You common people of the skies;
What are you when the moon shall rise?
The impetuous charges of Rupert’s cavalry won the day at Edgehill and all but won it at Marston Moor. But they were an undisciplined troop and much given to plunder—a German word, by the way, which Prince Rupert introduced into England. Perhaps you have seen the once popular engraving entitled “The Cavalier’s Pets.” A noble staghound is guarding a pair of riding boots, a pair of gauntlets, a pair of cavalry pistols and a wide hat with sweeping plume. The careless Cavalier songs have the air of being composed on horseback and written down on the saddle leather: riding ballads in a very different sense from the old riding ballads of the Scottish Border. Robert Browning has reproduced very exactly the characteristics of the species in his “Cavalier Tunes.” In “Give a Rouse” he presents the Cavalier drinking; in “Boot and Saddle” the Cavalier riding, and in all of them the Cavalier swearing, laughing, and cheering for the King.
Kentish Sir Byng stood for his King,
Bidding the crop-headed Parliament swing;
And, pressing a troop unable to stoop
And see the rogues flourish and honest folk droop,
Marched them along, fifty-score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song.
God for King Charles! Pym and such carles