“1640, Jan. 31. Buried Thomasing, filia William Sympson.”—Wirksworth, Derbyshire.
In other registers such forms as Thomasena, Thomesin, Thomazin, Tomasin, and Thomasin occur. In Cowley’s “Chronicle,” too, the name is found:
“Then Jone and Jane and Audria,
And then a pretty Thomasine,
And then another Katharine,
And then a long et cætera.”
V. The General Confusion.
But what a state of confusion does all this reveal! By the time of the Commonwealth, there was the choice of three methods of selection open to the English householder in this matter of names. He might copy the zealot faction, and select his names from the Scriptures or the category of Christian graces; he might rally by the old English gentleman, who at this time was generally a Cavalier, and Dick, Tom, Harry, or Dolly, his children; or he might be careless about the whole matter, and mix the two, according to his caprice or fancy. That Royalist had no bad conception of the state of society in 1648, when he turned off verses such as these:
“And Greenwich shall be for tenements free
For saints to possess Pell-Mell,
And where all the sport is at Hampton Court
Shall be for ourselves to dwell.
Chorus. ‘’Tis blessed,’ quoth Bathsheba,
And Clemence, ‘We’re all agreed.’
‘’Tis right,’ quoth Gertrude, ‘And fit,’ says sweet Jude,
And Thomasine, ‘Yea, indeed.’
“What though the king proclaims
Our meetings no more shall be;
In private we may hold forth the right way,
And be, as we should be, free.
Chorus. ‘O very well said,’ quoth Con;
‘And so will I do,’ says Franck;
And Mercy cries, ‘Aye,’ and Mat, ‘Really,’
‘And I’m o’ that mind,’ quoth Thank.”
As we shall show in our next chapter, “Thank” was no imaginary name, coined to meet the exigencies of rhyme. Thanks, however, to the good sense of the nation, an effort was made in behalf of such old favourites as John, William, Richard, Robert, and Thomas. So early as 1643, Thomas Adams, Puritan as he was, had delivered himself in a London pulpit to the effect that “he knew ‘Williams’ and ‘Richards’ who, though they bore names not found in sacred story, but familiar to the country, were as gracious saints” as any who bore names found in it (“Meditations upon the Creed”). The Cavalier, we know, had deliberately stuck by the old names. A political skit, already referred to, after running through a list of all the new-fangled names introduced by the fanatics, concludes:
“They’re just like the Gadaren’s swine,
Which the devils did drive and bewitch:
An herd set on evill
Will run to the de-vill
And his dam when their tailes do itch.
‘Then let ’em run on!’
Says Ned, Tom, and John.
‘Ay, let ’um be hanged!’ quoth Mun:
‘They’re mine,’ quoth old Nick,
‘And take ’um,’ says Dick,
‘And welcome!’ quoth worshipful Dun.
‘And God blesse King Charles!’ quoth George,
‘And save him,’ says Simon and Sill;
‘Aye, aye,’ quoth old Cole and each loyall soul,
‘And Amen, and Amen!’ cries Will.”
Another ballad, lively and free as the other, published in 1648, and styled “The Anarchie, or the Blest Reformation,” after railing at the confusion of things in general, and names in particular, concludes with the customary jolly old English flourish:
“‘A health to King Charles!’ says Tom;
‘Up with it,’ says Ralph like a man;
‘God bless him,’ says Moll, ‘And raise him,’ says Doll,
‘And send him his owne,’ says Nan.”