Woodstock

for gospel

or red-coa

it t’ hold fo

e one and th

’s Hud

shall be content to say that it is now a handsome edifice, most part of which was rebuilt forty or fifty years since, although it still contains some arches of the old chantry, founded, it is said, by King John. It is to this more ancient part of the building that my story refers. On a morning in the end of September, or beginning of October, in the year 1652, being a day appointed for a solemn thanksgiving for the decisive victory at Worcester, a respectable audience was assembled in the old chantry, or chapel of King John. The condition of the church and character of the audience both bore witness t

destined niche

counsel or

-hewn timber, as well as a quantity of scattered hay and trampled straw, seemed to intimate that

ch;” for, bating an occasional temptation to warble along with the accord, he behaved himself as decorously as any of the congregation, and returned as much edified, perhaps, as most of them. The damsels of Woodstock looked as vainly for the laced cloaks, jingling spurs, slashed boots, and tall plumes, of the young cavaliers of this and other high-born houses, moving through the streets and the church-yard with the careless ease, which indicates perhaps rather an overweening degree of self-confidence, yet shows graceful when mingled with good-humour and courtesy. The good old dames, too, in their white hoods and black velvet gowns — their daughters, “the cynosure of neighbouring eyes,”— where were they all now, who, when they entered the church,

steel or leather had raised them to a comfortable livelihood. These dignitaries wore long black cloaks, plaited close at the neck, and, like peaceful citizens, carried their Bibles and memorandum-books at their girdles, instead of knife or sword. [This custom among the Puritans is mentioned often in old plays, and among others in the Widow of Watling Street.] This respectable, but least numerous part of the audience, were such decent persons as had adopted the Presbyterian form of faith, renouncing the liturgy and hierarchy of the Church of England,

The presumption of these learned Thebans being in exact proportion to their ignorance, the last was total and the first boundless. Their behaviour in the church was any thing but reverential or edifying. Most of them affected a cynical contempt for all that was only held sacred by human sanction —

arson, as mastiffs sit in dumb expectation of the bull that is to be brought to the stake. The younger mixed, some of them, a bolder license of manners with their

ir peculiar doctrines on the most difficult points of religion, and united the extravagances of enthusiasm with the most determined courage and resolution in the field. The burghers of Woodstock looked on these military saints with no small degree of awe; for though

xion, and the vivacity of his eye indicated some irascibility of temperament. His dress was brown, not black, and over his other vestments he wore, in honour of Calvin, a Geneva cloak of a blue colour, which fell backwards from his shoulders as he posted on to the pulpit. His grizzled hair was cut as short as shears could perform the feat, and covered with a black silk scull-cap, which stuck

h a quick eye, and a countenance, which, though plain, had yet an expression that fixed the attention. His dress, though not strictly military, partook of that character. He wore larg

und upon the party who had seized him, and demanded,

, “is it thy purpose to hold

s my bounden duty. Woe to me if I preach not the g

thou desist, or if thou wilt do by my advice, remain and fructify with those poor gosl

said the priest, waxing wroth,

didst in the Bishop’s rochets — they were black and white, thou art blue and brown. Sleeping dogs every one of you, lyi

ed on in silence, the better class scandalized, and the lower orders, some laughing, and others backing the soldie

rd in vain? — Citizens, will you not help your pastor? — Worthy Alderman, will you see me strangled on th

d voice, Mr. Holdenough dexterously slipped the string which tied it round his neck, so that the garment suddenly gave way; the soldier fell backwards down the steps, and the liberated divine skipped into the pulpit, and began to give forth a psalm of tri

his legs and capable of resistance. But no sooner did he behold the champion of independency sprawling on his back, with the divine’s Geneva cloak fluttering in his hands, than the magistrate rushed forward, exclaiming that such

, who was in the act of rising; then making at once the movement of resting arms according to the manual as then practised, their musket-buts rang on the church pavement, within an inch of the gouty toes of Master Mayor. The energetic magistrate, whose eff

h things for the land as have never before been heard of, to brawl and riot in the church, or to aid, abet,

ee not why men of gifts should not be heard within these citadels of superstition, as well as the voice of the men of crape of old, and the men of cloak now. Wheref

u, being, as you see, peaceful and quiet men — But let me first speak with this worthy minister,

ng Holdenough and the clerk, and prayed both to ret

en that dare not testify against this open profanation of the Church, and daring

r, “put us not to mutiny and cry Clubs. I tell

glover but a tailor working on kidskin? — I forsake you, in scorn of your faint hearts and feeble hands, and will seek me elsew

though with a different reason for his speed. The citizens saw his retreat with sorrow, and not without a compunctious feeling, as if conscious

is text from the forty-fifth psalm — “Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty: and in thy majesty ride prosperously.”— Upon this theme,

rayer, against the contumelious Slanders

act indulges in the allegorical style,

e, as some term them, cock-crowed pottage, yet they are as sweet, as good, as dainty, and as fresh, as they were at first. The sun hath not made them sour with its heat, neither hath the cold water taken away their vigour and strength. Compare them with the Scriptures, and see if they be not as well seasoned and crumbed. If you find any thing in them that is either too salt, too fresh, or too bitter, that herb shall be taken out and better put in, if it can be got, or none. And as in kitchen pottage there are many good herbs, so there is likewise in this church pottage, as ye call it. For first, there is in kitchen pottage good water to make them so; on the contrary, in the other pottage there is the water of life. 2. There is salt, to season them; so in the other is a prayer of grace to season their hearts. 3. There is oatmeal to nourish the body, in the other is the

forge it, I trow? — was the steel quenched with water from Rosamond’s well, or the blade blessed by the old cuckoldy priest of Godstow? You would have us think, I warrant me, that you wrought it and welded it, grinded and polished it, and all the while it never came on a Woodstock stithy! You were all too busy making whittles for the lazy crape-men of Oxford, bouncing priests, whose eyes were so closed up with fat, that they could not see Destruction till she had them by the throat. But I can tell you where the sword was forged, and tempered, and welded, and grinded, and polished. When yo

s, “what saith the text? — Ride on prosperously — do not stop — do not call a halt — do not quit the saddle — pursue the scattered fliers — sound the trumpet — not a levant or a flourish, but a point of war — sound, boot and saddle — to horse and away — a charge! — follow after the young Man! — what part have we in him? — Slay, take, destroy, divide the

, gave him an opportunity of an instant’s repose; when the people of Woodstock hear

he young Man, the unclean son of the slaughtered tyrant — the fugitive after whom the true hearts of England are now following, that they may take and slay him? —‘Why should your rider turn his bridle our way?’ say you in your hearts; ‘we will none of him; if we may help ourselves, we will rather turn us to wallow in the mire of monarchy, with the sow that was washed but newly.’ Co

sed by the following reply, very pithily pronounced by one of the congregati

le John sort of figure, leaning on a quarterstaff, and wearing a jerkin, which, though now sorely stained and discoloured, had once been of the Lincoln green, and showed remnants of having been laced.

ho broke down the house of Baal, yet departed not from the sins of Jeroboam. Even so ye eat not fish on Friday with the blinded Papists, nor minced-pies on the 25th day of December, like the slothful Prelatists; but ye will gorge on sack-posset each night in the year with your blind Presbyterian guide, and ye will speak evil of dignities, and revile the Commonwealth; and ye will glorify yourselves in your park of Woodstock, and say, ‘Was it not walled in first of any other in England, and that by Henry, son of William called the Conqueror?’ And ye have a princely Lodge therein, and call the same a Royal Lodge; and ye have an oak which ye call the King’s Oak; and ye steal and eat the venison of the park, and ye say, ‘This is the king’s venison, we will wash it down with a cup to the king’s health — better we eat it than those round-headed commonwealth knaves.’ But l

, for selling the park of Woodstock, destroying its lodge, disparking its forest, and erasing, as far as they could be erased, all traces of its ancient fame. Many of the citizens were likely to be sufferers on this occasion, as several of them enjoyed, either by sufferance or right, various convenient privileges of pasturage, cutting firewood, and the like, in the royal chase; and all the inhabitants of the little borough were hurt to think, that the scenery of the place was to be destroyed, its edifices ruined, and its honours rent away. This is a patriotic sensation often found in such places, which ancient distinctions and long-cheri