The Indian King, which we meet with so frequently, is an extremely vague personage, which various Indian potentates might take for themselves as the cap fitted. It was generally set up when some king from the far East visited the metropolis, and for a short time created a sensation. Thus, in 1710, there were four Indian kings from “states between New England, New York and Canada,” who had audiences with Queen Anne, and seems to have been a good deal talked about. (See Spectator, No. 50.)
Again, in 1762, London was honoured with the visit of a Cherokee king, and thus many before and after him have created their nine days’ wonder.
Visits of European monarchs were also commemorated by complimentary signs. One of the oldest was the King of Denmark, and few kings better than he deserved the exalted place at the alehouse door; yet, such is the ingratitude of the world, that he seems now completely forgotten. The sign originated in the reign of James I., who married a daughter of Christian IV., King of Denmark. In July 1606, the royal father-in-law came over on a visit, when the two kings began “bousing” and carousing right royally, the court, of course, duly following the example. “I came here a day or two before the Danish king came,” says Sir John Harrington, “and from that day he did come till this hour, I have been well-nigh overwhelmed with carousal and sport of all kinds. I think the Dane has strangely wrought on our English nobles; for those whom I could never get to taste good liquor, now follow the fashion and wallow in beastly delights. The ladies abandon their society, and are seen to roll about in intoxication,” &c.[60] So late as thirty years ago, not less than three of these signs were left, the most notorious being in the Old Bailey. It used to be open all night for the sale of creature comforts to the drunkard, the thief, the nightwalker, and profligates of every description. Slang was the language of the place, and doubtless the refreshments were mostly paid for with stolen money. On execution nights, the landlord used to reap a golden harvest; then there were such scenes of drunkenness as must have done the old king on the signboard good to survey, and made him wish to be inside. The visit of another crowned votary of Bacchus is commemorated by the sign of the Czar’s Head, Great Tower Street:—
“Peter the Great and his companions, having finished their day’s work, used to resort to a public-house in Great Tower Street, close to Tower Hill, to smoke their pipes and drink beer and brandy. The landlord had the Czar of Muscovy’s Head painted, and put it up for his sign, which continued till the year 1808, when a person of the name of Waxel took a fancy to the old sign, and offered the then occupier of the house to paint him a new one for it. A copy was accordingly made of the original, which maintains its station to the present day as the Czar of Muscovy.”[61]
The sign is now removed, but the public-house still bears the same name. Prince Eugene also was at one time a popular tavern portrait in England, more particularly after his visit to this country in January 1712. It is named as one of the signs in Norwich in 1750,[62] but is now, we believe, completely extinct in England; in Paris there is still one surviving on the Boulevard St Martin.
The Grave Maurice is of very old standing in London, being named by Taylor the water-poet as an inn at Knightsbridge in 1636; at present there are two left, one in Whitechapel Road, the other in St Leonard’s Road. Who this Grave Maurice was is not quite clear. Grave (Ger. Graf, Dutch Graaf, i.e. Count,) Maurice of Nassau, afterwards Maurice, Prince of Orange, was, on account of his successful opposition to the Spanish domination in the Netherlands, very popular in this country. In Baker’s Chronicles, anno 1612, we read that:—“Upon St Thomas-day, the Paltzgrave and Grave Maurice were elected Knights of the Garter; and the 27th of December, the Paltzgrave was betrothed to the Lady Elizabeth. On Sunday the 7th of February, the Paltzgrave in person was installed a Knight of the Garter at Windsor, and at the same time was Grave Maurice installed by his deputy, Count Lodewick of Nassau.” The Garter conferred on the Grave Maurice was that which had been previously worn by Henri Quatre, King of France and Navarre. The Palzgrave was Grave Maurice’s nephew, the Palatine Count Frederick, by whose marriage with King James’s daughter were born the brothers Rupert and Maurice, (the latter in 1620,) who distinguished themselves in England during the civil wars. It was this Prince Maurice’s great uncle, the Grave Maurice of Nassau, whose counterfeit presentment still gives a name to two of our taverns. Another Maurice, about this period, was very popular in England—viz., Maurice Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, who “carried away the palm of excellency in whatever is to be wished in a brave prince.”[63] Peacham, enumerating this prince’s qualifications, says that he was a good musician, spoke ten or twelve languages, was a universal scholar, could dispute, “even in boots and spurs,” for an hour with the best professors on any subject, and was the best bone-setter in the country. He gained, too, much of his popularity by his adherence to the Protestant religion during the Thirty Years’ War.
The Paltsgrave became a popular sign at the marriage of Frederick Casimir V., Elector and Count Palatine of the Rhine, King of Bohemia, with Elizabeth, daughter of James I. Trades tokens are extant of a famous tavern, the sign of the Palsgrave’s Head, without Temple Bar,[64] which gave its name to Paltsgrave Court, whilst the Palatine Head was an inn near the French ’Change, Soho. Prince Rupert, the Palsgrave’s son, who behaved so gallantly in many of the fights during the Civil War, was no doubt a favourite sign after the Restoration. We have an instance of one on the trades token of Jacob Robins, in the Strand.
One of the last foreign princes to whom the signboard honour was accorded, was the King of Prussia. This still occurs in many places. After the battle of Rosbach, Frederick the Great, our ally, became the popular hero in England. Ballads were made, in which he was called “Frederick of Prussia, or the Hero.” “Portraits of the hero of Rosbach, with his cocked hat and long pigtail, were in every house. An attentive observer will at this day find in the parlours of old-fashioned inns, and in the portfolios of printsellers, twenty portraits of Frederick for one of George II. The sign-painters were everywhere employed in touching up Admiral Vernon into the King of Prussia.[65]”