How to please the London Rabble in 1680. 217 To begin early the lawless insult with noise, the Bells had commenced ringing at three o'clock in the morning, but the Solemn Procession did not move until five o'clock in the evening, setting forth from More-gate, to Bishopsgate, through Houndsditch to Aldgate, and thence Leadenhall Street, the Royal Exchange, and Cheapside to Temple-Bar, where after rough merriment the puppet representative of the Pope was "tumbled from all his Grandeur into the Impartial Flames; the Crafty Devil, his chief minister, leaving his Infallibilityship in the Lurch." These insolent and degrading mummeries were not countenanced by the Church of England. They were fostered by its bitter antagonists the sectaries, whose hatred to the clergy was on a par with the hatred shown towards Rome.' There can be no reasonable doubt that the "Solemn Mock Procession of the Pope, Cardinals, Jesuits, Fryers, Nuns, etc," which marched through the streets of London on Queen Elizabeth's Accession Day, November 17th, 1680, was intended not only to infuriate the rabble against the Catholics generally, but in an especial manner to prejudice the minds of all persons who might soon afterwards be called to give a verdict against the accused Papists. The trial of the Viscount Stafford by his peers was appointed for the beginning of December. No consideration of courtesy, of honesty, or of justice, was ever allowed to modify the bitter spirit of persecution that at this time possessed the "Protestant Boys." The amount of money expended on this malicious pageant was enormous. It proved alike the important station of the ringleaders in the conspiracy, and also the intensity of their zeal for destruction. A similar procession had been despatched from More-gate to Temple Bar on the same day, 17th Nov., 1679; it was repeated on the anniversary in 1680, and would have been continued had it not been forbidden by a proclamation with threatening of penalties. Representations of it were circulated in two large copper-plate engravings. They were issued on the 1st of December, 1680. A copy of each was preserved by Horace Walpole, in his Strawberry Hill Collection. From one of them a reduced sketch may be given.2 1 "In the late Conflagration in Smithfield, on the 17th instant, several persons were represented as Papists, and most ridiculously committed to the Flames as Papists, who never were such, but meerly because, in opposition to the Dissenting Brother-hood, they stood faithfully for the Interest of the King, Church, and Government."-The Loyal Protestant, No. 80, for Tuesday, Nov. 22, 1681. At the close of this Anti-Papal Group of Ballads will be found two that belong to 1711; when an attempt to renew the Pope-burning was frustrated. 2 One sort was "Printed for J. Oliver in ye Old Baily; L Curtis vpon Ludgate Hill, & T. Fox at the Angel, in Westminster Hall." The other was "Printed for Nathaniel Ponder, at the Peacock, near the Stocks Market; Jonathan Wilkins, at the Star in Cheapside, next Mercers Chappel; and Samuel Lee, at the Feathers in Lombard-Street, near the Post-Office." These pictures help to show us the method by which were propelled the various "Pageants" or Platforms, supporting the stuffed puppets representing the alleged Papist Conspirators. They probably went on wheels, a sort of covered waggons, with drapery-fringes hanging to the ground, concealing the men who were pushing them underneath, but who were able to look through circular holes in front. The leader went on horseback, followed by a man with a lighted candle. Then five men carried pictures, representing the Pope and the Devil, with conspirators, the hanging of Jesuits, and the conflagration of London by their contrivance. Next a bellman, proclaiming "Remember Justice Godfrey!" as an introduction to a Jesuit on horseback holding the corpse of Sir Edmondbury, with a dagger. Madame Cellier1 was represented, concealing a "Sham Plott" paper in a Meal-Tub; Sir Roger L'Estrange, holding a violin, and labelled "Touzer, Old Nol's Fidler; a man turned back-foremost on a horse, to designate "an Abhorrer of Petitions and Parliaments; Monks, bishops, cardinals, on several platforms; the Pope and his supposed adviser the Devil; then a pageant of Nuns with "the Pope's Mistress "(.e. "Dona Olympia Maidalchini Pampili, sisterin-law of Pope Innocent X."); winding up with a group of san-benito victims for the Holy Office of the Inquisition's auto-da-fé. Such was the "London's Drollery" of 1680. The procession began from George's Yard, without Whitechapel Bars, going through Aldgate, Leadenhall Street, and Fleet Street to Temple Bar. It was accompanied by innumerable torchbearers, and the windows were thronged with spectators. Idlers, pickpockets and fanatics formed a willing audience. After saluting the statue of Queen Elizabeth, as of an enemy to Romanism, the effigies of the Pope, his Cardinals, Friars and Nuns were burnt in a huge bonfire, with squibs and crackers. Wine and spirits were given freely to the populace, who on such terms were delighted to shout "No Popery," or any other shibboleth that Shaftesbury and his clique demanded. The malice and tumult made it all more attractive. The statue of Queen Elizabeth (whom they chose to consider their 1 As to the Meal-Tub paper, which the Ultra-Protestant sectaries declared to have been hidden by Mrs. Cellier (and which Dangerfield and Sir William Waller more probably pretended to find, after themselves hiding the forged document), it was thus described: "The Model of this designed Plot against the Presbyterians was found by Sir William Waller in the house of Mrs. Čellier, hid in a MEAL-TUB, in a Paper Book, tied with red ribbons: It purported to be onely Remarks or Chief Heads of things and persons to be charged; as, amongst the rest, there were named the Lords Halifax, Shaftsbury, Radnor, Essex, Wharton, the Duke of Buckingham, and others, to be of Counsel in this pretended Conspiracy; the Duke of Monmouth General, the Lord Grey, Lord Gerard, and his Son, and Sir Thomas Armstrong, Lieutenant-Generals in this Rebellious Army; Sir William Waller, and others, Major-Generals; Colonel Mansel, Quarter-Master-General." Recurring spite of the boastful "True Protestants." 219 pattern of Protestant zeal, chiefly as a hanger of Romanists and foe of Spain) was adorned with a crown of laurel, and the words "Magna Charta" and "Protestant Religion" on her shield. The following verses were perhaps written by Thomas Shadwell, more probably than by Elkanah Settle. They were sung immediately after the Pope-burning, and before a dispersal of the Protestant rabble :DEhold the Genius of our Land! BE England's Palladium! may this shrine Than Pallas' Statue more Divine. From whence all happiness we date. At one brave stroak, thou took'st away, In spight of Rome, France, Spain, and Scots. A course of glad and peaceful years, That did so happily ensue, And the Conspirators subdue. Shews us how we may ease our cares, Nor need the English Senate dread 8 12 16 The Forts, the Fleet, the Scottish Host, The Fox, the Lyon, and the Goat, Have labour'd to defame thy days; 20 24 28 A counter-demonstration was made on the 5th of November, 1681. Probably Edmund Hickeringill, who was prosecuted in 1681 for writing and publishingThe Naked Truth," which was accounted libellous. But the blank was sometimes filled in with "Howard," despite rhythm, alluding to the Cardinal Philip Howard, who in the 1679 Mock Procession was supposed to say, From York to London Town we come To talk of Popish ire; To reconcile you all to Rome, And prevent Smithfield fire. "Prevent" used, of course, as in our prayer-books, prevenio, significant of introducing or preparing. Possibly the hinted name was Wm. Hetherington's. Far more likely was it to have been this Hickeringill's, the Rector of All Saints, in Colchester, who was at this time, 1680, Chaplain to the Duchess of Albemarle. His sermon, Curse ye Meroz!" in 1682 excited a paper war. His portrait, engraved on copper, forms the frontispiece to the quarto collection of his small Miscellaneous Tracts, Essays, Satyrs, etc., in Prose and Verse, 1707. At what time commenced these annual Pope-burnings on Queen Elizabeth's day we have not the means of ascertaining. Either before or since, the tumultuous celebration was never so popular as it was in 1680, and, strangely enough, a century later was to witness a similar display of fanatical zeal in the "No Popery" riots excited by Lord George Gordon in 1780. Of late years the puppet for the bonfire has been chosen to represent Guy Fawkes, instead of the Pope; thus the 5th of November displaces the 17th, but the insult to the Roman Catholics remains, and the opportunity serves for destroying something, noisily, without incurring punishment, after gathering contributions of faggots, coal, and money for gunpowder. In 1660 the burning of the Rumps at Temple Bar, in mockery of the Parliament, had been a loyal demonstration; and we know that on Nov. 5, 1681, at Westminster, an effigy of one Alsop had been burnt as Jack Presbyter, by Westminster Scholars. Any obnoxious person served for a November scarecrow. Elkanah Settle, the civic poet, busied himself in these PopeBurnings, and probably was the author of the ensuing descriptiveballad. He was unfit for better work. In that clever Satyr upon the Poets which eulogizes Otway, is another reference to Settle: In vain we bid dejected Settle hit The tragick flights of Shakespeare's tow'ring Wit; As an understood allusion to these "London Drollery" pageants, By Penny Elegies to get my bread, Or want a meal, unless George Croom and I I'd damn my Works to wrap up soap and cheese, To burn the Pope and celebrate Queen Bess! The tune, known as The Game of Cards, is marked on "London's Drollery : "All you that do desire to play At Cards, to pass the Scotland hated the Pope, but loved not Queen Elizabeth, and scarcely considered the blowing-up an English Parliament to be an unpardonable crime. Therefore, while ready to have a bonfire and a burning in effigy, the figure of "Johnie Wilkes" was nationally substituted for Pope or Guy, after the North Briton's attack upon Bute and the Scotch,-and thus it is continued. The Love and kindness between the Pope and the Devil. Manifested by some True Protestants, who utterly Defie the Pope and his Romish Faction; as it was to be seen in London, November the 17th, 1680. WITH NINE PAGEANTS, DELIGHTFUL TO BEHOLD. THE TUNE IS, All you that do desire to Play, At Cards to pass the time away. [See p. 224.] This chief woodcut (of seven figures) within lines, had been used by the ballad publisher instead of a special new representation of the Solemn Procession. The cut had been at beginning of a quarto entitled A Knot of Fooles, 1658, but the quaint costumes show it to have been of a still earlier date, not later than 1623. The History of Ballad Woodcuts remains to be written, and the Editor hopes some day to attempt the work: meanwhile, he gathers materials, slowly but surely. The original books are very rare, and difficult of access. |