed at his own heart. The long dread of the Queen of Scots' machinations ended only with her death in 1587. Soon after, theshadow of the coming Spanish Armada crept over Great Britain, which was not dispelled till the men of England defeated and the storm scattered it in 1588. In 1605 Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot struck such terror to the Protestant mind, that it has not, in this year, 1877, wholly recovered from it, as all may know who will converse with uninstructed people in the remoter counties of Great Britain. Raleigh was beheaded in 1618. The civil war began in 1642. In 1665 the plague desolated England, and in the next year occurred the great fire of London, good Protestants not doubting that both events were traceable to the fell influence of the Beast. The accession of James II., a Roman Catholic, filled the Puritans with new alarm in 1685, and during the three anxious years of his reign their brethren, the Huguenots, were fleeing into all the Protestant lands from the hellish persecution of the priests who governed Louis XIV.
Upon looking back at this period of agitation and alarm, it startles the mind to observe in the catalogue of dates this one: "Shakspeare died 1616." It shows us, what the ordinary records do not show, that there are people who retain their sanity and serenity in the maddest times. The rapid succession of the plays—an average of nearly two per annum—proves that there was apublicfor Shakspeare when all the world seemed absorbed in subjects least akin to art and humor. And how little trace we find of all those thrilling events in the plays! He was a London actor when the Armada came; and during the year of the Gunpowder Plot he was probably meditating the grandest of all his themes, "King Lear!"
The picture entitled "Spayne and Rome Defeated"[16]was one of the most noted and influential broadsheets published during the Puritan period. It may properly be termed a broadsheet, since the copy of the original in the British Museum measures 20-2/3inches by 13. The Puritans of England saw with dismay the growing cordiality between James I. and the Spanish court, and watched with just apprehension the visit of Prince Charles to Spain, and the prospect of a marriage between the heir-apparent and a Spanish princess. At this alarming crisis, 1621, the sheet was composed in England, and sent over to Holland to be engraved and printed, Holland being then, and for a hundred and fifty years after, the printing-house and type-foundry of Northern Europe. Some of the Pilgrim Fathers of Massachusetts, then residing at Leyden, and still waiting to hear the first news of theMayflowercompany, who had sailed the year before, may have borne a hand in the work. Pastor Robinson, we know, gained part of his livelihood by co-operating with brethren in England in the preparation of works designed for distribution at home.
Besides being one of the most characteristic specimens of Puritan caricature which have been preserved, it presents to us arésuméof history, as Protestantsinterpreted it, from the time of the Spanish Armada to that of Guy Fawkes—1588 to 1605. It appears to have been designed for circulation in Holland and Germany as well as in England, as the words and verses upon it are in English, Dutch, and Latin. The English lines are these:
"In Eighty-eight, Spayne, arm'd with potent might,Against our peacefull Land came on to fight;But windes and waves and fire in one conspire,To help the English, frustrate Spaynes desire.To second that the Pope in counsell sitts,For some rare stratagem they strayne their witts;November's 5th, by powder they decreeGreat Brytanes state ruinate should bee.But Hee, whose never-slumb'ring Eye did viewThe dire intendments of this damned crew,Did soone prevent what they did thinke most sure.Thy mercyes, Lord! for evermore endure."
This interesting sheet was devised by Samuel Ward, a Puritan preacher of Ipswich, of great zeal and celebrity, who dedicated it, in the fashion of the day, thus:
"To God. In memorye of his double deliveraunce from yeinvincible Navie and yeunmatcheable powder Treason, 1605."
It was a timely reminder. As we occasionally see in our own day a public man committing the absurdity of replying in a serious strain to a caricature, so, in 1621, the Spanish embassador in London, Count Gondomar, called the attention of the British Government to this engraving, complaining that it was calculated to revive the old antipathy of the English people to the Spanish monarchy. The obsequious lords of the Privy Council summoned Samuel Ward to appear before them. After examining him, they remanded him to the custody of their messenger, whose house was a place of confinement for such prisoners; and there he remained. As there was yet no habeas corpus act known among men, he could only protest his innocence of any ill designs upon the Spanish monarchy, and humbly petition for release. He petitioned first the Privy Council; and they proving obdurate, he petitioned the king. He was set free at last, and he remained for twenty years a thorn in the side of those who dreaded "Spayne and Rome" less than they hated Puritans and Parliaments.
This persecution of Samuel Ward gave his print such celebrity that several imitations or pirated editions of the work speedily appeared, of which four are preserved in the great collection of the British Museum, each differing from the original in details. Caricatures aimed directly at the Spanish embassador followed, but they are only remarkable for the explanatory words which accompany them. In one we read that the residence of Count Gondomar in England had "hung before the eyes of many good men like a prodigiouscomet, threatening worse effects to Church and State than this other comet," which had recently menaced both from the vault of heaven. "No ecclipse of the sunne," continues the writer, "could more damnifie the earth, to make it barraine and the best things abortive, than did his interposition." We learn also that when the count left England for a visit to his own country, in 1618, "there was an uproare and assault a day or two before his departure from London by the Apprentices, who seemed greedy of such an occasion to vent their own spleenes in doing him or any of his a mischiefe." Another picture exhibits the odious Gondomar giving an account of his conduct in England to the "Spanishe Parliament," in the course of which he attributes the British abhorrence of Spain to such men as "Ward of Ipswich," whom he describes as "light and unstayed wits," intent on winning the airy applause of the vulgar, and to raise their desperate fortunes. Nor does he refrain from chuckling over the penalty inflicted upon that enemy of Spayne and Rome: "And I think that Ward of Ipswich escaped not safely for his lewed and profane picture of '88 and their Powder Treason, one whereof, my Lord Archbishop, I sent you in a letter, that you might see the malice of these detestable Heretiques against his Holiness and the Catholic Church." This broadsheet being entitled "Vox Populi," the writer concludes his explanation by styling the embassador "Fox Populi, Count Gondomar the Great."
From Title-page to a Sermon, "Woe to Drunkards," by Samuel Ward, of Ipswich, 1627.
From Title-page to a Sermon, "Woe to Drunkards," by Samuel Ward, of Ipswich, 1627.
Ward of Ipswich continued to be heard from occasionally during the first years of the reign of Charles I. Ipswich itself acquired a certain celebrity as a Puritan centre, and the name was given during the life-time of Samuel Ward to a town in Massachusetts, which is still thriving. One of his sermons upon drunkenness was illustrated by a picture, of which a copy is given here,[17]designed to show the degeneracy of manners that had taken place in England in his day. Mr. Chatto truly remarks that twenty years later the picture would have been more appropriate with the inscriptions transposed.
The marriage of Charles I. with the Princess Henrietta of France, in 1625, was one of the long series of impolitic acts which the king expiated on the scaffold in 1649. It aggravated every propensity of his nature that was hostile to the liberties of the people. Under James I. theéliteof the Puritans had fled to Holland, and a little company had sought a more permanent refugeon the coast of New England. During the early years of the reign of Charles, the persecution of the Puritans by his savage bishops became so cruel and so vigilant as to induce men of family and fortune, like Winthrop and his friends, accompanied by a fleet of vessels laden with virtuous and thoughtful families, to cross the ocean and settle in Massachusetts. Boston was founded when Charles I. had been cutting off the ears and slitting the noses of Puritans for five years. All that enchanting shore of New England, with its gleaming beaches, and emerald isles, and jutting capes of granite and wild roses, now so dear to summer visitors—an eternal holiday-ground and resting-place for the people of North America—began to be dotted with villages, the names of which tell us what English towns were most renowned for the Puritan spirit two hundred and fifty years ago. The satirical pictures preserved in the British Museum which relate to events in earlier reigns number ninety-nine in all; but those suggested by events in the reign of Charles I. are nearly seven hundred in number. Most of them, however, were not published until after the downfall of the king.
Several of these prints are little more than portraits of the conspicuous persons of the time, with profuse accounts on the same sheet of their sufferings or misdeeds. One such records the heroic endurance of "the Reverend Peter Smart, mr of Artes, minister of God's word at Durham," who, for preaching against popery, lost above three hundred pounds per annum, and was imprisoned eleven years in the King's Bench. The composer adds these lines:
"Peter preach downe vaine rites with flagrant harte;Thy Guerdon shall be greate, though heare thou Smart."
Another of these portrait pieces exhibits Dr. Alexander Leighton, who spoke of Queen Henrietta as "the daughter of Hell, a Canaanite, and an idolatresse," and spared not Archbishop Laud and his confederates. For these offenses he was, as the draughtsman informs us, "clapt up in Newgate for the space of 15 weekes, where he suffered great miserie and sicknes almost to death, afterward lost one of his Eares on the pillorie, had one of his nosthrills slitt clean through, was whipt with a whip of 3 Coardes knotted, had 36 lashes therewith, was fined 1000ll., and kept prisoner in the fleet 12 yeares, where he was most cruelly used a long time, being lodged day and night amongst the most desperately wiked villaines of yewhole prison." He was also branded on the cheek with the letters S. S.—sower of sedition. Several other prints of the time record the same mark of attention paid by the "martyred" king to his Catholic wife. By-and-by, the crowned and mitred ruffians who did such deeds as these being themselves in durance, Parliament set Dr. Leighton free, and made him a grant of six thousand pounds.
A caricature of the same bloody period is entitled, "Archbishop Laud dining on the Ears of Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton." We see Laud seated at dinner, having an ear on the point of his knife and three more ears in the platebefore him, the three victims of his cruelty standing about, and two armed bishops at the foot of the table. The dialogue below represents Laud as rejecting with scorn all the dainties of his table, and declaring that nothing will content him but the ears of Lawyer Prynne and Dr. Bastwick. He cuts them off himself, and orders them to be dressed for his supper.
"Canterbury.This I doe to make you examples,That others may be more careful to please my palate.Henceforth let my servants know, that what I will, Iwillhave done,What ere is under heaven's Sunne."
"Let not the World devide those whom Christ hath joined."
"Let not the World devide those whom Christ hath joined."
A burst of caricature heralded the coming triumph of the Puritans in 1640, the year of the impeachment of the Earl of Strafford. Many of the pictures recorded both the sufferings and the joyful deliverance of the Puritan clergymen. Thus we have in one of them a glowing account of the return of the three gentlemen whose ears furnished a repast for the Archbishop of Canterbury. They had been imprisoned for many years in the Channel Islands, from which they were conveyed to Dartmouth, and thence to London, hailed with acclamations of delight and welcome in every village through which they passed. All the expenses of their long journey were paid for them, and presents of value were thrust upon them as they rode by. Within a few miles of London they were met by such a concourse of vehicles, horsemen, and people that it was with great difficulty they could travel a mile in an hour. But when at length, in the evening, they reached the city, masses of enthusiastic people blocked the streets, crying, "Welcome home! welcome home!" and strewing flowers and rosemary before them. Thousands of the people carried torches, which rendered the streets lighter than the day. They were three hours in making their way through the crowd from Charing Cross to their lodgings in the city, a distance of a mile.
It was during the exaltation of the years preceding the civil war that such pictures appeared as the one here given, urging a union between the Church of England and the Churchof Scotland against the foe of both. This is copied from an original impression in the collection of the New York Historical Society.
The caricaturists pursued Laud and Strafford even to the scaffold. The archbishop was the author of a work entitled "Canons and Institutions Ecclesiastical," in which he gave expression to his extreme High-church opinions. In 1640 the victorious House of Commons canceled the canons adopted from this work, and fined the clergy who had sat in the Convocation. A caricature quickly appeared, called "Archbishop Laud firing a Cannon," in which the cannon is represented as bursting, and its fragments endangering the clergymen standing near. Laud's committal to the Tower was the occasion of many broadsheets, one of which exhibits him fastened to a staple in a wall, with a long string of taunting stanzas below:
"Reader, I know thou canst not choose but smileTo see a Bishop tide thus to a ring!Yea, such a princely prelate, that ere whileCould three at once inLimbo patrumfling;Suspend by hundreds where his worship pleased,And them that preached too oft by silence eas'd;"Made Laws and Canons, like a King (at least);Devis'd new oaths; forc'd men to sweare to lies!Advanc'd his lordly power 'bove all the rest.And then our Lazie Priests began to rise;But painfull ministers, which plide their placeWith diligence, went downe the wind apace."Our honest Round heads too then went to racke;The holy sisters into corners fled;Cobblers and Weavers preacht in Tubs for lackeOf better Pulpits; with a sacke insteadOf Pulpit-cloth, hung round in decent wise,All which the spirit did for their good devise."Barnes, Cellers, Cole-holes, were their meeting-places,So sorely were these babes of Christ abus'd,Where he that most Church-government disgracesIs most esteem'd, and with most reverence us'd.It being their sole intent religiouslyTo rattle against the Bishops' dignity."Brother, saies one, what doe you thinke, I pray,Of these proud Prelates, which so lofty are?Truly, saies he, meere Antichrists are they.Thus as they parle, before they be aware,Perhaps a Pursuivant slips in behind,And makes 'em run like hares before the wind."A yeere agone 'tad been a hanging matterT'ave writ (nay, spoke) a word 'gainst little Will;But now the times are chang'd, men scorne to flatter;So much the worse for Canterbury still,For if that truth come once to rule the roast,No mar'le to see him tide up to a post."By wicked counsels faine he would have setThe Scots and us together by the eares;A Patriark's place the Levite long'd to get,To sit bith' Pope in one of Peter's chaires.And having drunke so deepe of Babels cup,Was it not time, d'ee think, to chaine him up?"
"Reader, I know thou canst not choose but smileTo see a Bishop tide thus to a ring!Yea, such a princely prelate, that ere whileCould three at once inLimbo patrumfling;Suspend by hundreds where his worship pleased,And them that preached too oft by silence eas'd;
"Made Laws and Canons, like a King (at least);Devis'd new oaths; forc'd men to sweare to lies!Advanc'd his lordly power 'bove all the rest.And then our Lazie Priests began to rise;But painfull ministers, which plide their placeWith diligence, went downe the wind apace.
"Our honest Round heads too then went to racke;The holy sisters into corners fled;Cobblers and Weavers preacht in Tubs for lackeOf better Pulpits; with a sacke insteadOf Pulpit-cloth, hung round in decent wise,All which the spirit did for their good devise.
"Barnes, Cellers, Cole-holes, were their meeting-places,So sorely were these babes of Christ abus'd,Where he that most Church-government disgracesIs most esteem'd, and with most reverence us'd.It being their sole intent religiouslyTo rattle against the Bishops' dignity.
"Brother, saies one, what doe you thinke, I pray,Of these proud Prelates, which so lofty are?Truly, saies he, meere Antichrists are they.Thus as they parle, before they be aware,Perhaps a Pursuivant slips in behind,And makes 'em run like hares before the wind.
"A yeere agone 'tad been a hanging matterT'ave writ (nay, spoke) a word 'gainst little Will;But now the times are chang'd, men scorne to flatter;So much the worse for Canterbury still,For if that truth come once to rule the roast,No mar'le to see him tide up to a post.
"By wicked counsels faine he would have setThe Scots and us together by the eares;A Patriark's place the Levite long'd to get,To sit bith' Pope in one of Peter's chaires.And having drunke so deepe of Babels cup,Was it not time, d'ee think, to chaine him up?"
In these stanzas are roughly given the leading counts of the popular indictment against Archbishop Laud. Other prints present him to us in the Tower with a halter round his neck; and, again, we see him in a bird-cage, with the queen's Catholic confessor, the two being popularly regarded as birds of a feather. In another, a stout carpenter is holding Laud's nose to a grindstone, while the carpenter's boy turns the handle, and the archbishop cries for mercy:
"Such turning will soon deform my face;Oh! I bleed, I bleed! and am extremely sore."
But the carpenter reminds him that the various ears that he had caused to be cut off were quite as precious to their owners as his nose is to him. A Jesuit enters with a vessel of holy water with which to wash the extremely sore nose. One broadsheet represents Laud in consultation with his physician, who administers an emetic that causes him to throw off his stomach several heavy articles which had been troubling him for years. First, the "Tobacco Patent" comes up with a terrible wrench. As each article appears, the doctor and his patient converse upon it:
"Doctor.What's this? A book?Whosoever hath bin at church may exercise lawful recreations on Sunday.What's the meaning of this?
"Canterbury.'Tis the booke for Pastimes on the Sunday, which I caused to be made. But hold! here comes something. What is it?
"Doctor.'Tis another book. The title is, 'Sunday no Sabbath.' Did you cause this to be made also?
"Canterbury.No; Doctor Pocklington made it; but I licensed it.
"Doctor.But what's this? A paper 'tis; if I be not mistaken, a Star-Chamber order made against Mr. Prinne, Mr. Burton, and Dr. Bastwicke. Had you any hand in this?
"Canterbury.I had. I had. All England knoweth it. But, oh, here comes up something that makes my very back ake! O that it were up once! Now it is up, I thank Heaven!
"Doctor.'Tis a great bundle of papers, of presentations and suspensions. These were the instruments, my lord, wherewith you created the tongue-tied Doctors, and gave them great Benefices in the Country to preach some twice a year at the least, and in their place to hire some journeyman Curate, who will only read a Sermon in the forenoone, and in the afternoone be drunke, with his parishioners for company."
By the same painful process the archbishop is delivered of his "Book of Canons," and finally of his mitre; upon which the doctor says, "Nay, if the miter be come, the Divell is not far off. Farewell, my good lord."
There still exist in various collections more than a hundred prints relating directly to Archbishop Laud, several of which give burlesque representations of his execution. There are some that show him asleep, and visited by the ghosts of those whom he had persecuted, each addressing him in turn, as the victims of Richard III. spoke to their destroyer on Bosworth Field. One of the print-makers, however, relented at the spectacle of an old man, seventy-two years of age, brought to the block. He exhibits the archbishop speaking to the crowd from the scaffold:
"Lend me but one poore teare, when thow do'st seeThis wretched portraict of just miserie.I was Great Innovator, Tyran, FoeTo Church and State; all Times shall call me so.But since I'm Thunder-stricken to the Ground,Learn how to stand: insult not ore my wound."
This one poor stanza alone among the popular utterances of the time shows that any soul in England was touched by the cruel fanatic's bloody end.
"England's Wolfe with Eagle's Clawes" (Prince Rupert), 1647.
"England's Wolfe with Eagle's Clawes" (Prince Rupert), 1647.
During the civil war and the government of Cromwell, 1642 to 1660, nine in ten of all the satirical prints that have been preserved are on the Puritan side. A great number of them were aimed at the Welsh, whose brogue seems to have been a standing resource with the mirth-makers of that period, as the Irish is at present. The wild roystering ways of the Cavaliers, their debauchery and license, furnished subjects. The cruelties practiced by Prince Rupert suggested the annexed illustration, in which the author endeavored to show "the cruell Impieties of Blood-thirsty Royalists and blasphemous Anti-Parliamentarians under the Command of that inhumane Prince Rupert, Digby, and the rest, wherein the barbarous Crueltie of our Civill uncivill Warres is briefly discovered." Beneath the portrait of England's wolf are various narratives of his bloody deeds. One picture exhibits the plundering habits of the mercenaries on the side of the king in Ireland. A soldier is represented armed and equipped with the utensils that appertain to good forage: on his head a three-legged pot, hanging from his side a duck, a spit with a goose on it held in his left hand as a musket, a dripping-pan on his arm as a shield, a hay-fork in his right hand for a rest, with a string of sausages for a match, a long artichoke at his side for a sword, bottles of canary suspended from his belt, slices of toast for shoe-strings, and two black pots at his garters. This picture may have been called forth by an item in a news-letterof 1641, wherein it was stated that such "great store of pilidges" was daily brought into Drogheda that a cow could be bought there for five shillings and a horse for twelve.
Charles II. and the Scotch Presbyterians, 1651."Presbyter.Come to the grinstone, Charles; 'tis now too lateTo recolect, 'tis presbiterian fate."King.Yon Covenant pretenders, must I beeThe subject of your Tradgie Comedie?"Jockey.I, Jockey, turne the stone of all your plots,For none turnes faster than the turne-coat Scots."Presbyter.We for our ends did make thee king, be sure,Not to rule us, we will not that endure."King.You deep dissemblers, I know what you doe,And, for revenges sake, I will dissemble too."
Charles II. and the Scotch Presbyterians, 1651.
"Presbyter.Come to the grinstone, Charles; 'tis now too lateTo recolect, 'tis presbiterian fate.
"King.Yon Covenant pretenders, must I beeThe subject of your Tradgie Comedie?
"Jockey.I, Jockey, turne the stone of all your plots,For none turnes faster than the turne-coat Scots.
"Presbyter.We for our ends did make thee king, be sure,Not to rule us, we will not that endure.
"King.You deep dissemblers, I know what you doe,And, for revenges sake, I will dissemble too."
The abortive attempt of Charles II., after the execution of his father, to unite the Scots under his sceptre, and by their aid place himself upon the throne of England, called forth the caricature annexed, in which an old device is put to a new use. A large number of verses explain the picture, though they begin by declaring:
"This Embleme needs no learned Exposition;The World knows well enough the sad conditionOf regal Power and Prerogative.Dead and dethron'd inEngland, now aliveInScotland, where they seeme to love the Lad,If hee'l be more obsequious than his Dad,And act according to Kirk Principles,More subtile than were Delphic Oracles."
In the verses that follow there is to be found one of the few explicit justifications of the execution of Charles I. that the lighter literature of the Commonwealth affords:
"ButLaw and Justiceat the last being doneOn the hated Father, now they love the Son."
The poet also taunts the Scots with having first stirred up the English to "doe Heroick Justice" on the late king, and then adopting the heir on condition of his givingtheirChurch the same fell supremacy which Laud had claimed for the Church of England.
The Ironsides of Cromwell soon accomplished the caricaturist's prediction:
"But this religious mock we all shall see,Will soone the downfall of their Babel be."
We find the pencil and the pen of the satirist next employed in exhibiting the young king fleeing in various ludicrous disguises before his enemies.
An interesting caricature published during the civil wars aimed to castback upon the Malignants the ridicule implied in the nickname of Roundhead as applied to the Puritans. It contained figures of three ecclesiastics, "Sound-head, Rattle-head, and Round-head." Sound-head, a minister sound in the Puritan faith, hands a Bible to Rattle-head, a personage meant for Laud, half bishop and half Jesuit. On the other side is the genuine Round-head, a monk with shorn pate, who presents to Rattle-head a crucifix, and points to a monastery. Rattle-head rejects the Bible, and receives the crucifix. Over the figures is written:
"See heer, Malignants FoolerieRetorted on them properly,The Sound-head, Round-head, Rattle-head,Well placed, where best is merited."
Below are other verses in which, of course, Rattle-head and Round-head are belabored in the thorough-going, root-and-branch manner of the time,AtheistandArminianbeing used as synonymous terms:
"See heer, the Rattle-heads most Rotten Heart,Acting the AtheistsorArminians part."
In looking over the broadsheets of that stirring period, we are struck by the absence of the mighty Name that must have been uppermost in every mind and oftenest on every tongue—that of the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell. A few caricatures were executed in Holland, in which "The General" and "Oliver" and "The Protector" were weakly satirized; but as most of the plates in that age were made to serve various purposes, and were frequently altered and redated, it is not certain that any of them were circulated in England during Cromwell's life-time. English draughtsmen produced a few pictures in which the Protector was favorably depicted dissolving the Long Parliament, but their efforts were not remarkable either with pen or pencil. The Protector may have relished, and Bunyan may have written, the verses that accompanied some of them:
"Full twelve years and more these Rooks they have satto gull and to cozen all true-hearted People;Our Gold and our Silver has made them so fatthat they lookt more big and mighty than Paul's Steeple."
The Puritans handled the sword more skillfully than the pen, and the royalists were not disposed to satire during the rule of the Ironside chief. The only great writer of the Puritan age on the Puritan side was Milton, and he was one of the two or three great writers who have shown little sense of humor.
Cris-cross Rhymes on Love's Crosses, 1640.(Musarum, 306.)
Cris-cross Rhymes on Love's Crosses, 1640.(Musarum, 306.)
What a change came over the spirit of English art and literature at the Restoration in 1660! Forty years before, when James I. was king, who loathed a Puritan, there was occasionally published a print in which Puritans were treated in the manner of Hudibras. There was one of 1612 in which a crown was half covered by a broad-brimmed hat, with verses reflecting upon "the aspiring, factious Puritan," who presumed to "overlooke his king." There was one in 1636, in the reign of Charles I., aimed at "two infamous upstart prophets," weavers, then in Newgate for heresy, which contains a description of a Puritan at church, which is entirely in the spirit of Hudibras:
"His seat in the church is where he may be most seene. In the time of the Sermon he drawes out his tables to take the Notes, but still noting who observes him to take them. At every place of Scripture cited he turnes over the leaves of his Booke, more pleased with the motion of the leaves than the matter of the Text; For he folds downe the leaves though he finds not the place. Hee lifts up the whites of his eyes towards Heaven when heemeditates on the sordid pleasures of the earth; his body being in God's Church, when his mind is in the divel's Chappell."
Again, in 1647, two years before the execution of Charles, an extensive and elaborate sheet appeared, in which the ignorant preachers of the day were held up to opprobrium. Each of these "erronious, hereticall, and Mechannick spirits" was exhibited practicing his trade, and a multitude of verses below described the heresies which such teachers promulgated.
"Oxford and Cambridge make poore Preachers;Each shop affordeth better Teachers:Oh blessed Reformation!"
Among the "mechannick spirits" presented in this sheet we remark "Barbone, the Lether-seller," who figures in many later prints as "Barebones." There are also "Bulcher, a Chicken man;" "Henshaw, a Confectioner, alias an Infectioner;" "Duper, a Cowkeeper;" "Lamb, a Sope-boyler," and a dozen more.
Such pictures, however, were few and far between during the twenty years of Puritan ascendency. But when the rule of the Sound-head was at an end, and Rattle-head had once more the dispensing of preferment in Church and State, the press teemed with broadsheets reviling the Puritan heroes. The gorgeous funeral of the Protector—his body borne in state on a velvet bed, clad in royal robes, to Westminster Abbey, where a magnificent tomb rose over his remains—was still fresh in the recollection of the people of London when they saw the same body torn from its resting-place, and hung on Tyburn Hill from nine in the morning until six in the evening, and then cast into a deep pit. Thousands who saw his royal funeral looked upon his body swinging from the gallows. The caricatures vividly mark the change. Cromwell now appears only as tyrant, antichrist, hypocrite, monster. Charles I. is the holy martyr. His son's flight in disguise, the hiding in the oak-tree, and other circumstances of his escape are no longer ignominious or laughable, but graceful and glorious.
A cherished fiction appears frequently in the caricatures that no man came to a good end who had had any hand in the king's execution, not even the executioner nor the humblest of his assistants. On one sheet we read of a certain drum-maker, named Tench, who "provided roapes, pullies, and hookes (in case the king resisted) to compel and force him down to the block." "This roague is also haunted with a Devill, and consumes away." There was the confession, too, of the hangman, who, being about to depart this life, declared that he had solemnly vowed not to perform his office upon the king, but had nevertheless dealt the fatal blow, trembling from head to foot. Thirty pounds had been his reward, which was paid him in half-crown pieces within an hour after the execution—the dearest money, as he told his wife, that he had ever received, for it would cost him his life, "which propheticall words were soonmade manifest, for it appeared that, ever since, he had been in a most sad condition, and lay raging and swearing, and still pointing at one thing or another which he conceived to appear visible before him."
Shrove-tide in Arms against Lent,A.D.1660.
Shrove-tide in Arms against Lent,A.D.1660.
Richard Cromwell was let off as easily by the caricaturist as he was by the king. He is depicted as "the meek knight," the mild incapable, hardly worth a parting kick. In one very good picture he is a cooper hammering away with a mallet at a cask, from which a number of owls escape, most of which, as they take their flight, cry out, "King!" Richard protests that he knows nothing of this trade of cooper, for the more he hammers, the more the barrel breaks up. Elizabeth, the wife of the Protector, figured in a ludicrous manner upon the cover of a cookery-book published in the reign of Charles II., the preface of which contained anecdotes of the kitchen over which she had presided.
Lent tilting at Shrove-tide,A.D.1660.
Lent tilting at Shrove-tide,A.D.1660.
Among other indications of change in the public feeling, we notice a few pictures conceived in the pure spirit of gayety, designed to afford pleasure to every one, and pain to no one. Two of these are given here—Shrove-tide and Lent tilting at one another—which were thought amazingly ingenious and comic two hundred years ago. They are quite in the taste of the period thatproduced them. Shrove-tide, in the calendar of Rome, is the Tuesday before Lent, a day on which many people gave themselves up to revelry and feasting, in anticipation of the forty days' fast. Shrove-tide accordingly is mounted on a fat ox, and his sword is sheathed in a pig and piece of meat, with capons and bottles of wine about his body. His flag, as we learn from the explanatory verses, is "a cooke's foule apron fix'd to a broome," and his helmet "a brasse pot." Lent, on the contrary, flings to the breeze a fishing-net, carries an angling-rod for a weapon, and wears upon his head "a boyling kettle." Thus accoutred, these mortal foes approach one another, and Lent lifts up his voice and proclaims his intention:
"I now am come to mundifie and cleareThe base abuses of this last past yeare:Thou puff-paunch'd monster (Shrovetyde), thou art heThat were ordain'd the latter end to beOf forty-five weekes' gluttony, now past,Which I in seaven weekes come to cleanse at last:Your feasting I will turn to fasting dyet;Your cookes shall have some leasure to be quiet;Your masques, pomps, playes, and all your vaine expence,I'll change to sorrow, and to penitence."
Shrove-tide replies valiantly to these brave words:
"What art thou, thou leane-jawde anottamie,All spirit (for I no flesh upon thee spie);Thou bragging peece of ayre and smoke, that prat'st,And all good-fellowship and friendship hat'st;You'le turn our feasts to fasts! when, can you tell?Against your spight, we are provided well.Thou sayst thou'lt ease the cookes!-the cookes could wishThee boyl'd or broyl'd with all thy frothy fish;For one fish-dinner takes more paines and costThan three of flesh, bak'd, roast, or boyl'd, almost."
This we are compelled to regard as about the best fun our ancestors of 1660 were capable of achieving with pencil and pen. Nor can we claim much for their pictures which aim to satirize the vices.
The Queen of James II. and Father Petre."It is a foolish sheep that makes the wolf her confessor." (1685.)
The Queen of James II. and Father Petre.
"It is a foolish sheep that makes the wolf her confessor." (1685.)
The joy of the English people at the restoration of the monarchy, which seemed at first to be as universal as it was enthusiastic, was of short duration. The Stuarts were the Bourbons of England, incapable of being taught by adversity. Within two years Charles II. alarmed Protestant England by marrying a Portuguese princess. The great plague of 1665, that destroyed in London alone sixty-eight thousand persons, was followed in the very next year by the great fire of London, which consumed thirteen thousand two hundred houses. At a moment when the public mind was reduced to the most abject credulity by such events as these, the scoundrel Titus Oates appeared, declaring that the dread calamities which had afflicted England, and others then imminent, were only parts of an awfulPopish Plot, which aimed at the destruction of the king and the restoration of the Catholic religion. A short time after, 1678, Sir Edmundsbury Godfrey, the magistrate before whom Titus Oates made his deposition, was found dead in a field near London, the victim probably of some fanatic assassin of the Catholic party. The kingdom was thrown into an ecstasy of terror, from which, as before observed, it has not to this day wholly recovered. Terror may lurk in the blood of a race ages after the removal of its cause, as we find our sensitive horses shying from low-lying objects at the road-side, though a thousand generations may have peacefully labored and died since their ancestors crouched from the spring of a veritable wild beast. The broadsheets of that year, 1678, and of the troublous years following, even until William of Orange was seated on the throne of England, in 1690, have, we may almost say, but one topic—the Popish Plot. The spirit of that period lives in those sheets.
It had been a custom in England to celebrate the 17th of November, the day, as one sheet has it, on which the unfortunate Queen Mary died, and "that Glorious Sun, Queen Elizabeth, of happy memory, arose in the English horizon, and thereby dispelled those thick fogs and mists of Romish blindness, and restored to these kingdoms their just Rights both as men and Christians." The next recurrence of this anniversary after the murder of Godfrey was seized bythe Protestants of London to arrange a procession which was itself a striking caricature. A pictorial representation of the procession is manifestly impossible here, but we can copy the list of objects as given on a broadsheet issued a few days after the event. This device of a procession, borrowed from Catholic times, was continually employed to promulgate and emphasize Protestant ideas down to a recent period, and has been used for political objects in our own day. How changed the thoughts of men since Albert Dürer witnessed the grand and gay procession at Antwerp, in honor of the Virgin's Assumption, one hundred and fifty-nine years before! The 17th of November, 1679, was ushered in, at three o'clock in the morning, by a burst of bell-ringing all over London. The broadsheet thus quaintly describes the procession:
"About Five o'clock in the Evening, all things being in readiness, the Solemn Procession began, in the following Order: I. Marched six Whiflers to clear the way, in Pioneers Caps and Red Waistcoats (and carrying torches). II. A Bellman Ringing, who, with a Loud and Dolesom Voice cried all the way,Remember Justice Godfrey. III. A Dead Body representing Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, in the Habit he usually wore, the Cravat wherewith he was murdered about his Neck, with spots of Blood on his Wrists, Shirt, and white Gloves that were on his hands, his Face pale and wan, riding on a White Horse, and one of his Murderers behind him to keep him from falling, representing the manner how he was carried from Somerset House to Primrose Hill. IV. A Priest in a Surplice, with a Cope Embroidered with Dead mens Bones, Skeletons, Skuls, &c., giving pardons very freely to those who would murder Protestants, and proclaiming it Meritorious. V. A Priest alone, in Black, with a large Silver Cross. VI. Four Carmelite Friers in White and Black Habits. VII. Four Grey Friars in their proper Habits. VIII. Six Jesuits with Bloody Daggers. IX. A Consort of Wind-musick, call'd the Waits. X. Four Popish Bishops in Purple and Lawn Sleeves, with Golden Crosses on their Breasts. XI. Four other Popish Bishops in their Pontificalibus, with Surplices, Rich Embroydered Copes, and Golden Miters on their Heads. XII. Six Cardinals in Scarlet Robes and Red Caps. XIII. The Popes Chief Physitian with Jesuites Powder in one hand, and a —— in the other. XIV. Two Priests in Surplices, with two Golden Crosses. Lastly, the Pope in a Lofty Glorious Pageant, representing a Chair of State, covered with Scarlet, the Chair richly embroydered, fringed, and bedeckt with Golden Balls and Crosses; at his feet a Cushion of State, two Boys in Surplices, with white Silk Banners and Red Crosses, and Bloody Daggers for Murdering Heritical Kings and Princes, painted on them, with an Incense-pot before them, sate on each side censing his Holiness, who was arrayed in a rich Scarlet Gown, Lined through with Ermin, and adorned with Gold and Silver Lace, on his Head a Triple Crown of Gold, and a Glorious Collar of Gold and precious stones, St. Peters Keys, a number of Beads, Agnus Dei's and other Catholick Trumpery; at his Back stood his Holiness's Privy Councellor, the Devil, frequently caressing, hugging,and whispering, and oft-times instructing him aloud, to destroy His Majesty, to forge a Protestant Plot, and to fire the City again; to which purpose he held an Infernal Torch in his hand. The whole Procession was attended with 150 Flambeaus and Torches by order; but so many more came in Voluntiers as made up some thousands. Never were the Balconies, Windows and Houses more numerously filled, nor the Streets closer throng'd with multitudes of People, all expressing their abhorrence of Popery with continual Shouts and Acclamations."
With slow and solemn step the procession marched to Temple Bar, then just rebuilt, and there it halted, while a dialogue in verse was sung in parts by "one who represented the English Cardinal Howard, and one the people of England." We can imagine the manner in which the crowd would come thundering in with
"Now God preserve Great Charles our King,And eke all honest men;And Traytors all to justice bring,Amen! Amen! Amen!"
Fire-works succeeded the song, after which "his Holiness was decently tumbled from all his grandeur into the impartial flames," while the people gave so prodigious a shout that it was heard "far beyond Somerset House." For many years a similar pageant was given in London on the same day.
As an additional illustration of the feeling which then prevailed in Puritan circles, I will copy the rude and doleful rhymes which accompany a popular print of 1680, called "The Dreadful Apparition; or, the Pope haunted with Ghosts." Coleman, Whitebread, and Harcourt, who figure among the ghosts, had been recently executed as "popish plotters." The picture shows the Pope in bed, to whom the devil conducts Coleman, and an angel leads the spirit of Sir Edmundsbury Godfrey. Whitebread and Harcourt are in shrouds. A bishop, a cardinal, and other figures are seen. A label issuing from the mouth of each of the persons represented contains the rhymes which follow:
THE POPE IN BED.
"Away! Away! am not I Pope of Rome,torment me not before my time is Come."
THE DEVIL, IN THE FORM OF A DRAGON.
"Your Sevt Sr! Ned Coleman doth appearehe'll tell you all, therefore I brought him here."
COLEMAN'S GHOST.
"Sryou are Cause of my Continuall paine,My Soul is Lost, for your Ambitious gaine."
GODFREY'S GHOST, INTRODUCED BY ——.
"Repent great Srand be for ever blest,in Heaven with me that happy place of rest."
ANGEL, IN A "ROMAN SHAPE."
"O Chariety! who mercy craves for those:With Blūddy hands that ware his Cruell foes."
WHITEBREAD'S GHOST, WITH A SWORD THROUGH THE BODY.
"I am perplexed with perpetuall fright;but who is this apeares this dreadful night."
HARCOURT'S GHOST, WITH A SWORD THROUGH THE BODY.
"'Tis Godfrey's Ghost I wish all things be wellthat we may have our Pope of Rome in hell."
A BISHOP.
"Let us depart and Shun their cruell fate,and all repent before it is to late."
CARDINAL.
"Come let us flie with all the Speed we may,Ye Devil els will take us all away."
Below the picture are the verses subjoined:
NUNCIO.
"Horrors and Death! whatdismal SightsInvadeHis Nightly Slumbers, who inBlooddoes Trade.The Ghostly Apparitions of the Dead;TheBless'dby Angels;Damn'dbyDemons Lead;'Tis sure,RomesConclavemustAmazed stand,WhenSoulsComplaining, thus againstthemband;WhoAllbutOneto please AmbitiousRome,Have Gain'dDamnationfor Their FinalDoom.Hear howThey Curse Himall, butHewho fell.GreatBrittains Sacrificeby Imps of Hell;Who shew'dTheir Bloody Vengeancein theStrife,To MurtherHim, who Business had forLife."
POPE.
"How domy Eye-BallsRoul, and Bloodrun back,What Tortures at this sight my Conscience Rack;Oh!Mountainsnow fall on me, some Deep CavePitty me once,and prove my speedy Grave.Involv'din Darkness,from the SeatedLight,Let Me abscondinEverlasting Night.Tormentme not;you Shades, before my time,I do confess, your Downfallswasmy Crime;ToSatiate myAmbitionandRevenge,I push'd you on to this Immortal Change.But Ah! fresh Horrors, Ah! my Power's grown weak,What art thou Fiend?from whence? or where? O Speak;That in this Frightful Form, aDragon'shewPresentsOneSainted, tomyTrembling View?"
FIEND.
"By Hells GrimKing'sCommand, onwhomI wait,I've brought your Saint his Story to relate;Who from the blackTartarian-Fire below,So long beg'd Absence as to let you knowHis Torments, and the Horrid Cheat condole,You fix'd on him to Rob him of his Soul."
POPE.
"O! spare my Ears, I'll no such Horrors hear;"
COLEMAN.
"You must, and know yourownDamnation's near:You must ere long bePlung'din Grizly Flame,Which I shall laugh to see, tho, rack'd with painThouGrand Deceiverof theNationsAll,Contriver of myWretched FateandFall:Thou who didst push me on to MurtherKingsPersuading me for it onAngels WingsI shouldTranscendthe Clouds, beever Blest,)And be ofAlthat Heav'n cou'd yield,possest,)But these I mist, gotTormentwithoutRest:)For whilst onEarthI stand, aHellwithinDistracts my Conscience, pale with horrid Sin:Instead ofMortalsPardon,Oneon High,I must your Everlasting Martyr Fry;Whilst Name ofSaintI bear on Earth,belowItstirstheflames, and much Augmentsmy Woe."
POPE.
"Horrors! 'tis Dismal, I can hear no more,O! Hell and Furies, how I have lost my Pow'r."
SIR E. GODFREY.
"See Sir this Crimson Stain, this baleful WoundSee Murther'd me, withJoys EternalCrown'd;Though by theDarkest Deedof Night I fell,Whichshook Three Kingdoms, andAstonish'd Hell:Yet rap'dabovethe Skyes to Mansion bright,There to Converse with Everlasting Light;Thence got I leave to View thyWretched Face,And find my Death thy Hell-bornPlotsdid race,And next to theAlmighty ArmdidSaveGreatAlbion'sGlory from its yawning Grave;FromSacred Blissmy Swift-Wing'd Souldid glide,ConductedHitherby myAngel-Guide,To let thee know thy Sands were almost run,And that thy Thread ofLifeis well-nigh Spun;Repentyou then, Wash off theBloody Stain,OrYou'llbe Doom'd toEverlasting Pain."
ANGEL.
"Come Worthyof Seraphick Joys Above,WorthyOurConverse, andOur SacredLove;Who hast Implor'd the GreatJehovefor One)WhoShedthy Blood, toSnatchthy PrincesThrone)In this thySaviour'sGreat Examples shown:)Come letVshence, and leaveHimto his Fate,WhenDivine Vengeanceshall the Business State."
POPE.
"Chill Horror seizes me, I cannot flye;Oh Ghastly! yet more Apparitions nigh?"
WHITEBREAD.
"Thus wandering through theGloomy Shades, at lastI've foundThee, Traytor, thatmy Joysdid Blast,WhoseDam'd Injunctions,Dire DamnationSeal'd,AndTormentsthat were never yet Reveal'd:Mirrihords ofPlagues,Chains,Racks, TempestuousFire,SulpherianLakesthat Burn and ner Expire,DeformedDemons, Uglier far than Hell,The Half whatWe Endure, no Tongue canTell;This for aBishoprickI Undergo,ButNowwould give Earth'sEmpirewer'tnot so."
POPE.
"Retire, Good Ghosts, or I shall Dye with Fear."
HARCOURT.
"Nay stay Sir, first You mustmy StoryHear:How could you thusDeludeyourBosome-Friend?YourFoestoHeaven, andVstoHellthus send;Damnationseize You for't; ere long You'll bePlung'dHeadlonginto vastEternity;Therefor to Howl, whilstWesomeComfortgain,)To see You welter in an endless Pain,)And withoutPitty, justly there Complain.")
POPE.
"Ho!Cardinals and Bishops,haste with speed,Bell, Book,andCandlefetch,let me be free'd:Ah! 'tis too late, by Fear Intranc'dI lye."
BISHOP.
"Heard you that Groan? with speedfrom hencelet's flye."
CARDINAL.
"TheFiendhas gotHim, doubtless, lets away,And inthisGhastly place no longer stay."
BISHOP.
"Dread Horrors seize me,Fly, forMercycall,LeastDivine Vengeanceover-whelmVs all."
It was in this crude and lucid way that the forerunners of Gillray, Nast, Tenniel, and Leech satirized the murderous follies of their age. A volume larger than this would not contain the verse and prose that covered the broadsheets in the same style which appeared in London during the reign of Charles II. This specimen, however, suffices for any reader who is not making a special study of the period. To students and historians the collection of these prints in the British Museum is beyond price; for they show "the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure." Perhaps no other single source of information respecting that period is more valuable.