Part 2

"Lastly, the Pope, in a glorious pageant or chair of state, covered with scarlet; the chair being richly embroidered and bedecked with golden balls and crosses. At his feet was a cushion of state; and two boys sat on each side the Pope in surplices, with white silk banners painted with red crosses and _bloody consecrated daggers_ for murdering Protestant kings and princes, with an incense-pot before them censing his Holiness. The Pope was arrayed in a rich scarlet gown lined through with ermines and adorned with gold and silver lace, with a triple-crown on his head, and a glorious collar of gold and precious stones about his neck, and St. Peter's keys, a great quantity of beads, _Agnus Dei's_, and other Catholic trumpery about him. At his back stood the _Devil_, his Holiness's privy-counsel, hugging and whispering him all the way, and often instructing him aloud to destroy his Majesty, to contrive a pretended Presbyterian plot, and to fire the City again; to which purpose he held an infernal torch in his hand. The whole procession was attended with 150 torches and flambeaus by order; but there were so many came in volunteers as made the number to be several thousands. Never were the balconies, windows, and houses more filled, nor the streets more thronged, with multitudes of people, all expressing their abhorrence of Popery with _continual shouts and acclamations_; so that in the whole progress of their procession by a modest computation it is judged there could be no less than 200,000 spectators.

"Thus with a slow and solemn state in some hours they arrived at Temple-bar, where all the houses seemed to be converted into heaps of men, women, and children, who were diverted with variety of excellent fire-works. It is known that Temple-bar since its rebuilding is adorned with four stately statues of Stone, two on each side the Gate; those towards the City representing Queen Elizabeth and King James, and the other two towards the Strand King Charles I. and King Charles II.: now, in regard of the day, the statue of Queen Elizabeth was adorned with a crown of gilded laurel on her head, and in her hand, a golden shield with this motto inscribed thereon, "The Protestant Religion, Magna Charta." Several lighted torches were placed before her, and the Pope brought up near the gate.

"Having entertained the thronging spectators for some time with ingenious fire-works, a very great bonfire was prepared at the Inner Temple-gate; and his Holiness, after some compliments and reluctances, was decently tumbled into the flames; the _Devil_ who till then accompanied him left him in the lurch, and, laughing, gave him up to his deserved fate. This last act of his Holiness's tragedy was attended with a prodigious shout of the joyful spectators. The same evening there were bonfires in most streets of London, and universal acclamations, crying, "Let Popery perish, and Papists with their plots and counter-plots be for ever confounded. _Amen._"

_Protestant Postboy, Nov. 20, 1711._

The brutal ferocity of the scenes just described appeared in a more matured state in the acts of an inconsiderable part of the populace in 1712: indeed, had their numbers or their courage equalled the fiend-like qualities of their souls, the consequences must have been dreadful to the publick. Fortunately, however, there were but fifty _Mohawks_, and their cowardice made them an easy prey to justice; but not before they had committed the most unheard-of excesses, of which the wounds they inflicted with their swords on the peaceable passenger of the streets at night were the least. They treated women in a manner too brutal for a man of the least spirit to repeat, and their exploits were marked in every other respect with the violation of decency: Modesty and Innocence became their victims, Impudence and Lasciviousness they patronized and protected. The Queen issued a Proclamation on this hateful occasion pregnant with just resentment, and offered a reward of 100_l._ for the apprehension of any of the offenders. The Gazette of March 18, 1711, mentions that Sir William Thomas, Bart. had been apprehended (who was accompanied by two men then unknown) for assaulting a gentleman in St. James's Park between nine and ten at night on the 15th, and calls on the injured person to appear in evidence before the Secretary of State: but whether the charge applies to the above outrages is not discoverable from the notice. April 19 following the Gazette mentions seven men and seven women who had been assaulted.

At the Quarterly Sessions of that period the Justices had received orders to put the law in force against Vice and Immorality; and in consequence of a petition from the inhabitants of Covent-garden, complaining of the indecency and riots of the loose women and their male followers in the vicinity of the Theatre, they issued warrants for their apprehension. The execution of those were violently opposed; and the Justices were compelled to state to the Privy Council and the Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex, that the Constables were dreadfully maimed, and one mortally wounded by Ruffians aided by 40 Soldiers of the guards, who entered into a combination to protect the women.

In May, Lord Inchinbroke, Sir Mark Cole, and some others, were found guilty on the charge of being principals in some or other of the above vile proceedings. After having complimented Government on the propriety of preventing the populace from publicly burning effigies, it would be injustice to the latter not to acknowledge they might have pleaded high authority for doing it. On the 5th of November 1712, the Queen's guards made a bonfire before the gates of St. James's Palace; into which the Pretender's effigy was thrown and shot at. Such is Human Nature! The Lord Mayor appears, however, to have done his duty, by requesting his fellow citizens to keep at home on the night of the anniversary of Elizabeth's accession.

One of the oddest occurrences I have yet met with under this head was a political contest between the Whig and Tory Footmen, who served the Members of the House of Commons. These worthy patriots had inviolably observed a custom, for many years previous to 1715, of imitating their masters in the choice of a Speaker, modestly conceiving themselves a deliberative body. Now, as the parties happened at this period to be nearly balanced, much animosity naturally ensued; and, not possessing the forbearance of their superiors, they had recourse to active hostilities, and severely beat each other, till the rising of the House compelled them to desist; but, on the following Monday, the battle was renewed, and the Tories having gained the day by dint of blows, they carried their Speaker three times round Westminster-hall, and then, in pursuance of antient usage, they adjourned to a good dinner at an adjacent alehouse, and to expend their crown each in toasting their success.

The accession of George I. was celebrated, in the month of July of the same year, in the customary manner by the peaceable part of the community; but the more violent assembled, to the amount of several hundreds, at the Roebuck Tavern, Cheapside, where they burnt the effigies of the Pretender habited in mourning before the door, accompanied by a peal from Bow bells; and the populace were plentifully supplied with liquor. The same persons, joined by many young men and apprentices, busily employed themselves between the above date and October 22, the anniversary of the King's coronation, in preparing the effigies of the old Triumvirate for the same fate; but the Jacobin interest, then in full effervescence, contrived to drop printed bills, and to insinuate that those loyal persons meant to burn the effigies of the late Queen and Dr. Sacheverell. To repel such ideas, the Loyal Society deputed their Stewards to the Lord Mayor with a relation of their real intention, who forbid a procession, but permitted them to consume the effigies where they pleased. Thus privileged, they adorned their hats with cockades of white and orange, and sallied forth with effigies of the Pope, the Pretender, the Earl of Man, the Duke of Ormond, and Lord Bolingbroke, accompanied by link-bearers, and precipitated them into a fire near Bow-church. Hence they went to Lincoln's-Inn-fields, and assisted at the hateful orgies of the same description ordered by the foolish Duke of Newcastle, whose power ought to have been exerted in a far different way, as the sequel will shew. The Jacobites, full of rage and disappointment, trod on their kibes, but were afraid to commit open violence. These processions and burnings were repeated again on King William's anniversary, and on the 5th of November; and, had the subject been less serious, the exhibition of the _warming-pan_ and sucking bottle might have excited a smile. Some slight opposition occurred on these evenings; but the Loyal Society of the Roebuck routed the Jacobites on all sides. The day of the inauguration of Queen Elizabeth, November 17, shews the folly and wickedness of suffering the populace to exercise their brutal celebrations uncontrouled. The Loyal Society met at their usual rendezvous in Cheapside, whence they sent a deputation to examine a house near Aldersgate, where certain effigies were placed under the guard of a man with a hanger, said to be those of Cromwell, Ireton, Bradshaw, and Dr. Burnet, which the Jacobites intended to burn that evening. However, upon viewing the harmless figures, they were found to be the representatives of George I. King William, Marlborough, Newcastle, and Dr. Burnet. The Deputies immediately seized them, and proceeded without opposition and no little triumph to the Roebuck. At 8 o'clock in the evening shouts of High Church and Ormond, &c. &c. announced the approach of the Pretender's friends, who poured into Cheapside from the neighbouring streets, proclaiming their intention of tearing the house to pieces. The attack commenced with stones and bricks, which soon demolished the windows; they then prepared for the assault; but the Loyal Society, thinking to terrify them, fired with powder only. The Jacobites, perceiving they had sustained no injury, renewed the attack, when a second volley, accompanied by ball, laid two of them dead on the pavement, and wounded several others. _Then_ the Mayor made his appearance with the _posse comitatus_, and the Jacobites fled. Thus the Tragedy proceeded scene after scene; and in which way were either party benefited by the catastrophe? Rioters acting with a majority are like the officious bear who flattened his friend's nose in order to kill a fly that teased him; those on the side of a minority can expect nothing but disgrace and hanging: a well-ordered government should therefore suppress the turbulence of both. Another attempt was subsequently made upon the Roebuck, but the Trained Bands prevented the accomplishment of its demolition. The Coroner's Jury returned a verdict of justifiable homicide on the two bodies.

During the rebellious year 1716 there were many violations of public decorum, which, if not really dangerous to lives and property, were alarming and extremely offensive to the quiet Citizens. One of those was the exploding a train of powder and nauseous combustibles within Shower's Dissenting Meeting in the Old Jewry in the midst of an evening service. The sudden flash, the smoke, and suffocation, put the audience into a most violent ferment; and the attempts on all sides to escape occasioned the only injury done by this stupid contrivance of a mischievous partisan, who probably congratulated himself on observing broken pews, bruised bodies, scattered shoes, wigs, scarves, and watches; a chaos begun and ended in smoke.

The anniversary celebrations which were usually accompanied by conviviality and pleasure seem in this turbulent year to have been authorised days for riot, fighting, and disorder, or stated times for the display of brutal courage. Were the circumstances more congenial to humanity, many instances might be given. The very focus of those mischiefs were the various _mug_-houses, as they were politely termed, or in other words Club-taverns. That of Salisbury-court was regularly assaulted in July, and the leader, a Bridewell apprentice, was shot by the Master of the House, for which he was tried and acquitted; but five of the rioters were executed. The members of the Roebuck mug-house carried their loyalty into the street on the first of August, where they had an enormous bonfire, and a table near it, when they drank their glasses of wine, and pronounced healths, accompanied by the brazen lungs of the trumpet. Several of those gentlemen having heard that the Jacobites held religious meetings in various parts of the town, where they prayed for their lawful King without naming him, determined to distribute some of their numbers in each, and when the proper time arrived they exclaimed King George and their Royal Highnesses, &c.: to which others added Amen. This expedient served to confound if not to convince; but neither lenity nor punishment operated with the fiery Jacobites, who dared to bury two of the above rioters with grand funeral honours in September, and would have made a procession of young persons in pairs habited as mourners to pass every mug-house in the City, had not the officers of the Police interfered and apprehended several.

The gentry of the Roebuck attracted public notice on the King's return from one of his excursions to Hanover, by a fresh exhibition of obnoxious effigies, which they had prepared some time before, and shown for two-pence each person. Those were dragged about till the thousand links that attended them were almost consumed, the persons who rode as Highland prisoners jaded, and the Man in armour who represented the King's champion sufficiently cooled (for it was January, good reader), when they halted at Charing-cross, and committed the inanimate part of the procession to the flames. As this folly was protected by three files of soldiers, the Jacobites remained _perdu_.

The months of May and June 1717 were war-like periods in Westminster, and marked by furious battles between the butchers of St. James's market and the footmen and valets of the same courtly City. After several actions the footmen solicited and obtained the assistance of the Bridewell-boys; to balance this accession of strength, the fraternities of Westminster, Clare, and Bloomsbury-markets were summoned, and joined the St. James's.

The Roebuck Society seem to have been exhausted by their exertions in the latter end of 1717, and determined to decline active hostility against the Jacobites; but I find them subsequently roused, and the assailants in a pitched battle and siege of Newgate-market. One of them describes the Society in the following lines--a paraphrase from Martial, lib. xiii. Ep. c.

"As Deer upon the rocks where Dogs can't go Look down, and vex the noisy pack below, So stands our Roebuck far above the spite Of ill-look'd curs that growl but cannot bite; And if they yelp against our Sun at noon, 'Tis but like puppies barking at the Moon."

The Nonjurors, unwilling to resign their pretensions and the Pretender, continued their secret meetings. Government, however, appears to have used summary measures with them. Mr. Hawes's meeting opposite St. James's was stormed in October 1717 by two Justices, two of the King's messengers, and a guard of soldiers, when an hundred persons were found within, to whom the Justices tendered the oaths; five accepted them, but the rest refused, and were dismissed after being compelled to declare their names and residences: the preacher escaped. Dr. Welton, the ejected or Nonjuring rector of St. Mary's Whitechapel, held the same kind of assemblies at his house in Goodman's-fields, which was visited in the same manner; but the Doctor thinking proper to resist, the door was broken open, and about 200 persons were discovered, all of whom except 40 refused the oaths. The Doctor not only rejected the oath, but acknowledged he did not pray for the Royal family. His escapes for a long time after furnished matter for paragraphs in the newspapers.

The year 1718 closed with a faint revival of the turbulence of party. In this instance the Bridewell-boys acted with hardened effrontery and violence against the Loyalists. This period produced the long-required interference of the Civil Power to prevent the Roebuck processions; but this happy event was succeeded by the unjustifiable conduct of the Spital-fields weavers, who were injured by the too common use of foreign calicoes. These indiscreet persons, instead of applying for redress to the Legislature, proceeded to terrify the wearers into a compliance with their wishes, by throwing pernicious liquids on the gowns of females, and tearing them from their backs in the most brutal manner. The Police were compelled to interfere; but to little purpose, till they were fired upon, and several killed and wounded, and others committed to prison, whence some were conveyed corpses through the raging of a Gaol fever, and others to the Pillory; but it was a long time before the effervescence was allayed, and a paper war exhausted.

London was remarkably quiet from the above period till November 1724; but that year produced a thief that seemed calculated to perform successfully every scheme of desperation. He enjoyed a limited sway, and during the time he was at large the publick were in constant apprehension. Sheppard finished his career at Tyburn in the midst of an incredible number of spectators; and their conduct occasions this notice of him. The Sheriff's-officers, aware of the person they had to contend with, thought it prudent to secure his hands on the morning of execution. This innovation produced the most violent resistance on Sheppard's part; and the operation was performed by force. They then proceeded to search him, and had reason to applaud their vigilance, for he had contrived to conceal a penknife in some part of his dress. The ceremony of his departure from our world passed without disorder; but, the instant the time expired for the suspension of the body, an undertaker, who had followed by his friends' desire with a hearse and attendants, would have conveyed it to St. Sepulchre's church-yard for interment; but the mob, conceiving that Surgeons had employed this unfortunate man, proceeded to demolish the vehicle, and attack the sable dependants, who escaped with difficulty. They then seized the body, and in the brutal manner common to those wretches beat it from each to the other till it was covered with bruises and dirt, and till they reached Long-acre, where they deposited the miserable remains at a public-house called the Barley-mow. After it had rested there a few hours the populace entered into an enquiry why they had contributed their assistance in bringing Sheppard to Long-acre; when they discovered they were duped by a bailiff, who was actually employed by the Surgeons; and that they had taken the corpse from a person really intending to bury it. The elucidation of their error exasperated them almost to phrensy, and a riot immediately commenced, which threatened the most serious consequences. The inhabitants applied to the Police, and several Magistrates attending, they were immediately convinced the civil power was insufficient to resist the torrent of malice ready to burst forth in acts of violence. They therefore sent to the Prince of Wales and the Savoy, requesting detachments of the guards; who arriving, the ringleaders were secured, the body was given to a person, a friend of Sheppard, and the mob dispersed to attend it to the grave at St. Martin's in the Fields, where it was deposited in an elm coffin, at ten o'clock the same night, under a guard of Soldiers, and with the ceremonies of the church.

The Weekly Journal of November 21, 1724, gives a brief abstract of Sheppard's life, published at the time, which may amuse the reader.

"An Abridgement of the Life, Robberies, Escapes, and Death, of John Sheppard, who was executed at Tyburn on Monday the 16th instant, 1724.

"The celebrated Jack Sheppard, whose eminence in his profession rendered him the object of every body's curiosity, having made his exit on Monday last at Tyburn, in a manner suitable to his extraordinary merits, we hope a short summary of his most remarkable performances, before and since his repeated escapes out of Newgate, together with his behaviour at the place of execution, will not be a disagreeable entertainment to our readers.

"He was born in 1701, and put apprentice by the charitable interposition of Mr. Kneebone, whom he afterwards robbed, to one Mr. Owen Wood, a Carpenter, in Drury-lane. Before his time was out he took to keep company with one Elizabeth Lyon, who proved his ruin: of her he gave this character. That 'there is not a more wicked, deceitful, lascivious wretch living in England.' The first robbery he ever committed was of two silver spoons at the Rummer-tavern, Charing-cross. He owned several other robberies, particularly that of Mr. Pargiter in Hampstead, for which the two Brightwells were tried and acquitted; in relation to which he often said jocosely, 'Little I was that large lusty man that plucked him from the ditch,' as Pargiter had deposed at Brightwell's trial. He was long comrade with Blueskin, lately executed, who, according to the account Sheppard gave of him, was 'a worthless companion, a sorry thief, and that nothing but his attempt on Jonathan Wild could have made him taken notice of:' afterwards he broke out of St. Giles's round-house, throwing a whole load of bricks, &c. on the people in the street who stood looking at him, and made his escape. After this he broke out of New Prison; then out of the condemned hold in Newgate; but his last escape from Newgate having made the greatest noise, we shall insert the following particulars.