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Shaftesbury's Jury that returned "Ignoramus."

77

on the 24th of November, 1681, against Shaftesbury. A chief witness, whose evidence told adversely, was John Booth, who swore that he had been appointed to join the fifty armed men to go to Oxford as Shaftesbury's guard, under Captain Wilkinson, at the time of the Oxford Parliament. (Wilkinson, then imprisoned at the King's Bench, and knowing himself to be incriminated, had issued a pamphlet, asserting that he had been beset with suborners.) Others were John Smith, Edward Ivy, Edward Turberville, one of the bitter witnesses against Lord Stafford, Brian Haines, John Macknamarra, Dennis Macknamarra his brother, and Bernard Dennis (Pamphlet Sheets, 515, 1. 2, art. 55). The ensuing ballad truly says, But had it been a Popish Lord,

One witness then had serv'd, in a word.

Then, such scoundrels as Turberville were deemed of sufficient credit to ensure the condemnation of accused Catholics. But now, under political pressure of the Whig Sheriffs, a pliant Jury threw out the bill with Ignoramus marking their disapproval. Sir Samuel Barnardiston was the foreman, and the following are the names of the Grand Jury :-John Morden, Thomas Papillon, John Dubois, Charles Hearle, Edward Rudge, Humphrey Edwin, John Morrice, Edmund Harrison, Joseph Wright, John Cox, Thomas Parker, Leonard Robinson, Thomas Shepherd, John Flavell, Michael Godfrey, Joseph Richardson, William Empson, Andrew Kendrick, John Lane, and John Hall. Whigs to a man, and many of them extreme in seditious opinions. We shall meet several of them again, for Papillon and Dubois are in the Shrievalty riots, and it was at Shepherd's house in Abchurch Lane that the Rye-House conspirators were joined by William Russell and Algernon Sydney. The "Association MS. found among Shaftesbury's papers had been produced by Jenkins, and testified to by Gwyn, clerk to the Council. Shouting and holloaing followed the report of the Jury, for nearly an hour. Bells were rung, bonfires lighted, and the whole of the City was at night in commotion, as over a great triumph. The Shaftesbury faction had not enough wisdom to be content with such an ambiguous victory, though "every cock will crow loudly on his own dunghill! A medal was struck in honour of their leader. On the reverse was shown the Tower of London, with the sun-light breaking from a cloud, and the word Latamur with the date 24 November, 1681. Shaftesbury was represented on the front. This Medal was the immediate occasion of John Dryden writing and publishing the poem, called by that name.

A week later, Shaftesbury obtained release on bail, along with his secretary Samuel Wilson, Lord Howard of Escrick, John Wilmore (who had been foreman of the Grand Jury that released Stephen College with Ignoramus), and Edward Whitacre, concerning whom with Sir Samuel Barnardiston, see our following p. 79.

Egnoramus Justice;

Or, The English Laws turn'd into a gin,

To let Knaves out and keep Honest men in.

TO THE TUNE OF, Sir Eglamore. [See p. 80.]

Did you a fa, la, la, la, la.

Id you not hear of a Peer that was Try'd,

That lookt like a Cask with a Tap in his side?

With a fa, la, la, la, la,

This Noble Peer to the Bar was called,

The Witnesses sworn, but the Fore-man 1 out-bawl'd,

With a fa, la, la, la, la.

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Then up Sir Samuel he did start; With a fa, la, la, etc.

And found the Bill not worth a [M]art; With a fa, la, la.
With that the Court kept such a stir,

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The Foreman should prove so silly a Sir, With a fa, la, la, la, la.
The Witnesses for the King swore plain,2
But had they been as many again,
The Jury before they such Truths receiv'd
Nor them, nor St. Peter, would have believ'd.

The Witnesses brought him a Traytor in,
But the Jury found it another thing;
For he who did still his King oppose

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Is made a true Subject in spight of the Laws.

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Another passage I chanc'd to hear,

That the Doctor is fallen from the Front to the Rear,

[Titus Oates.

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["it"= Billa Vera.

1 Sir Samuel Barnardistone, who was afterwards heavily fined. See next page.

2 This refrain is continued throughout, but may here be omitted.

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**John Wilmore, in April, 1682, was to have been one of the Stewards at the frustrated Feast in Haberdashers' Hall. Edward Whitaker had been Shaftesbury's solicitor, and known as "the true Protestant Attorney." Whitaker got into fresh trouble in October, 1682, being tried for treasonable words spoken in Bath during July, 1680, and judgement was taken by default, he not appearing. After the Revolution he rose in favour, and became Solicitor to the Admiralty. He may have been of the Hertford Whitakers. (White-acre or Wheat-acre: Wytacre, of an old parish Register.)

Also, he being particularly mentioned in the preceding Loyal Song, a separate paragraph is due to Sir Samuel Barnardiston, the foreman of Shaftesbury's Ignoramus Jury. He was afterwards heavily fined, "for writing and publishing in four several letters to persons in the country, scandalous and seditious reflections concerning the late fanatick conspiracy" [the Rye-House Plot]; of which he was found guilty, at Guildhall, on 14th February, 168. The fine was £10,000, to be bound to good behaviour for life, and to be committed till all were paid. He refused to pay, and lay in the King's Bench until June, 1688, when he paid £6,000, giving bond for the remainder, and was released. The judgement was reversed in May, 1689, by eight judges to two, but the Lords in June refused to assent. He had been a Director in the East India Company, and a noted Exclusionist. Another Loyal Song is devoted to his dispraise. Although it belongs to February, 168, we need not delay it.

1 In other words: mob him, and murder him, when he fell out of their favour, as the Dutch rabble murdered the brothers Cornelius and Johann De Witt, or Van Witt, at the Hague in 1672; to the undisguised satisfaction of Prince William of Orange, who had winced under the rivalry of their popular influence. William told Gourville "that it was quite true he had not given any orders to have the De Witts killed, but that having heard of their death without having contributed to it, he had certainly felt a little relieved." The conspirators for the murder soon received reward of appointments from William, who had taken care not to arrive until the day after the double murder, and was made Stadtholder, his opponents being removed. Thus we have their names turned into a verb, "to De-Witt," as sufferers of injury, even as "to Boycott" a person came into fashion, both phrase and Irish fact, during the Land League sedition of recent years. "The Boys" of line 76 were Shaftesbury's Protestant Boys of Wapping.

The Whig Entelligencer; or, Sir Samuel in the Pound.

TO THE TUNE OF, Hark! the thund'ring cannons roar.

Ark! the fatal day is come, fatal as the Day of Doom,

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For Sir Samuel there make room, so fam'd for Ignoramus!

He whose conscience cou'd allow such large favours you know how;

If we do him justice now, the Brethren will not blame us.

Stand to the Bar, and now advance, Morden, Kendrick, Oates, and Prance,
But let the Foreman lead the Dance, the rest in course will follow,
Tilden, Kendrick, next shall come, and with him receive their Doom,
Ten thousand Pound, at which round sum the Hall set up a Hallo!

Brave Sir Barnard[ist]on now, who no Main would e'er allow,
To lose ten thousand at a throw, was pleas'd-to all men's thinking.
Ten thousand pounds! a dismal note, who before had giv'n his vote
"Not to give our King a Groat, to save the Throne from sinking."
"But yet there's a remedy! Before the King shall get by me,
I'll quit my darling Liberty, nor will I give Bail for 't:
For e're the Crown shall get a Groat, in opposition to my Vote,
I'll give them leave to cut my throat, altho' I lye in Gaol for 't.

"Were 't for Mon[mout]h I'de not grieve, or brave Russel to retrieve,
Or that Sydney yet might live: twice told, I'd not complain, Sir:
Nay what's more my whole Estate, with my Bodkins, Spoons, and Plate,
So I might reduce the State to a Common-wealth again, Sir.

"Or that Monmouth were in grace, or Sir Sam. in Jeffereys' place,
To spit all Justice in the Face for acting Law and Reason,
Or that Tories went to pot, or we could prove it a Sham Plot,
Or Essex did not cut his Throat, or Plotting were not Treason!

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16

24

"Thus I'd freely quit my Coyn; but with Tories to combine
Or keep the Heir in the right Line, that Popery be in fashion,
To see the Holy Cause run down, while mighty York is next the Crown,
And Perkin 's forc'd to fly the Town, Oh, vile abomination! [P. = Monmouth.

"Sooner than obedience owe to their Arbitrary Law,

Or my Bail in danger draw, for Breach of good Behaviour,

I with Bethel, and the rest o' th' Birds, in Cage will make my Nest,
And keep my fine, to Plot and Feast, till Mon[mout]h be in favour."

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We We come to the ditty beginning "Hark! the thund'ring cannons roar," which gives name to the tune, among our early-ensuing ballads on the victory over the Turks at Vienna, in September, 1683. We need not here annotate the names mentioned above (Morden and Kendrick were on p. 77), as we meet them in their true place, when dwelling on the Rye-House Plot in later pages. The tune mentioned on p. 78, Sir Eglamore, belongs to Samuel Rowland's ditty of that name, first printed in his Melancholie Knight, 1615, and given in Roxburghe Ballads, iii. 607. Also in Popular Music, p. 276.

THRICE THREE MERRY BOYS ARE WE.

No. 1.—The Merry Boys of Christmas.

"Three merry boys, and three merry boys,

And three merry boys are we,

As ever did sing in a hempen string

Under the Gallows-Tree."

-Beaumont and Fletcher's Bloody Brother, iii. 2.

HERE, befittingly, come in "The Merry Boys of Europe," and

their companion stave "The Merry Boys of Christmas;" to which we have not the heart to refuse bringing "The Merry Boys of the Times," viz. Matthew Taubman's popular "Courtier's Health: " although a different impression had been already printed. When isolated, the effect is weakened of its allusions to the events of the time, with enthusiastic zeal for the rightful Succession of James Duke of York, whom faction would have debarred by the Exclusion Bill from succeeding to the Crown.

We know that 1681 is the date of two, "The Merry Boys of Europe;" and "The Courtier's Health: " for the former appeared that same year, in John Playford's Choice Ayres, iii. 26, and the latter ballad was re-issued in 1682, along with Taubman's Heroic Poem to the Duke of York upon his Return from Scotland, beginning, "Still with our sins, still with our furies crost, The Barque is on the Billows tost." The date of the third, "The Merry Boys of Christmas," must have been close to the same time, for the tune of "Hey, Boys, up go we," was then in vogue, enjoying a renewed popularity; while the distinct mention of "Here's a Health to Charles our King!" marks it clearly as issued before February, 168. Unfortunately, the unique specimen in Roxburghe Supplement is imperfect, and lacks the printer's name. It may have appeared earlier in the reign than the frosty Christmas of 1683, but there being no mention here of the exceptional severity of the season (whether present or past) excludes that year from calculation, as it does the next, 168: the last "New Year's gift" which Charles was to welcome. Consequently, we hold it to be almost certain that our "Merry Boys of Christmas" could scarcely be of later date than December of 1681 or of 1682; and thus believing, we give it admission prior to either of the other "Merry Boys." Walter Scott remembered Beaumont and Fletcher, no doubt, when he made Gilbert Glossin sing to Dirk Hatteraick:

VOL. V.

Gin by pailfuls, wine in rivers,
Dash the window-glass to shivers!

For three wild lads were we, brave boys,

And three wild lads were we;

Thou on the land, and I on the sand,
And Jack on the Gallows-tree.

G

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