“The house was double balconied in front, as may be yet seen, for the clubsters to issue forth, in fresco, with hats and no perruques, pipes in their mouths, merry faces and diluted throat for vocal encouragement of the canaglia below, at bonfires, on unusual and usual occasions.”
Here the Pope-burning manifestations were got up, the Earl of Shaftesbury being president. In opposition to this Green Ribbon Club, the Tories wore in their hat a scarlet ribbon, with the words, Rex et Haeredes. Ned Ward, with his usual humour, describes a breakfast given in 1706 by the master of this house to his customers, consisting of an ox of 415 lb., roasted whole, and at the same time embraces the opportunity of praising the landlord as “the honestest vintner in London, at whose house the best wine in England is to be drunk.” This was probably Ned’s way of settling an old score.
Another King’s Head is mentioned by Pepys, 26th March 16634:—
“Thence walked through the ducking-pond fields, but they are so altered since my father used to carry us to Islington, to the old man’s at the Kings-head, to eat cakes and ale (his name was Pitts,) that I did not know which was the ducking-pond, nor where I was.”
It was a very different “ducking” in which the landlady of the Queen’s Head ale-house was concerned, as shown by the following newspaper paragraph:—
“Last week, a woman that keeps the Queen’s Head ale-house at Kingston, in Surrey, was ordered by the Court to be ducked for scolding, and was[308] accordingly placed in the chair and ducked in the river Thames, under Kingston Bridge, in the presence of 2000 or 3000 people.”—London Evening Post, Ap. 27, 1745.
Full particulars of such an operation are given by Misson:—
“They fasten an arm-chair to the end of two strong beams, twelve or fifteen feet long, and parallel to each other. The chair hangs upon a sort of axle, on which it plays freely, so as to remain in the horizontal position. The scold being well fastened in her chair, the two beams are then placed as near to the centre as possible, across a post on the water side, and being lifted up behind, the chair of course drops into the cold element. The ducking is repeated according to the degree of shrewdness possessed by the patient, and generally has the effect of cooling her immoderate heat, at least for a time.”
At the King’s Head, Strutton, near Ipswich, about ten years ago, there was the following inscription:—
“Good people, stop, and pray walk in,
Here’s foreign brandy, rum, and gin,
And, what is more, good purl and ale,
Are both sold here by old Nat Dale.”