Volume I Part 3 (1/2)
”Dear _Spanco_,--I don't in the least doubt but long before this time the noise of the riot on the 30th of January has reached you at Oxford; and though there has been as many lies and false reports raised upon the occasion in this good city as any reasonable man could expect, yet I fancy even those may be improved or increased before they come to you. Now, that you may be able to defend your friends (as I don't in the least doubt you have an inclination to do), I'll send you the matter of fact literally and truly as it happened, upon my honour. Eight of us happened to meet together the 30th of January, it might have been the 10th of June, or any other day in the year, but the mixture of the company has convinced most reasonable people by this time that it was not a designed or premeditated affair. We met, then, as I told you before, by chance upon this day, and after dinner, having drunk very plentifully, especially some of the company, some of us going to the window unluckily saw a little nasty fire made by some boys in the street, of straw I think it was, and immediately cried out, 'D--n it, why should not we have a fire as well as anybody else?'
Up comes the drawer, 'D--n you, you rascal, get us a bonfire.' Upon which the imprudent puppy runs down, and without making any difficulty (which he might have done by a thousand excuses, and which if he had, in all probability, some of us would have come more to our senses), sends for the f.a.ggots, and in an instant behold a large fire blazing before the door. Upon which some of us, wiser, or rather soberer than the rest, bethinking themselves then, for the first time, what day it was, and fearing the consequences a bonfire on that day might have, proposed drinking loyal and popular healths to the mob (out of the window), which by this time was very great, in order to convince them we did not intend it as a ridicule upon that day. The healths that were drank out of the window were these, and these only: The King, Queen, and Royal Family, the Protestant Succession, Liberty and Property, the present Administration. Upon which the first stone was flung, and then began our siege: which, for the time it lasted, was at least as furious as that of Philipsbourg; it was more than an hour before we got any a.s.sistance; the more sober part of us, doing this, had a fine time of it, fighting to prevent fighting; in danger of being knocked on the head by the stones that came in at the windows; in danger of being run through by our mad friends, who, sword in hand, swore they would go out, though they first made their way through us.
At length the justice, attended by a strong body of guards, came and dispersed the populace. The person who first stirred up the mob is known; he first gave them money, and then harangued them in a most violent manner; I don't know if he did not fling the first stone himself. He is an Irishman and a priest, and belonging to Imberti, the Venetian Envoy. This is the whole story from which so many calves'
heads, b.l.o.o.d.y napkins, and the Lord knows what, has been made; it has been the talk of the town and the country, and small beer and bread and cheese to my friends the garretteers in Grub-street, for these few days past. I, as well as your friends, hope to see you soon in town.
After so much prose, I can't help ending with a few verses:--
”O had I lived in merry Charles's days, When dull the wise were called, and wit had praise; When deepest politics could never pa.s.s For aught, but surer tokens of an a.s.s; When not the frolicks of one drunken night Could touch your honour, make your fame less bright; Tho' mob-form'd scandal rag'd, and Papal spight.”
”MIDDLEs.e.x.”
To sum up, the whole affair was a hoax, kept alive by the pretended ”Secret History.” An accidental riot, following a debauch on one 30th of January, has been distributed between two successive years, owing to a misapprehension of the mode of reckoning time prevalent in the early part of the last century; and there is no more reason for believing in the existence of a Calves' Head Club in 1734-5 than there is for believing it exists in 1864.
THE KING'S HEAD CLUB.
Another Club of this period was the ”Club of Kings,” or ”the King Club,” all the members of which were called ”King.” Charles himself was an honorary member.
A more important Club was ”the King's Head Club,” inst.i.tuted for affording the Court and Government support, and to influence Protestant zeal: it was designed by the unscrupulous Shaftesbury: the members were a sort of Decembrists of their day; but they failed in their aim, and ultimately expired under the ridicule of being designated ”Hogs in armour.” ”The gentlemen of that worthy Society,”
says Roger North, in his _Examen_, ”held their evening sessions continually at the King's Head Tavern, over against the Inner Temple Gate. But upon the occasion of the signal of a _green ribbon_, agreed to be worn in their hats in the days of _street engagements_, like the coats-of-arms of valiant knights of old, whereby all warriors of the Society might be distinguished, and not mistake friends for enemies, they were called also the _Green Ribbon Club_. Their seat was in a sort of _Carfour_ at Chancery-lane end, a centre of business and company most proper for such anglers of fools. The house was double balconied in the front, as may be yet seen, for the clubsters to issue forth in fresco with hats and no peruques; pipes in their mouths, merry faces, and diluted throats, for vocal encouragement of the _canaglia_ below, at bonfires, on usual and unusual occasions. They admitted all strangers that were confidingly introduced; for it was a main end of their Inst.i.tution to make proselytes, especially of the raw estated youth, newly come to town. This copious Society were to the faction in and about London a sort of executive power, and, by correspondence, all over England. The resolves of the more retired councils of the ministry of the Faction were brought in here, and orally insinuated to the company, whether it were lyes, defamations, commendations, projects, etc., and so, like water diffused, spread all over the town; whereby that which was digested at the Club over night, was, like nourishment, at every a.s.sembly, male and female, the next day:--and thus the younglings tasted of political administration, and took themselves for notable counsellors.”
North regarded the Green Ribbon Club as the focus of disaffection and sedition, but his mere opinions are not to be depended on. Walpole calls him ”the voluminous squabbler in behalf of the most unjustifiable excesses of Charles the Second's Administration.”
Nevertheless, his relation of facts is very curious, and there is no reason to discredit his account of those popular ”routs,” to use his own phrase, to which he was an eyewitness.
The conversation and ordinary discourse of the Club, he informs us, ”was chiefly upon the subject of _Braveur_, in defending the cause of Liberty and Property; what every true Protestant and Englishman ought to venture to do, rather than be overpowered with Popery and Slavery.”
They were provided with silk armour for defence, ”against the time that Protestants were to be ma.s.sacred,” and, in order ”to be a.s.sailants upon fair occasion,” they had recommended to them, ”a certain pocket weapon which, for its design and efficacy, had the honour to be called a _Protestant Flail_. The handles resembled a farrier's blood-stick, and the fall was joined to the end by a strong nervous ligature, that, in its swing, fell just short of the hand, and was made of _Lignum Vitae_, or rather, as the Poets termed it, _Mortis_.” This engine was ”for street and crowd-work, and lurking perdue in a coat-pocket, might readily sally out to execution; and so, by clearing a great Hall or Piazza, or so, carry an Election by choice of Polling, called _knocking down_!” The _armour_ of the _hogs_ is further described as ”silken back, breast, and potts, that were pretended to be pistol-proof, in which any man dressed up was as safe as in a house, for it was impossible any one would go to strike him for laughing, so ridiculous was the figure, as they say, of _hogs in armour_.”
In describing the Pope-burning procession of the 17th of November, 1680, Roger North says, that ”the Rabble first changed their t.i.tle, and were called _the Mob_ in the a.s.semblies of this Club. It was their Beast of Burthen, and called first, _mobile vulgus_, but fell naturally into the contraction of one syllable, and ever since is become proper English.”
We shall not describe these Processions: the grand object was the burning of figures, prepared for the occasion, and brought by the Mob in procession, from the further end of London with ”staffiers and link-boys, sounding,” and ”coming up near to the Club-Quality in the balconies, against which was provided a huge bonfire;” ”and then, after numerous platoons and volleys of squibs discharged, these _Bamboches_ were, with redoubled noise, committed to the flames.”
These outrageous celebrations were suppressed in 1683.
STREET CLUBS.
During the first quarter of the last century, there were formed in the metropolis ”Street Clubs,” of the inhabitants of the same street; so that a man had but to stir a few houses from his own door to enjoy his Club and the society of his neighbours. There was another inducement: the streets were then so unsafe, that ”the nearer home a man's club lay, the better for his clothes and his purse. Even riders in coaches were not safe from mounted footpads, and from the danger of upsets in the huge ruts and pits which intersected the streets. The pa.s.senger who could not afford a coach had to pick his way, after dark, along the dimly-lighted, ill-paved thoroughfares, seamed by filthy open kennels, besprinkled from projecting spouts, bordered by gaping cellars, guarded by feeble old watchmen, and beset with daring street-robbers. But there were worse terrors of the night than the chances of a splas.h.i.+ng or a sprain,--risks beyond those of an interrogatory by the watch, or of a 'stand and deliver' from a footpad.” These were the lawless rake-h.e.l.ls who, banded into clubs, spread terror and dismay through the streets. Sir John Fielding, in his cautionary book, published in 1776, described the dangerous attacks of intemperate rakes in hot blood, who, occasionally and by way of bravado, scour the streets, to show their manhood, not their humanity; put the watch to flight; and now and then murdered some harmless, inoffensive person. Thus, although there are in London no ruffians and bravos, as in some parts of Spain and Italy, who will kill for hire, yet there is no resisting anywhere the wild sallies of youth, and the extravagances that flow from debauchery and wine. One of our poets has given a necessary caution, especially to strangers, in the following lines:--
”Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, And sign your will before you sup from home; Some fiery fop with new commission vain, Who sleeps on brambles 'till he kills his man; Some frolic drunkard, reeling from a feast, Provokes a broil, and stabs you in a jest.
Yet, ev'n these heroes, mischievously gay, Lords of the street, and terrors of the way; Flush'd as they are with folly, youth, and wine, Their prudent insults to the poor confine; Afar they mark the flambeau's bright approach, And shun the s.h.i.+ning train and gilded coach.”
THE MOHOCKS.
This nocturnal fraternity met in the days of Queen Anne: but it had been for many previous years the favourite amus.e.m.e.nt of dissolute young men to form themselves into Clubs and a.s.sociations for committing all sorts of excesses in the public streets, and alike attacking orderly pedestrians, and even defenceless women. These Clubs took various slang designations. At the Restoration they were ”Mums”
and ”t.i.tyre-tus.” They were succeeded by the ”Hectors” and ”Scourers,”