The Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England

A Proper New Ballad on the Old Parliament; Or, the Second Part of Knave Out of Doors

To the tune of

“Hei ho, my honey, my heart shall never rue,
Four-and-twenty now for your mony, and yet a hard penny-worth too.”

(Dec. 11th, 1659.)—From the King’s Pamphlets, British Museum.

“The events which gave occasion to the following ballad,” says Mr T. Wright in his Political Ballads, published for the Percy Society, “may be summed up in a few words. After the death of Cromwell, his son Richard was without opposition raised to the Protectorate; but his weak and easy character gave an opening to the intrigues of the Royalists, and the factious movement of the Republican party. Fleetwood, who had been named commander-in-chief of the army under the Protector, plotted to gain the chief power in the State, and was joined by Lambert, Desborough, and others. The Republicans were strengthened by the return of Vane, Ludlow, and Bradshaw, to the Parliament called by the new Protector. Lambert, the Protector’s brother-in-law, was the ostensible head of a party, and seems to have aimed at obtaining the power which had been held by Oliver. They formed a council of officers, who met at Wallingford House; and on the 20th April, 1659, having gained the upper hand, and having obtained the dissolution of the Parliament, they determined to restore the old Long Parliament, which they said had only been interrupted, and not legally dissolved, and to set aside the Protector, who soon afterwards resigned. On the 21st April, Lenthall, the old Speaker, with as many members of the Long Parliament as could be brought together, met in the House, and opened their session. The Parliament thus formed, as being the fag-end of the old Long Parliament, obtained the name of the Rump Parliament. Lambert’s hopes and aims were raised by his success against Sir George Booth in the August following, and jealousies soon arose between his party in the army and the Rump. The Parliament would have dismissed him, and the chief officers in the cabal with him, but Lambert with the army in October hindered their free meeting, and took the management of the government into the hands of a council of officers, whom they called the Committee of Safety. Towards the latter end of the year, the tide began to be changed in favour of the Parliament, by the declaration of Monk in Scotland, Henry Cromwell with the army in Ireland, and Hazelrigge and the officers at Portsmouth, in favour of the freedom of the Parliament. This ballad was written at the period when Lambert’s party was uppermost.”

The tune of “Hei ho, my honey,” may be found in Playford’s edition of “The English Dancing Master,” printed in 1686, but in no earlier edition of the same work.

Good-morrow, my neighbours all, what news is this I heard tell
As I past through Westminster-hall by the House that’s neck to hell?
They told John Lambert ¹ was there with his bears, and deeply he swore
(As Cromwell had done before) those vermin should sit there no more.
   Sing hi ho, Wil. Lenthall, ² who shall our general be?
   For the House to the Devil is sent all, and follow, good faith, mun ye!
   Sing hi ho, my honey, my heart shall never rue,
   Here’s all pickt ware for the money, and yet a hard pennyworth too.

Then, Muse, strike up a sonnet, come, piper, and play us a spring,
For now I think upon it, these R’s turn’d out their King;
But now is come about, that once again they must turn out,
And not without justice and reason, that every one home to his prison.
   Sing hi ho, Harry Martin, ³ a burgess of the bench,
   There’s nothing here is certain, you must back and leave your wench.
         Sing, hi ho, etc.

He there with the buffle head is called lord and of the same House,
Who (as I have heard it said) was chastised by his ladye spouse;
Because he ran at sheep, she and her maid gave him the whip,
And beat his head so addle, you’d think he had a knock in the cradle.
   Sing hi ho, Lord Munson, ⁴ you ha’ got a park of the King’s;
   One day you’l hang like a hounson, for this and other things,
         Sing hi, ho, etc.

It was by their master’s orders at first together they met,
Whom piously they did murder, and since by their own they did set.
The cause of this disaster is ’cause they were false to their master;
Nor can they their gens-d’armes blame for serving them the same.
   Sing hi ho, Sir Arthur, ⁵ no more in the House you shall prate;
   For all you kept such a quarter, ⁶ you are out of the councell of state.
         Sing hi ho, etc.

Old Noll once gave them a purge (forgetting OCCIDISTI),
(The furies be his scourge!) so of the cure must he;
And yet the drug he well knew it, for he gave it to Dr Huit; ⁷
Had he given it them, he had done it, and they had not turn’d out his son yet;
   Sing hi ho, brave Dick, Lenthall, and Lady Joane,
   Who did against lovalty kick is now for a new-year’s gift gone.
         Sing hi ho, etc.

For had Old Noll been alive, he had pull’d them out by the ears,
Or else had fired their hive, and kickt them down the staires;
Because they were so bold to vex his righteous soul,
When he so deeply had swore that there they should never sit more.
   But hi ho, Noll’s dead, and stunk long since above ground,
   Though lapt in spices and lead that cost us many a pound.
         Sing hi ho, etc.

Indeed, brother burgess, your ling did never stink half so bad,
Nor did your habberdin when it no pease-straw had;
Ye both were chose together, ’cause ye wore stuff cloaks in hard weather,
And Cambridge needs would have a burgess fool and knave.
   Sing hi ho, John Lowry, ⁸ concerning habberdin,
   No member spake before ye, yet you ne’re spoke againe.
         Sing hi, ho, etc.

Ned Prideaux ⁹ he went post to tell the Protector the news,
That Fleetwood ruld the rost, having tane off Dicke’s shoes.
And that he did believe, Lambert would him deceive
As he his brother had gull’d, and Cromwell Fairfax bull’d.
   Sing hi ho, the attorney was still at your command;
   In flames together burn ye, still dancing hand in hand!
         Sing hi ho, etc.

Who’s that would hide his face, and his neck from the collar pull?
He must appear in this place, if his cap be made of wool.
Who is it? with a vengeance! it is the good Lord St Johns, ¹⁰
Who made God’s house to fall, to build his own withall.
   Sing hi ho, who comes there? who ’tis I must not say;
   But by his dark lanthorn, I sweare he’s as good in the night as day.
         Sing hi ho, etc.

Edge, brethren, room for one that looks as big as the best;
’Tis pity to leave him alone, for he is as good as the rest;
No picklock of the laws, he builds among the daws,
If you ha’ any more kings to murder, for a President look no further.
   Sing hi ho, John Bradshaw, in blood none further engages;
   The Devil from whom he had’s law, will shortly pay him his wages.
         Sing hi ho, etc.

Next, Peagoose Wild, ¹¹ come in to show your weesle face,
And tell us Burley’s sin, whose blood bought you your place;
When loyalty was a crime, he lived in a dangerous time,
Was forced to pay his neck to make you baron of the cheque.
   Sing hi ho, Jack Straw, we’ll put it in the margent,
   ’Twas not for justice or law that you were made a sergeant.
         Sing hi ho, etc.

Noll served not Satan faster, nor with him did better accord;
For he was my good master, and the Devil was his good lord.
Both Slingsby, Gerard, and Hewet, ¹² were sure enough to go to it,
According to his intent, that chose me President.
   Sing hi ho, Lord Lisle, ¹³ sure law had got a wrench,
   And where was justice the while, when you sate on the bench.
         Sing hi ho, etc.

Next comes the good Lord Keble, of the Triumvirate,
Of the seal in the law but feeble, though on the bench he sate;
For when one puts him a case, I wish him out of the place,
And, if it were not a sin, an able lawyer in.
   Sing, give the seal about, I’de have it so the rather,
   Because we might get out the knave, my lord, my father.
         Sing hi ho, etc.

Pull out the other three, it is Nathaniel Fines ¹⁴
(Who Bristol lost for fear), we’ll not leave him behind’s;
’Tis a chip of that good old block, who to loyalty gave the first knock,
Then stole away to Lundey, whence the foul fiend fetches him one day.
   Sing hi ho, canting Fines, you and the rest to mend ’um,
   Would ye were served in your kinds with an ense rescidendum.
         Sing hi ho, etc.

He that comes down-stairs, is Lord Chief Justice Glin; ¹⁵
If no man for him cares, he cares as little again:
The reason too I know’t, he helpt cut Strafford’s throat,
And take away his life, though with a cleaner knife.
   Sing hi ho, Britain bold, straight to the bar you get,
   Where it is not so cold as where your justice set.
         Sing hi ho, etc.

He that will next come in, was long of the Council of State,
Though hardly a hair on his chin when first in the council he sate;
He was sometime in Italy, and learned their fashions prettily,
Then came back to’s own nation, to help up reformation.
   Sing hi ho, Harry Nevil, ¹⁶ I prythee be not too rash
   With atheism to court the Divel, you’re too bold to be his bardash.
         Sing hi ho, etc.

He there with ingratitude blackt is one Cornelius Holland, ¹⁷
Who, but for the King’s house, lackt wherewith to appease his colon;
The case is well amended since that time, as I think,
When at court gate he tended with a little stick and a short link.
   Sing hi ho, Cornelius, your zeal cannot delude us;
   The reason pray now tell ye us why thus you play’d the Judas.
         Sing hi ho, etc.

At first he was a grocer who now we Major call,
Although you would think no, Sir, if you saw him in Whitehall,
Where he has great command, and looks for cap in hand,
And if our eggs be not addle, shall be of the next new moddel.
   Sing hi ho, Mr Salloway, ¹⁸ the Lord in heaven doth know
   When that from hence you shall away, where to the Devil you’l go.
         Sing hi ho, etc.

Little Hill, ¹⁹ since set in the House, is to a mountain grown;
Not that which brought forth the mouse, but thousands the year of his own.
The purchase that I mean, where else but at Taunton Dean;
Five thousand pounds per annum, a sum not known to his grannam.
   Sing hi, the Good old Cause, ²⁰ ’tis old enough not true
   You got more by that then the laws, so a good old cause to you.
         Sing hi ho, etc.

Master Cecil, ²¹ pray come behind, because on your own accord
The other House you declined, you shall be no longer a lord;
The reason, as I guess, you silently did confess,
Such lords deserved ill the other House to fill.
   Sing hi ho, Mr Cecil, your honour now is gone;
   Such lords are not worth a whistle, we have made better lords of our own.
         Sing hi ho, etc.

Luke Robinson ²² shall go before ye, that snarling northern tyke;
Be sure he’ll not adore ye, for honour he doth not like;
He cannot honour inherit, and he knows he can never merit,
And therefore he cannot bear it that any one else should wear it.
   Sing hi ho, envious lown, you’re of the beagle’s kind,
   Who always bark’d at the moon, because in the dark it shined.
         Sing hi ho, etc.

’Tis this that vengeance rouses, that, while you make long prayers,
You eat up widows’ houses, and drink the orphan’s tears;
Long time you kept a great noise, of God and the Good old Cause;
But if God to you be so kind, then I’me of the Indian’s mind.
   Sing hi ho, Sir Harry, ²³ we see, by your demeanour,
   If longer here you tarry, you’ll be Sir Harry Vane, Senior.
         Sing hi ho, etc.

Now if your zeal do warme ye, pray loud for fairer weather;
Swear to live and die with the army, for these birds are flown together;
The House is turn’d out a doe, (and I think it was no sin, too);
If we take them there any more, we’ll throw the House out of the window.
   Sing hi ho, Tom Scot, ²⁴ you lent the Devil your hand;
   I wonder he helpt you not, but suffred you t’ be trapand.
         Sing hi ho, etc.

They’re once again conduced, and we freed from the evil
To which we long were used; God blesse us next from the Devil!
If they had not been outed the array had been routed,
And then this rotten Rump had sat until the last trump.
   But, hi ho, Lambert’s here, the Protector’s instrument bore,
   And many there be who swear that he will do it no more.
         Sing hi ho, etc.

Come here, then, honest Peters, ²⁵ say grace for the second course,
So long as these your betters must patience have upon force,
Long time he kept a great noise with God and the Good old Cause,
But if God own such as these, then where’s the Devil’s fees?
   Sing hi ho, Hugo, I hear thou art not dead;
   Where now to the Devil will you go, your patrons being fled?
   Sing hi ho, my honey, my heart shall never rue,
   Four-and-twenty now for a penny, and into the bargain Hugh.

Lambert and “his bears” are frequently mentioned in the satirical writings of this period. Cromwell is said to have sworn “by the living God,” when he dissolved the Long Parliament.—T. W. ↩
Speaker of the Long Parliament. ↩
Harry Marten, member for Berkshire, a man of equivocal private character. In the heat of the civil wars he had been committed to the Tower for a short time by the Parliament, for speaking too openly against the person of the King. When he attempted to speak against the violent dissolution of the Long Parliament by Cromwell, the latter reproached him with the licentiousness of his life.—T. W. ↩
William Lord Monson, Viscount Castlemaine, was member for Ryegate. He was degraded from his honours at the Restoration, and was condemned to be drawn on a sledge with a rope round his neck from the Tower to Tyburn, and back again, and to be imprisoned there for life. It appears, by the satirical tracts of the day, that he was chiefly famous for being beaten by his wife.—T. W. ↩
Sir Arthur Haselrigge, member for Leicestershire. ↩
Noise or disturbance. ↩
Dr John Hewit, an episcopal clergyman, executed for high treason in 1658, for having held an active correspondence with the Royalists abroad, and having zealously contributed to the insurrection headed by Penruddock. ↩
John Lowry, member for Cambridge. ↩
Sir Edmund Prideaux, Bart., member for Lyme Regis. He was Cromwell’s Attorney-General. ↩
Oliver St John, member for Totness, and Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. ↩
John Wilde, one of the members for Worcestershire. In Cromwell’s last Parliament he represented Droitwich, and was made by the Protector “Lord Chief Baron of the Public Exchequer.” ↩
Sir Henry Slingsby and Dr Hewet were executed for treason against the government of Oliver Cromwell in 1658. Colonel John Gerard was brought to the block at the beginning of the Protectorate, in 1654, for being engaged in a plot to assassinate Cromwell. ↩
John Lord Lisle represented Yarmouth in the Long Parliament. He sat for Kent in the Parliament of 1653, and was afterwards a member of Cromwell’s “other House,” and held the office of Lord Commissioner of the Great Seal. He was president of the High Courts of Justice which tried Gerard, Slingsby, and Hewet. ↩
Nathaniel Fiennes, member for Banbury. In the Parliament of 1654 he represented Oxfordshire. He was afterwards, as Nathaniel Lord Fiennes, a member of Cromwell’s “other House.” Fiennes was accused of cowardice in surrendering Bristol (of which he was governor) to Prince Rupert, somewhat hastily, in 1643. His father, Lord Say and Sele, opposing Cromwell, was obliged to retire to the Isle of Lundy. ↩
John Lord Glynn, member of Cromwell’s “other House,” was “Chief Justice assigned to hold pleas in the Upper Bench.” He was engaged in the prosecution of the Earl of Strafford. He was one of the eleven members impeached by the army in 1647. In the Long Parliament, as well as in Cromwell’s Parliaments, he was member for Carnarvon.—T. W. ↩
Henry Nevil, member for Abingdon. In Cromwell’s last Parliament he represented Reading. In a satirical tract, he is spoken of as “religious Harry Nevill;” and we find in Burton’s Diary, that some months before the date of the present song (on the 16th Feb. 1658–9) there was “a great debate” on a charge of atheism and blasphemy which had been brought against him.—T. W. ↩
In the satirical tract entitled “England’s Confusion,” this member is described as “hastily rich Cornelius Holland.” He appears to have risen from a low station, and is characterized in the songs of the day as having been a link-bearer.—T. W. ↩
Major Salwey was an officer in the Parliamentary array. On the 17th January, 1660, he incurred the displeasure of the House, and was sequestered from his seat and sent to the Tower. He is described as “a smart, prating apprentice, newly set for himself.” He appears to have been originally a grocer and tobacconist; a ballad of the time speaks of him as, ↩
Roger Hill was member for Bridport, in Dorsetshire. He bought a grant of the Bishop of Winchester’s manor of Taunton Dean, valued at 1200 pounds a year. A ballad written towards the end of 1659 says of him, ↩
With the revival of the Long Parliament, the old Republican feelings arose again under the denomination of the “Good old Cause.” Innumerable pamphlets were published for and against “The Cause.” Even Prynne, the fierce old Presbyterian, who was now turning against the patriots, lifted up his pen against it, and published “The Republicans and others spurious Good old Cause briefly and truly Anatomized,” 4to, May 13, 1659. ↩
Robert Cecil, Esq., was one of the members of the Old Long Parliament who were now brought together to form the Rump. He represented Old Sarum, Wilts. ↩
Luke Robinson, of Pickering Lyth, in Yorkshire, was member for Scarborough. An old ballad says of him, ↩
Sir Harry Vane. ↩
Thomas Scott was member for Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire, in the Long Parliament. ↩
Hugh Peters, the celebrated fanatic. In the margin of the original, opposite to the words “the Devil’s fees,” is the following note—“His numps and his kidneys.”—T. W. ↩

Footnotes