A ballad on the Rye House Plot, entitled The Conspiracy; or, The
Discovery of the Fanatic Plot, sings:—
Next valiant and noble Lord Howard,
That formerly dealt in lamb’s wool;
Who knowing what it is to be towered,
By impeaching may fill the jails full.
p. 100 Brumighams. Bromingham was a slang term of the day for a Whig. Roger North says that the Tories nicknamed the opposite party ’.Birmingham_ Protestants, alluding to the false groats struck at that place’. Birmingham was already noted for spurious coinage. cf. Dryden’s prologue to The Spanish Friar (1681):—
What e’er base metal come
You coin as fast as groats at Bromingam.
A panegyric on the return of the Duke and Duchess of York from Scotland says of Shaftesbury’s medal that
‘Twas coined by stealth, like groats at Birmingham.
For Birmingham = Whig we have Old Jemmy, an Excellent New Ballad:
Let Whig and Bromingham repine,
They show their teeth in vain;
The glory of the British line,
Old Jemmy’s come again.
Also in Matthew Taubman’s A Medley on the Plot, this stanza occurs:—
Confound the hypocrites, Birminghams royal,
Who think allegiance a transgression;
Since to oppose the King is counted loyal,
And to rail high at the succession.