The Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684. Various

these are gone, we shall be blest

       The clean contrary way.

      When Charles we have made bankrupt, Of power and crown bereft him, And all his loyal subjects slain, And none but rebels left him; When we have beggar’d all the land, And sent our trunks away, We’ll make him then a glorious prince The clean contrary way.

      ’Tis to preserve his Majesty

       That we against him fight,

       Nor ever are we beaten back,

       Because our cause is right:

       If any make a scruple at

       Our Declarations, say—

       Who fight for us, fight for the King

       The clean contrary way.

      At Keinton, Brainsford, Plymouth, York, And divers places more, What victories we saints obtain, The like ne’er seen before: How often we Prince Rupert kill’d, And bravely won the day, The wicked Cavaliers did run The clean contrary way.

      The true religion we maintain,

       The kingdom’s peace and plenty;

       The privilege of Parliament

       Not known to one and twenty;

       The ancient fundamental laws,

       And teach men to obey

       Their lawful sovereign, and all these

       The clean contrary way.

      We subjects’ liberties preserve

       By imprisonment and plunder,

       And do enrich ourselves and state

       By keeping th’ wicked under.

       We must preserve mechanicks now

       To lectorize and pray;

       By them the gospel is advanced

       The clean contrary way.

      And though the King be much misled

       By that malignant crew,

       He’ll find us honest at the last,

       Give all of us our due.

       For we do wisely plot, and plot

       Rebellion to alloy,

       He sees we stand for peace and truth

       The clean contrary way.

      The publick faith shall save our souls

       And our good works together;

       And ships shall save our lives, that stay

       Only for wind and weather:

       But when our faith and works fall down

       And all our hopes decay,

       Our acts will bear us up to heaven

       The clean contrary way.

THE CAMERONIAN CAT.

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      A well-known song from Hogg’s Jacobite Relics; and popular among the Cavaliers both of England and Scotland in the days of the Commonwealth. It was usually sung to a psalm tune; the singers imitating the style and manner of a precentor at a Presbyterian church.

      There was a Cameronian cat

       Was hunting for a prey,

       And in the house she catch’d a mouse

       Upon the Sabbath-day.

      The Whig, being offended

       At such an act profane,

       Laid by his book, the cat he took,

       And bound her in a chain.

      Thou damn’d, thou cursed creature,

       This deed so dark with thee,

       Think’st thou to bring to hell below

       My holy wife and me?

      Assure thyself that for the deed

       Thou blood for blood shalt pay,

       For killing of the Lord’s own mouse

       Upon the Sabbath-day.

      The presbyter laid by the book,

       And earnestly he pray’d

       That the great sin the cat had done

       Might not on him be laid.

      And straight to execution

       Poor pussy she was drawn,

       And high hang’d up upon a tree—

       The preacher sung a psalm.

      And when the work was ended,

       They thought the cat near dead,

       She gave a paw, and then a mew,

       And stretched out her head.

      Thy name, said he, shall certainly

       A beacon still remain,

       A terror unto evil ones

       For evermore, Amen.

THE ROYAL FEAST.

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      A Loyall Song of the Royall Feast kept by the Prisoners in the Towre, August last, with the Names, Titles, and Characters of every Prisoner. By Sir F. W., Knight and Baronet, Prisoner. (Sept. 16th, 1647.)

      “In the negotiations between the King and the Parliament during the summer and autumn of this year,” says Mr. Thomas Wright in his Political Ballads of the Commonwealth, published for the Percy Society, “the case of the royalist prisoners in the Tower was frequently brought into question. The latter seized the occasion of complaining against the rigours (complaints apparently exaggerated) which were exerted against them, and on the 16th June, 1647, was published ‘A True Relation of the cruell and unparallel’d Oppression which hath been illegally imposed upon the Gentlemen Prisoners in the Tower of London.’ The several petitions contained in this tract have the signatures of Francis Howard, Henry Bedingfield, Walter Blount, Giles Strangwaies, Francis Butler, Henry Vaughan, Thomas Lunsford, Richard Gibson, Tho. Violet, John Morley, Francis Wortley, Edw. Bishop, John Hewet, Wingfield Bodenham, Henry Warren, W. Morton, John Slaughter, Gilbert Swinhow.”

      On the 19th of August (according to the Moderate Intelligencer of that date) the King sent to the royal prisoners in the Tower two fat bucks for a feast. This circumstance was the origin of the present ballad. It was written by Sir Francis Wortley, one of the prisoners. This ballad, as we learn by the concluding lines, was to be sung to the popular tune of “Chevy Chace.”

      God save the best of kings, King Charles!

       The best of queens, Queen Mary!

       The ladies all, Gloster and Yorke,

       Prince Charles, so like old harry! [5]

      God send the King his own again,

       His towre and all his coyners!

       And blesse all kings who are to reigne,

       From traytors and purloyners!

       The King sent us poor traytors here

       (But you may guesse the reason)

       Two brace of bucks to mend the cheere,

       Is’t not to eat them treason?

      Let Selden search Cotton’s records,

       And Rowley in the Towre,

       They cannot match the president,

       It is not in their power.