The Committee said that verify
To Popery it was bent:
For ought I know, it might be so,
For to church it never went.
What with excise, and such device,
The kingdom doth begin
To think you'll leave them ne'er a cross
Without doors nor within.
Methinks the Common-council should
Of it have taken pity,
'Cause, good old cross, it always stood
So firmly to the city.
Since crosses you so much disdain,
Faith, if I were as you,
For fear the King should rule again
I'd pull down Tiburn too.
Whitlocke says, "May 3rd, 1643, Cheapside Cross and other crosses
were voted down," &c. When this vote was put in execution does not
appear; probably not till many mouths after Tomkins and Chaloner
had suffered.
We had a very curious account of the pulling down of Cheapside
Cross lately published in one of the Numbers of the GENTLEMEN'S
MAGAZINE, 1766. - PERCY'S RELIQUES.
Ballad: The Long Parliament
By John Cleveland.
Most gracious and omnipotent,
And everlasting Parliament,
Whose power and majesty
Are greater than all kings by odds;
And to account you less than gods
Must needs be blasphemy.
Mosses and Aaron ne'er did do
More wonder than is wrought by you
For England's Israel;
But though the Red Sea we have past,
If you to Canaan bring's at last,
Is't not a miracle - ?
In six years' space you have done more
Than all the parliaments before;
You have quite done the work.
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