Part 56

{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.