Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 Part 40

(6) The Marquis of Winchester, the brave defender of his house at Basing, had been made prisoner by Cromwell at the storming of that house in 1645. Waller had been foiled in his attempt on this place in the year preceding. - T. W.

(7) Sir John Ogle, one of the Royalist commanders, who was intrusted with the defence of Winchester Castle, which he surrendered on conditions just before the siege of Basing House. - T. W.

(8) Wren, bishop of Ely, was committed to the Tower in 1641, accused with high "misdemeanours" in his diocese.

(9) David Jenkins, a Welsh Judge, who had been made prisoner at the taking of Hereford, and committed first to Newgate and afterwards to the Tower. He refused to acknowledge the authority of the Parliament, and was the author of several tracts published during the year (while he was prisoner in the Tower), which made a great noise. - T. W.

(10) Sir Francis Wortley, Bart., was made a prisoner in 1644, at the taking of Walton House, near Wakefield, by Sir Thomas Fairfax.

(11) Sir Edward Hales, Bart., of Woodchurch, in Kent, had been member for Queenborough in the Isle of Sheppey. He was not a Royalist.

(12) Sir George Strangways, Bart., according to the marginal note in the original. Another of the name, Sir John Strangways, was taken at the surrender of Sherborne Castle.

(13) Sir Henry Bedingfield, Bart., of Norfolk; Sir Walter Blount, Bart., of Worcester; and Sir Francis Howard, Bart., of the North, were committed to the Tower on the 22nd of January, 1646.

(14) The horrible barbarities committed by the Irish rebels had made the Catholics so much abhorred in England, that every English member of that community was suspected of plotting the same ma.s.sacres in England. - T. W.

(15) Sir John Hewet, of Huntingdonshire, was committed to the Tower on the 28th of January, 1645(-6).

(16) Sir Thomas Lunsford, Bart., the celebrated Royalist officer, was committed to the Tower on the 22nd of January, 1646. The violence and barbarities which he and his troop were said to have perpetrated led to the popular belief that he was in the habit of eating children.

From Fielding and from Vavasour, Both ill-affected men; From Lunsford eke dilver us, That eateth up children.

Loyal Songs, ed. 1731, i. 38.

T. W.

(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 Ma.s.sey were staunch Presbyterians, and their party counted on their a.s.sistance 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 superst.i.tion 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 superst.i.tion, 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 a.s.sociated 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, ent.i.tled "The Wonderful Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster. With the Arraignment and Triall of nineteene notorious Witches, at the a.s.sizes 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 a.s.size 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.