Wool-Church. When the reign of the line of the Stuarts is ended.
Charing Cross. Then England, rejoice, thy redemption draws nigh;
Thy oppression together with kingship shall die.
Chorus. A Commonwealth, a Commonwealth we proclaim to the nation,
For the gods have repented the King’s restoration.”
These probably are the lines which spread the popular, but mistaken, belief that Marvell was a Republican.
Andrew Marvell died in his lodgings in London on the 16th of August 1678. Colonel Grosvenor, writing to George Treby, M.P. (afterwards Chief of the Common Pleas), on the 17th of August, reports “Andrew Marvell died yesterday of apoplexy.” Parliament was not sitting at the time. What was said of the elder Andrew may also be said of the younger: he was happy in the moment of his death. The one just escaped the Civil War, the other the Popish Plot.
Marvell was thought to have been poisoned. Such a suspicion in those bad times was not far-fetched. His satires, rough but moving, had been widely read, and his fears for the Constitution, his dread of
“The grim Monster, Arbitrary Power,
The ugliest Giant ever trod the earth,”
infested many breasts, and bred terror.
“Marvell, the Island’s watchful sentinel,
Stood in the gap and bravely kept his post.”
The post was one of obvious danger, and