ASKILFU

Tom and Will.

"Tom and Will were shepherd swains,

Who liv'd and lov'd together."

-Sportive Wit, 1656, p. 112.

SKILFUL hand has given us this racy ballad of "News from the Country: being a fuller Narrative of the late Popish Plot:" a fitting sequel to the fourfold Ballad so entitled, to the tune of Packington's Pound, given by us in Bagford Ballads, pp. 670 to 692. We must leave the tune, "Whoop, Sir Domine," without present annotation. To us it appears extremely probable that the author of our present ballad, "Tom and Will," may have been no less a person than Roger L'Estrange himself. We must accept it in its anonymity, while enjoying the fresh current of wholesome air breathing through the verses. After the hot blasts from a lower region, and the pestilential vapours exhaled by the rabid fanaticism of "brisk boys from Wapping," one here feels lifted to a serene height, overlooking the turmoil, yet free from danger, like the Gods of Olympus :

For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd

Far below them in the vallies, and the clouds are lightly curl'd
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world.

or

Although the chief iniquities of the Plot-witnesses, "Evidences," with their perjuries, greed, and malice, were at the worst in London, where they were encouraged by Shaftesbury, having the London rabble at his back, the provinces also suffered from the epidemic of terror and madness. Thus at York Assizes, on July 24th, 1680, there were trials for high treason "for being of the Popish Plot." The accused were persons of quality, one being

"The Lady Tempest, daughter of Sir Thomas Gascoigne; Mr. Ingleby, a lawyer (since made a sergeant), Mrs. Presset, and one Mr. Twing, a priest. Sir Miles Stapleton, of Carleton, was to have been tried also, but was not then, pro defecta juratorum.

"The Evidence against these were Boldron and Mawbray. The one was taken a poor boy out of charity by Sir Thomas Gascoigne, brought up in his house, then made overseer of his colliery, and, running in debt to his master, intended (for he had been evidence also against him) to pay him and his family this way what he owed to him-an ill piece of gratitude. Though some had been found guilty in London upon this or the like evidence, yet it found so little credence in this county, that three of the four were acquitted, as also one Pickering, who was indicted for being a priest upon the same evidence. So that Twing only was found guilty of high treason-a priest being more his guilt than [any connexion with the Plot." (Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, J. J. Cartwright's edition, 1875, p. 186.) The "one Pickering" here mentioned is quite distinct from the Thomas Pickering whose execution is often referred to in our pages, for his death took place in May, 1679, more than a year before these York Assizes. By the way; Gascoigne's thankless steward acted precisely as Stephen Dugdale díd, in regard to his own master, Lord Aston of Tixall, and his guests. He, also, becoming a defaulter, thus cleared his score by perjuries.

News from the Country.

Being a further NARRATIVE' of the late POPISH PLOT.

Tom and Will (Two Country-Fellows)
Meeting by chance one day at Ale-House,
They sit them down, and, o're a Pot,

They Learnedly discourse the PLOT.

Each vents his thoughts and tells his Story;
Little to Pope or Papists' Glory.

And though they now and then Dis-joint
A Word or two, What's that to th' Point?
No man, I guess, will at it grutch

Since Doctors Grave have done as much.
But why should I fore-stall the Market?
Read it but o're, and do but mark it:
The Truth of All, you'll plainly see.
The Tune is-

Whoop Sir Domine.

1 The word "Narrative" is a commencing jeer at Oates, whose "Narrative" was being continually re-issued with additions. The same title was used in 1679 by Bedloe, Dangerfield, Robert Jenison, Miles Prance, John Smith, and others. In fact, the press teemed with such productions, which were purchased eagerly while the populace went mad with fear of plots, incendiarism, and massacres.

Tom and Will: or, News from the Country.

199

80

This phrase "Long lookt for" seems to indicate the Fourth Parliament of King Charles II., summoned to meet in October, 1679, and may have been a proverbial expression concerning the frequent prorogations which delayed the meeting. See the ballad "Long-lookt-for-come-at-last" on a previous page. It is true the present" Tom and Will" is marked in MS. "11 March 168," but we believe this to have been an error as to the year. It is not written 1678, which would be intelligible, and in better form. The printed date is "1680" this would include the following January, February, and three weeks of March. The true date may be 11 March 16, or as we should call it, 22 March, 1681. Possibly the correct date is 11 March 1633: there is no internal evidence decisive against it, but we incline to the later time.

Concerning "Captain" William Bedloe see Bagford Ballads, pp. 672, 674, 676, and 696. Also p. 165 here. He died on the 10 August, 1680, old style. The weak-minded, sorely-harassed, and consequently prevaricating Miles Prance, the goldsmith of Covent-Garden, connected with Queen Catherine's chapel at Somerset House. (Ibid. pp. 679, 689, 754.)

Stephen Dugdale (Ibid. pp. 680, 689): formerly the dishonest steward of Lord Aston. Dugdale's worst work was the perjury against Viscount Stafford.

This word "Jezarets" is simply a blunder, made by the Anti-papal and unlearned Tom (inferior to Will, in sense and knowledge), for the unmastered word "Jesuits." Compare "George Sir Wakeman," "Guggles," and "Utope," in later verses. The Prelude admits this: " They disjoint a word or two."

For an extract from Oates's deposition at the trial of Grove and Ireland, see note 6, on p. 701, of Bagford Ballads. "The Salamanca Doctor" asserted that "Coleman knew of the four Irish ruffians, sent to kill the king at Windsor;" and that, in the hearing of Father Harcourt, at Wild-House, Coleman asked, "What care was taken for these gentlemen ?" etc. The four were to receive twenty guineas apiece. This is alluded to in the ballad on the Popish Plot, in the line, Four Gentleman Ruffians deserved four score" (p. 678 of the same vol., Bagford Ballads). Their names are given in The Narrative of Robert Jenison, of Gray's Inn, Esquire, 1679, p. 33, as Captain Levallyn, Thomas Brahall, and Karney, all Irish, and of Gray's Inn, with James Wilson.

66

And Pickering was to lye a loof,'
with a gay Gun of Mettle-proof;
to shoot King through, as he past by,
in any part, to make King dye.
Then George Sir Wakeman Hired was,
to poyson dead our Liege-Lord's Grace;
And for his Pains (they said) he should

have Fifteen Thousand Pounds in Gold.
King being kill'd, what next I trow ?

it is but meet that thou should'st know:
Although the matter be so Derne,3
it makes my very Bowels yerne.
Hundreds, Thousands Men were to come,
at sound of Trump, and beat of Drum,
Out of Utope, to cut and slice

Thomas Pickering the Jesuit, unjustly accused by Titus Oates of intended assassination by shooting Charles II. Pickering declared that he "had never shot off a pistol in his life." He was executed on the 9th of May, 1679. See p. 136. 2 Tom's peculiar way of designating the Queen's physician, Sir George Wakeman; concerning whom see introduction to the Coleman ballads, p. 123.

3 Derne is not a provincialism, but a genuine archaic word, signifying at once secret or mysterious and dismal or mournful: ill-omened. It is supposed to be derived from the Saxon dyrnan 'to hide.' It is used by Chaucer, Spenser, in Cursor Mundi, and elsewhere, with variations, dernelike, dernful, dernly, etc.

4 Utope is, of course, Tommasian lingua for Utopia = Outopos = Nirgends. The allusion here is definite, probably referring to a Lampoon on Scroggs, and the jury that acquitted Sir George Wakeman. It is entitled "The Pope's Advice and Benediction to his Judge and Jury in Eutopia," and begins, "Well done, my Sons, ye have redeem'd my Cause.' (Poems on State Affairs, iii. 184.) 5 "I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word," for "Jugulars." or "Gullets." 6 A Tommasian equivalent for "absolve." The belief that Papal absolution would be given for the most atrocious crimes, if perpetrated in obedience to a priest's direction, or for the supposed furtherance of the Catholic religion, was one of the excuses which men offered for the injustice and cruelties perpetrated against the Jesuits. See John Smith's No Faith or Credit to be given to Papists, issued in 1681, with reference to the Stafford trial. Also the poem on our p. 187. 7 This irreverent nick-name probably refers to the Pope Clement X. (Emilio Altieri) recently deceased. At the time of his election, in 1670, he was already eighty years of age. His death, in 1676, paved the way for Innocent XI.

Titus Oates swore at the trial of Ireland, Pickering, and Grove, that the said John Grove, the Jesuit lay-brother, "did go about with one Smith to gather Peter's Pence, either to carry on the design [i.e. the Popish-Plot], or to send to Rome." Oates professed to have seen the book in which the pence were entered, and "to have heard the said Grove say He had been gathering it."

News from the Country.

Thus much, and more, the Learned say,
they practizd Us to Destroy;

From which foul Deed, Great Jove fore-fend;
'twere better the World were at an End.

The Second Part.

To THE SAME TUNE.

Will.

7Erily Tom, you well do show
what I long time before did know;
Yet what I learnt from Maister's mind,
the works undone, that was design'd.
For when, at first, Grave Oates did swear,
how Protestants were like to fare;
We should have rose up evr'y where,

and cut Papists' Throats in ev'ry Sheir.
How pure a Charr had it been then,

they not one, to Ten times Ten; Scarce half a meal to feed the Jawes

of such as are for the Good Old Cause.1

64

For though Coleman be put to Death,3
and Ireland hath lost his Breath,

And many more, for Treason grand,

at Tybourn, lately, have been Hang'd: 5

68

We shall have to meet the good old Cause" of the extreme Republicans when in the forthcoming "Group of ballads on Monmouth's Insurrection" we reach one on the execution of Algernon Sydney. That the Fifth Monarchy men were quite capable, in an outburst of fanatical zeal, of attempting such a massacre of the Roman Catholics whom they hated, and to whom "Old Noll" had never shown either justice or mercy, is amply proved by the riotous rising on the 7th of January, 166, of Thomas Venner and the Anabaptists. It is described in Pepys' Diary (Bickers's edition, i. 239, 241).

66

Probably Rogues" was the word here omitted. Like "pettifogger" appropriated to a lawyer, howsoever suitable it be, it was avoided to escape legal penalty. Oddly enough, since worse words were used without stint.

* Edmund Coleman, executed in December, 1678: see our pp. 123-132. William Ireland, the Jesuit priest, executed, along with John Grove, a laybrother, 14th January, 167, protesting their innocence. See pp. 136, and 239. Thus Robert Green and Lawrence Hill were executed, on false pretence of their being the murderers of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, on 21st February 1673, and their associate Henry Berry, for the same, on May 28th; a few days after Thomas Pickering the Jesuit was executed (May 9th, 1679). On June 20th the five Jesuits, Thomas Whitbread, William Harcourt, John Fenwick, John Gawen, and Anthony Turner, were put to death, with the horrible accompaniments of disembowelling and quartering. Richard Langhorn, the lawyer, similarly, on July 14th, only four days before the trial of Sir George Wakeman. Each and all of them had died solemnly asseverating entire innocence of the assassination conspiracy charged against them by the perjurers Oates, Bedloe, etc.