Some will not stick to swear we do,515
For God and for religion too.
For if bear-baiting we allow,
What good can Eeformation do?
The blood and treasure that's laid out
Is thrown away, and goes for nought.520
Are these the fruits o' th' Protestation,[1]
The prototype of Reformation,
Which all the saints, and some, since martyrs,[2]
Wore in their hats like wedding-garters,[3]
When 'twas resolved by their house,525
Six members' quarrel to espouse?[4]
Did they for this draw down the rabble,
With zeal, and noises formidable;
And make all cries about the town
Join throats to cry the bishops down?[5]530
Who having round begirt the palace,
As once a month they do the gallows,[6]
As members gave the sign about,
Set up their throats, with hideous shout.
When tinkers bawl'd aloud,[7] to settle535
Church-discipline, for patch1ng kettle.[8]
- ↑ The Protestation was drawn up, and taken in the House of Commons, May 3, 1641; and immediately printed, and dispersed over the nation, the people carrying it about on the points of their spears. It was the first attempt at a national combination against the establishment, and was harbinger of the Covenant.
- ↑ Those that were killed in the war.
- ↑ The protesters, when they came tumultuously to the parliament-house, Dec. 27, 1641, to demand justice on the Earl of Strafford, stuck printed copies of the Protestation in their hats, in token of their zeal.
- ↑ Charles I. ordered the following members, Lord Kimbolton, Pym, Hollis, Hampden, Haselrig, and Stroud, to be prosecuted, for plotting with the Scots, and stirring up sedition. The Commons voted against their arrest, upon which the king went to the house with his guards, to seize them; but they, having intelligence of his design, made their escape. This was one of the first acts of open violence which preceded the civil wars.
- ↑ It is fresh in memory, says the author of Lex Talionis, how this city sent forth its spurious scum in multitudes to cry down bishops, root and branch, with lying pamphlets, &c.,—so far, that a dog with a black-and-white face was commonly called a bishop.
- ↑ The executions at Tyburn were generally once a month.
- ↑ All these Cries, so humorously substituted for the common street-cries of the times, represent the popular demands urged by the Puritans, before and under the Long Parliament.
- ↑ For, that is, instead of.
