Act V: Scene V

p. 422, l. 29 Scene V. A Street. 4tos and 1724 ‘Scene, a Street’.

p. 423, l. 3 Gill. Tom, Pages, &c. I have inserted Tom’s name here.

p. 424, l. 5 come a merry-making. 1724 ‘come merry-making’.

p. 424, l. 33 you grow so vain. 1724 ‘you grew so vain’.

p. 425, l. 7. In a preaching tone. 1724 ‘In a preachin tone’. The dropped ‘g’, is not intentional here, but a misprint.

450 Notes: Critical And Explanatory.

The Roundheads.

Dedication

p. 337 To the Right Noble Henry Fitzroy. Second son of Charles II by Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine, afterwards Duchess of Cleveland, was born 20 September, 1663. He married, 1 August, 1672, Isabella, daughter and heiress of Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington. The bride was then only five years old. In September, 1675, Henry Fitzroy was created Duke of Grafton, and on 30 September, 1680, was installed by proxy as Knight of the Garter. In 1682 he 451 became colonel of the first foot guards. He died 9 October, 1690, from a wound he received under the walls of Cork during Marlborough’s expedition to Ireland. Brave and even reckless to a fault, he is said to have been the most popular and the ablest of the sons of Charles II.

Prologue

p. 341 noise of Plots. The ferment occasioned by the pretended Popish Plot of 1678 and the illegal Exclusion Bill was in full blast.

p. 341 Presbytery. Presbyterianism.

p. 341 Forty One. 1641 was the date of the Grand Remonstrance and Petition to Charles I.

p. 341 Ignoramus. When Shaftesbury was indicted for high treason, 24 November, 1681, the grand jury ignored or threw out the bill. Their declaration was ‘ignoramus’. cf. Dryden’s prologue to The Duke of Guise (1682):—

Let ignoramus juries find no traitors,

and other innumerable references to this verdict.

Dramatis Personæ

p. 343 Fleetwood. Lieutenant-General Charles Fleetwood was son-in-law to Oliver Cromwell, and for a time Lord-Deputy of Ireland. He was mainly instrumental in the resignation of Richard Cromwell, but so weak and vacillating that he lost favour with all parties. His name was excepted from the general amnesty, and it was only with great difficulty that, owing to the influence of Lord Litchfield, he escaped with his life. He died in obscurity at Stoke Newington, 4 October, 1692.

p. 343 Lambert. Major-General Lambert (1619-83) lost his commissions owing to the jealousy of Oliver Cromwell, on whose death he privily opposed Richard Cromwell. In August, 1659, he defeated the Royalist forces under Sir George Booth in Cheshire, but subsequently his army deserted. On his return to London he was arrested (5 March, 1660), by the Parliament, but escaped. Tried for high treason at the Restoration, he was banished to Guernsey, where he died in the winter of 1683.

p. 343 Wariston. Archibald Johnston, Lord Wariston, a fierce fanatic, was parliamentary commissioner for the administration of justice in Scotland and a member of Cromwell’s House of Peers. On the revival of the Rump he became president of the Council of State, and permanent president of the Committee of Safety. At the Restoration he fled, but was brought back from Rouen to be hanged at the Market Cross, Edinburgh, 23 July, 1663. Carlyle dubs him a ‘lynx-eyed lawyer and austere presbyterian zealot’, and Burnet says, ‘Presbyterianism was more to him than all the world.’

p. 343 Hewson. John Hewson, regicide, a shoemaker, was a commander under Cromwell, and afterwards a peer in the Upper House. At the Restoration he escaped to the Continent and died in exile at Amsterdam, 1662, or, by another account, at Rouen.

p. 343 Desbro. John Desborough, Desborow, or Disbrowe (1608-80) was Cromwell’s brother-in-law. Being left a widower, he married again April, 1658. As he had refused to sit as a judge at the trial of Charles I, he was not exempted from the amnesty; but being considered a source of danger, he was, after the Restoration, ‘always watched with peculiar jealousy,’ and suffered some short term of imprisonment.

452 p. 343 Duckingfield. Robert Duckenfield (1619-89), a strong Parliamentarian, but one who refused to assist at the King’s trial. He had large estates in Cheshire, where he lived retired after a short imprisonment at the Restoration. His son Robert, who succeeded him, was subsequently created a baronet by Charles II, 16 June, 1665.

p. 343 Corbet. Although this name is here given as Corbet, Colonel Cobbet occurs Act i, II (p. 355), and we have Cobbet again Act iii, I (p. 374). This character is certainly not Miles Corbet the regicide, but Ralph Cobbet, who was both a colonel and a member of the Committee of Safety. Ralph Cobbet is frequently alluded to in the satires of the time, e.g. The Gang; or, The Nine Worthies and Champions (17 January, 1659-60):—

A man of stomack in the next deal, With a hey down, &c. Was hungry Colonel Cobbet; He would eat at a meale A whole commonweale, And make a joint but a gobbet.

p. 343 Whitlock. Bulstrode Whitelock (1605-75), keeper of the Great Seal, and in August, 1659, president of the Council of State, was always inclined to royalism, and even advised Cromwell to restore Charles II. At the Restoration he was allowed to retire to Chilton Park, Hungerford, Wilts, and died there 28 July, 1675. According to some accounts his death took place at Fawley, Bucks.

p. 343 Lady Lambert. Lady Lambert was Frances, daughter of Sir William Lister, knight, of Thornton in Craven, Yorks. She was married 10 September, 1639. Contemporaries attribute Lambert’s ambition to the influence of his wife, whose pride is frequently alluded to. e.g. Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, edited by C. H. Firth (Nimmo, 1885), Vol. II, p. 189, ‘There went a story that as my Lady Ireton was walking in St. James’ Park the Lady Lambert, as proud as her husband, came by where she was, and as the present princess always has precedency of the relict of the dead prince, so she put my Lady Ireton below; who, notwithstanding her piety and humility, was a little grieved at the affront.’

p. 343 Lady Desbro. Desborough’s second wife, whom he married April, 1658, is said, on the dubious authority of Betham, to have been Anne, daughter of Sir Richard Everard, Bart., of Much Waltham. Mrs. Behn’s amorous lady, Maria, is, of course, purely fictional.

p. 343 Lady Fleetwood. Bridget, eldest daughter of Oliver Cromwell, was married first to Ireton, who died 26 November, 1651, and secondly, in 1652, to Fleetwood. She did not live long after the Restoration, and was buried at S. Anne’s, Blackfriars, 1 July, 1662.

p. 343 Lady Cromwell. Cromwell married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Bourchier, 22 August, 1620. She survived her husband seven years, dying 19 November, 1665. After the Restoration she lived in great seclusion at Norboro’, Northamptonshire, the house of her son-in-law, John Claypoole.

453 p. 343 Clement’s Parish. Probably St. Clements, Eastcheap. This church, described by Stow as being ‘small and void of monuments’, was destroyed in the Great Fire and rebuilt 1686. The old church of St. Clement Danes, Strand, being in a ruinous condition, was pulled down in 1680 and built again on the same site. The Puritans always omitted the prefix ‘St.’ and spoke of churches as ‘Paul’s’, ‘Mary’s’, ‘Bartholomew’s’, ‘Helen’s’ and the like.

The above Note refers to the male character Ananias Goggle, but is printed after the Commentary on the four main female characters.