[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 tobaccoInspired, turned State quack-o;And got more by his feigned zealThen by his,What d’ye lack-o?”
In another he is introduced thus,
“The tobacco-man Salway, with a heart tall of gallPuffs down bells, steeples, priests, churches and all,As old superstitions relicks of Baal.”
A third ballad, alluding to his attitude in the House, couples together
“Mr William Lilly’s astrological lyes,And the meditations of Salloway biting his thumbs.”—T. W.
[90]Roger Hill was member for Bridport, in Dorsetshire. He bought a grant of the Bishop of Winchester’s manor of Taunton Dean, valued at 1200 pounds a year. A ballad written towards the end of 1659 says of him,
“Baron Hill was but a valley,And born scarce to an alley;But now is lord of Taunton Dean,And thousands he can rally.”
[91]With the revival of the Long Parliament, the old Republican feelings arose again under the denomination of the “Good old Cause.” Innumerable pamphlets were published for and against “The Cause.” Even Prynne, the fierce old Presbyterian, who was now turning against the patriots, lifted up his pen against it, and published “The Republicans and others spurious Good old Cause briefly and truly Anatomized,” 4to, May 13, 1659.
[92]Robert Cecil, Esq., was one of the members of the Old Long Parliament who were now brought together to form the Rump. He represented Old Sarum, Wilts.
[93]Luke Robinson, of Pickering Lyth, in Yorkshire, was member for Scarborough. An old ballad says of him,
“Luke Robinson, that clownado,Though his heart be a granado,Yet a high shoe with his hand in his pokeIs his most perfect shadow.”
[94]Sir Harry Vane.
[95]Thomas Scott was member for Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire, in the Long Parliament.
[96]Hugh Peters, the celebrated fanatic. In the margin of the original, opposite to the words “the Devil’s fees,” is the following note—“His numps and his kidneys.”—T. W.
[97]To save his tithe pig:—probably the origin of the well known slang phrase of the present day.
[98]Coloured, or dyed.
[99]Faustus.
[100]An allusion to a popular old story and song. A copy of the words and tune of “The Fryar and the Nun” is preserved in the valuable collection of ballads in the possession of Mr Thorpe of Piccadilly.—T. W.
[101]“October 13th. I went out to Charing Cross to see Major-General Harrison hanged, drawn, and quartered, which was done there, he looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition.”—Pepys. Thomas Harrison was the son of a butcher at Newcastle-under-Line; he conveyed Charles I. from Windsor to Whitehall to his trial, and afterwards sat as one of the judges.
[102]“October 15th. This morning Mr Carew was hanged and quartered at Charing Cross; but his quarters, by a great favour, are not to be hanged up.”—Pepys. Colonel John Carew, like Harrison, was one of the Fifth-monarchy men, a violent and visionary but honest enthusiast.
[103]Hugh Peters, for his zeal in encouraging the Commonwealth soldiery, was particularly hated by the Royalists. John Coke, the able lawyer, conducted the prosecution of the King.
[104]Gregory Clement, John Jones, Thomas Scott, and Adrian Scrope, were charged with sitting in the High Court of Justice which tried the King. Scott was further charged with having, during the sitting of the Rump Parliament, expressed his approbation of the sentence against the King. Colonel Scrope, although he had been admitted to pardon, was selected as one of the objects of vengeance, and was condemned chiefly on a reported conversation, in which, when one person had strongly blamed what he called the “murder” of the King, Scrope observed, “Some are of one opinion, and some of another.”
[105]“October 19th. This morning Hacker and Axtell were hanged and quartered, as the rest are.”—Pepys. Colonel Francis Hacker commanded the guards at the King’s execution. Axtell was captain of the guard of the High Court of Justice at which the King was tried.
[106]Richard Brown, one of Cromwell’s Major-generals, Governor of Abingdon, and member for London in the Long Parliament. He had been imprisoned by the Rump.
[107]The Earl of Norwich was George Lord Goring, who, with his son, acted a prominent part in the Civil Wars. He was created Earl of Norwich in 1644.
[108]John Mordaunt, son of the Earl of Peterborough, celebrated for his exertions to raise insurrections for the King during the Protectorate, was one of the bearers of the letters of the King to Monck. He was created Baron Mordaunt, July 10, 1659. Charles Lord Gerard, afterwards created Earl of Macclesfield, was a very distinguished Royalist officer. Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Cleveland, who had suffered much for his loyalty to Charles I., headed a body of three hundred noblemen and gentlemen in the triumphal procession of Charles II. into London.
[109]Charles Stuart, a gallant Royalist officer, who had been created Earl of Litchfield by Charles I. in 1645, and who immediately after the Restoration succeeded his cousin Esme Stuart as Duke of Richmond. Charles Stanley, Earl of Derby, was son of the Earl of Derby who was beheaded after the battle of Worcester, and of the Countess who so gallantly defended Latham House in 1644.
[110]The Nursery Rhyme, “The Man in the Moon drinks claret.”
[111]Philip Nye.
[112]William Kiffin was a celebrated preacher of this time, and had been an officer in the Parliamentary army. A little before the publication of the present ballad a tract had appeared, with the title, “The Life and Approaching Death of William Kiffin. Extracted out of the Visitation Book by a Church Member.” 4to, London, March 13, 1659–60. He is here said to have been originally ’prentice to a glover, and to have been in good credit with Cromwell, who made him a lieutenant-colonel. He appears to have been busy among the sectaries at the period of the Restoration. He is thus mentioned in a satirical pamphlet of that time, entitled “Select City Quæries:”—“Whether the Anabaptists’ late manifesto can be said to be forged, false, and scandalous (as Politicus terms it), it being well known to be writ by one of Kiffin’s disciples; and whether the author thereof or Politicus may be accounted the greater incendiary?”—T. W.
[113]Fox and Naylor were the founders of the sect of Quakers. Naylor, in particular, was celebrated as an enthusiast. Jacob Boehmen, or Behmen, was a celebrated German visionary and enthusiast, who lived at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries, and the founder of a sect.
[114]There was a story that Charles II. was really married to Lucy Walters, the mother of the Duke of Monmouth, and that the contract of marriage was in existence in a “black box,” in the custody of the Bishop of Durham, suggested apparently by the endeavours of that Bishop to change the succession to the crown in favour of the Duke of Monmouth, to the exclusion of James II.
[115]Titus Oates, the inventor of the Popish plot.
[116]Patience Ward, the alderman.