Strange Nevves from Newgate

…and the Old-Baily: or The proofs, examinations, declarations, indictments, conviction, and confessions of I. Collins, and T. Reeve, two of the Ranters taken in More-lane, at the Generall Sessions of gaol-delivery; holden in the Old-Baily the twentieth day, of this instant Ianuary, the penalties that are inflicted upon them. The proceedings against one Parson Williams for having four wives, and Iohn Iackson a Scots minister, condemned to be drawn, hanged, and quartered, for proclaiming Charles Stuart, King of England, with the strange and wonderfull judgement of God shewed upon one T. Kendall, a Ranter in Drury-lane who fell down dead as he was affirming that there is no God, or hell to punish. Published according to order

A scurrilous 17th century tabloid, published in London in 1652, although someone has handwritten 1650 on the cover. The text details criminal trials in London the previous week and include John Jackson a Scots minister sentenced to death for supporting King Charles, ‘one Williams’, convicted of multiple bigamy, and two ranters arrested for ‘blasphemy’ in Moor Lane. The scene is pictured on page three along with a rather racy description.

The text says ‘Collins, Reeves and others were sat at table eating a piece of beef. One of then took it in hand and tearing it assunder said to the others “This is the flesh of Christ, take and eat” The other took a cup of ale in his hand and threw it into a Chimney Corner saying ‘This is the blood of Christ“. And having some discourse of God it was proved that one of these said “That he could go into the House of Office and make a God every Morning“. By easing of his body and blowing through two pieces of Tobacco Pipes he said “That was the Breath of God“. There was also proved many other Blasphemous Words and uncivil behaviour, as the kissing of one another’s Breeches, more lively represented by this figure: (naughty picture alarm, but notice the length of his shirt tails)

 

 

The bad people (crime never prospers children) were punished to six months in prison. The chap above has separated the breeches and doublet by unhooking the two and is holding up the long tails of his shirt. The naughty lady has a nice coif, a waistcoat and petticoat plus I suspect an apron and kerchief.

Further on in the text is the story of another Ranter, Mr Kendall who was caught and tried for lewd behaviour in Drury Lane, discoursing with a woman whom he called his Fellow Creature (I think we all know someone like Mr Kendall) and was persuading her to have his pleasure with her and said there was no God or Divell, affirming that all things come through Nature. Here he is in pictures.

Neither did Mr Kendall prosper, even in his smart suit and cloak, for no sooner had he made the appointment than he was struck dead on the spot. As the text goes on to say, “A Sinner doeth wickedly an hundred times and his Dayes be prolonged yet remember for all this he must come to Judgement“.

Quite

 

Richard Pierce

The royalist mayor of Devizes who kept the Swan in the town was painted by an unnamed artist in 1643 He’s wearing a tall crowned felt hat and what looks like (from the cuffs) a brown coat over a black doublet. On top of the whole layered ensemble is a paler brown cloak and a neat linen falling band. The portrait is in the Wiltshire Museum collection

A Word to Fanatics, Puritanism and Sectaries

 or, New preachers new! Green the felt-maker, Spencer the horse-rubber, Quartermine the brewer’s clarke, with some few others … With an authentic portrait and memoir of Mr. Praise-God Barebone ..by John Taylor the Water Poet, London 1642

Here the splendidly named Praisegod Barebone (though not as splendid as his brother who went by the almost unbelievable name of ‘If Christ Had Not Died, Thou Hads’t Been Damned’, known to his friends for short as ‘Damned Barebone’)  is expounding the word from his tub to an assembled group of London citizens. He’s wearing doublet and breeches with a neat little hat. The ‘congregation’ are mostly smartly dressed in doublet and cloak whilst a goodwife at the top has petticoat and waistcoat with a kerchief over the top.

Praisegod, as well as being a leather seller as we can see was active in politics after the war, being returned in 1653 to the nominated assembly that replaced the Rump Parliament. Barebones was also heavily involved in the turmoil surrounding the return of the monarchy. He was against it!

A catalogue of the several sects and opinions in England

..…..and other nations With a briefe rehearsall of their false and dangerous tenants. A single page broadsheet from January 1646 which amounted to a spotter’s guide of the various religious groups that were springing up all over England during the confused times. Each picture has an accompanying piece of doggerel to go with it. I shall go through one by one as the details are worth pointing out.

 

 

The Jesuit is wearing a cloak over a longish coat with a broad brimmed hat. His linen falling band is laid over his cloak

 

 

By hellish wiles the States to ruine bring,
My Tenents are to murder Prince or King:
If I obtaine my projects, or seduce,
Then from my Treasons I will let them loose:
And since the Roman Papall State doth totter,
I’le frame my sly-conceits to worke the better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One Evins a Welch man was lately commited to Newgate for saying hee was Christ. He’s sporting a coat (which is buttoned all the way down), breeches and is bareheaded. The cuffs of his coat are turned back, or faced in a contrasting colour

 

By cunning art my way’s more nearly spun,
Although destructive to profession;
Obscuring truths, although substantiall,
To puzle Christians or to make them fall:
That precious time may not be well improv’d,
Ile multiply strange notions for the lewd.

John Tradescant the Younger with Roger Friend

..and a collection of exotic shells. Painted by Thomas de Critz in 1645, this picture is in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Tradescant we have met before, but Roger was a local brewer. Nice still life of the shells, and some decent details in their clothes. I’m tempted to suggest that John is trying hard, but failing miserably not to look at Roger’s nose.

John is wearing a black doublet with a plain linen band, though most of it is obscured by the silk (possibly velvet) lined cloak he is wearing over the top. Roger is in a nice madder red coat, or doublet with plain shoulder wings and some neat cloth buttons. His band is ever so slightly on the skew, suggesting that he either got dressed in a hurry or that it’s imperfectly attached and has migrated to the right during the day. © 2011 University of Oxford – Ashmolean Museum

The manner and form of the Arch-bishops Tryal in the House of Peers

An engraving appended to the end of A breviate of the life, of VVilliam Laud Arch-Bishop of Canterbury: extracted (for the most part) verbatim, out of his owne diary, and other writings, under his owne hand. / Collected and published at the speciall instance of sundry honourable persons, as a necessary prologue to the history of his tryall, for which the criminal part of his life, is specially reserved by William Prynne of Lincolnes Inne, Esquier, published in 1644. The engraving is by Wenceslaus Hollar.

As ever though, the best part of these crowd engravings is the little details that come out when you zoom in.

 

 

At the back of the hall, in the foreground an splendid selection of coats and cloaks, showing the reverse side that you don’t often get in portraits. One or two caps being worn too and a dog seems to have sneaked in on the left hand side.

 

 

An annotated group here. A marks the Archbishop in his gown and a black day cap. Unusual not to see him in his bishop’s robes, the rocket with white sleeves would have stood out had he been wearing it. B is black rod, C the Lieutenant of the Tower, D the council for Laud and E the clark who reads the evidence, looking very pleased with himself in a short cloak and laced band. F is a table.

 

 

 

A small group of women here against the tapestried wall on the right hand side. G is the area reserved for members of the Commons, H is Henry Burton who had had his ears removed for criticising Laud in a pamphlet. Henry looks like he might be wearing a ruff. I marks various witnesses, one of whom was  Susannah Bastwick, smartly attired in linen kerchief and a coif. Susannah was the wife of John Bastwick who had also lost his ears in the pillory.

 

 

 

A New Play

called Canterburie His Change of Diot. Which sheweth variety of wit and mirth : privately acted neare the Palace-yard at Westminster….Anon  (well it would be wouldn’t it?) 1641

Not so much a play, more a short series of sketches which probably lasted no more than five minutes, this is a scurrilous portrait and morality tale of Archbishop Laud in four acts. There are three illustrations that go with the text.

Act 1, the Bishop of Canterbury having a variety of dainties, is not satisfied till he be fed with tippets of mens ears. Enter the Bishop of Canterbury, and with him a Doctor of Physicke, a Lawyer and a Divine; who being set down, they bring him variety of Dishes to his Table…He knocking there enter divers Bishops with muskets on their necks, bandeleeres and swords by their sides.

Here is the jolly crew around the table. Archbish second on the left, I assume the  divine next with the ruff and the lawyer seated to his left. I think the doctor is standing far left, but he also looks like a serving man in doublet and breeches. A doctor ought to be wearing a gown. The  two bishops on the right have the aforementioned muskets and bandoliers.

 

 

Act 2, he hath his nose held to the Grinde-stone. Enter the Bishop of Canterbury into a Carpenters yard by the water side, where he is going to take water, and seeing a Grindle-stone, draweth his knife, and goeth thither to whet it, and the Carpenter follows him.

This is in retaliation for the cutting off of the ears in act one it would seem. The Carpenter is in doublet and breeches with a small brimmed hat and wide linen band. The boy turning the wheel is dressed similarly, though it would seem he has the short “roundhead” hair cut of an apprentice and is also wearing a short apron.

 

 

Act 3 he is put into a bird Cage with the Confessor. Enter the Bishop of Canterbury, and the Jesuit in a great Bird Cage together and a fool standing by, and laughing at them, Ha ha, ha, he, who is the fool now.

Here they are in the cage, the fool on the right is wearing the standard cap with bells and a cloak over doublet and breeches.

 

Act 4 The Jester tells the King the Story.

Sadly no pictures!

 

 

Mercurius Civicus

Londons intelligencer, or, Truth really imparted from thence to the whole kingdome to prevent misinformation …A parliament propaganda newsletter produced roughly once a week from 1643 to 1646 which gave all the news from a London perspective, a bit like the seventeenth century Evening Standard. This is the front page from the April 4th-11th 1644 issue. The bye line at the top was:

The general Rendezvouz, the Oxford Junto frighted.

Waltham house taken by the London Brigade.

The Hamlets and the Southwarke Regiment advanced.

Several Speeches made at the Common Hall on Tuesday last

It’s not obvious however to which story in the text that the image depicts. It is particular to this edition, but doesn’t really correspond to any of the reports. It may be the Oxford Junto story, as there were several Digbys on the Royalist side, but I can’t be sure nor why they were so keen for help.

Anyway, it’s a nice image, (though not particularly detailed) of a group of men sat around a table in doublet and breeches with the ubiquitous wide-brimmed hats and those funny little triangles that look like falling bands but which I believe are the linings of their cloaks as they hang back off the shoulders. In the right hand side, there is a gentleman and a lady seated in a balcony. Although it’s a rough woodcut, you can see they are finely dressed and the lady is wearing a black hood or chaperone tied at her throat. Possibly the King and Queen? Who knows?

London’s Lamentation

Or a fit admonishment for city and countrey, wherein is described certaine causes of this affliction and visitation of the plague, yeare 1641. which the Lord hath been pleased to inflict upon us, and withall what meanes must be used to the Lord, to gaine his mercy and favor, with an excellent spirituall medicine to be used for the preservative both of body and soule.

Printed in London 1641, this little book was an exhortation to the people of London to act more responsibly in view of another of the periodical visitations of the plague in London. The city had been free of the plague for eleven years and I suspect most people had though it had gone for good. What the text reveals is the deep seated belief that any natural disaster was as a direct result of a lack of piety in the populace. The remedy for making sure the disease didn’t return is particularly telling:

…let the Patient that is in danger of any infection or any other disease take and use this spiritual medicine, first in the morning when thou arisest out of thy bed, fall down on thy knees, and give God thanks, that he hath preserved thee the night past from all dangers, and desire him of his mercy, to preserve thee the day following, bless his holy name and magnify him, for her is thy maker, and thou art his creature, thus passé away the day in the service of the Lord and at night , when thou list down to sleep, desire the Lord be thy keeper and defender.

This is the picture on the front cover. The top image shows how London still honoured the dead, even during the plague; (the one at the top dressed only in his shirt) bodies being carried to the burial grounds in coffins by workmen in short doublets and breeches and followed by mourners, the men in cloaks, the women in waistcoats and petticoat skirts. Graves were still dug by grave diggers (wearing caps). The lower pane shows a more rough and ready method of disposing the dead possibly used outside the city, with the dead being dragged to a communal pit on sleds or just by their boots.

 

 

Good people all pray, fast and pray,

That is the chief and only way,

’twill cause the Lord his wrath to stay,

Let this be done, use no delay

 

Now death doth play an envious part,

He strikes full many to the heart,

Yet from grim death ne’re seeme to start,

 ’tis God that may release our smart

A Sight of the Trans-actions of These Latter Yeares (part 3)

Two more plates from John Vicar’s book of 1646. These two sit together on page 25. The first image shows the execution of Archbishop Laud on 10th January 1645, though the text also makes reference to Alexander Carew who was beheaded in December 1644 and John Hotham and son (Captaine Hotham) who met their deaths in the same place a few days before Laud. All three were parliamentarians who had fallen out with the leadership. This shows the depth of feeling in 1645; that mere political opponents and the Archbishop of Canterbury were felt worthy of execution.

The soldiers standing around the scaffold from what we can see are wearing coats and broad-brimmed hats whilst the executioner is bareheaded and dressed in a short tabbed doublet, breeches and shoes with a neat apron to keep his clothes (relatively) clean.

The second image shows the breaking of the great seal in 1646. This was a greatly symbolic act as the King’s seal attached to any bill passed by Parliament signified his approval. The fact that it was broken in front of the assembled Lords and Commons made it plain that Charles’ presence was no longer required.

The onlooking parliamentarians are dressed in doublets and breeches. The breeches are mostly decorated with ribbon bows below the knee. Several are sporting cloaks, even though this is taking place in August, and all have boots rather than shoes.