Chapter 146

p. 412 _Lord Capel._ Arthur, Lord Capel, Baron Hadham, a gallant royalist leader, was, after the surrender of Colchester, treacherously imprisoned. He escaped, but was betrayed, and beheaded 9 March, 1649.

p. 412 _Brown Bushel._ A sea captain. Originally inclined to the Parliament, he became a royalist. In 1643 he was taken prisoner, but after being exchanged lived quietly and retired till 1648, when he was seized as a deserter, and after three years captivity, tried, and executed 29 April, 1651.

p. 413 _Earl of Holland._ Henry Rich, Earl of Holland (1590-1649), a staunch royalist, was executed 9 March, 1649, in company with Lord Capel and the Duke of Hamilton.

p. 413 _Judas._ The piece of plate dubb’d Judas would be gilded, cf. Middleton’s _Chaste Maid in Cheapside_, (4to, 1630), iii, 2.

3rd Gossip. Two great ’postle-spoons, one of them gilt. 1st Puritan. Sure that was Judas then with the red beard.

Red is the traditional colour of Judas’ hair. cf. Dryden’s lines on Jacob Tonson the publisher:—

With two left legs and Judas-coloured hair.

p. 414 _an act, 24 June._ Cromwell’s parliament passed Draconian Acts punishing adultery, incest, fornication, with death; the two former on the first offence, the last on the second conviction. _Mercurius Politicus_, No. 168. Thursday, 25 August— Thursday, 1 September, 1653 (p. 2700), records the execution of an old man of eighty-nine who was found guilty at Monmouth Assize of adultery with a woman over sixty. It is well known that under the Commonwealth the outskirts of London were crowded with brothels, and the license of Restoration days pales before the moral evils and cankers existing under Cromwell. The officially recognized independent diurnals _Mercurius Democritus_, _Mercurius Fumigosus_, have been described as ‘abominable’. In 1660, when the writers of these attempted to circulate literature which had been common in the preceeding decade, they were promptly ‘clapt up in Newgate’.

p. 414 _Peters the first_, _Martin the Second._ Hugh Peters has been noticed before. Henry Martin was an extreme republican, and at one time even a Leveller. He was a commissioner of the High Court of Justice and a regicide. At the Restoration he was imprisoned for life and died at Chepstow Castle, 1681, aged seventy-eight. He was notorious for profligacy and shamelessness, and kept a very seraglio of mistresses.

p. 415 _Tantlings._ St. Antholin’s (St. Anthling’s), Budge Row, Watling Street, had long been a stronghold of puritanism. As early as 1599, morning prayer and lecture were instituted, ‘after the Geneva fashion’. The bells began at five in the morning. This church was largely attended by fanatics and extremists. There are frequent allusions to St. Antholin’s and its matutinal chimes. The church was burned down in the Great Fire. Middleton and Dekker’s _Roaring Girl_ (1611): ‘Sha’s a tongue will be heard further in a still morning than Saint Antling’s bell.’

She will outpray A preacher at St. Antlin’s.

— Mayne’s _City Match_ (1639), iv, v.

458 Davenant’s _News from Plymouth_ (fol. 1673, licensed 1635), i, I:—

Two disciples to St. Tantlin, That rise to long exercise before day.

p. 416 _Lilly._ William Lilly (1602-81). The famous astrologer and fortune-teller. In Tatham’s _The Rump_ (1660), he is introduced on the stage, and there is a scene between him and Lady Lambert, Act iv.

p. 416 _sisseraro._ More usually sasarara. A corruption of _certiorari_, a writ in law to expedite justice. ‘If it be lost or stole ... I could bring him to a cunning kinsman of mine that would fetcht again with a sesarara,’— _The Puritan_ (1607). ‘Their souls fetched up to Heaven with a sasarara.’— _The Revenger’s Tragedy_, iv, 2 (1607), _The Vicar of Wakefield_ (1766), ch. xxi: ‘“As for the matter of that,” returned the hostess, “gentle or simple, out she shall pack with a sussarara”.’