"A yeere agone 'tad been a hanging matter
T'ave writ (nay, spoke) a word 'gainst little Will;
But now the times are chang'd, men scorne to flatter;
So much the worse for Canterbury still,
For if that truth come once to rule the roast,
No mar'le to see him tide up to a post.
"By wicked counsels faine he would have set
The Scots and us together by the eares;
A Patriark's place the Levite long'd to get,
To sit bith' Pope in one of Peter's chaires.
And having drunke so deepe of Babels cup,
Was it not time, d'ee think, to chaine him up?"
In these stanzas are roughly given the leading counts of the popular indictment against Archbishop Laud. Other prints present him to us in the Tower with a halter round his neck; and, again, we see him in a bird-cage, with the queen's Catholic confessor, the two being popularly regarded as birds of a feather. In another, a stout carpenter is holding Laud's nose to a grindstone, while the carpenter's boy turns the handle, and the archbishop cries for mercy:
"Such turning will soon deform my face;
Oh! I bleed, I bleed! and am extremely sore."
But the carpenter reminds him that the various ears that he had caused to be cut off were quite as precious to their owners as his nose is to him. A Jesuit enters with a vessel of holy water with which to wash the extremely sore nose. One broadsheet represents Laud in consultation with his physician, who administers an emetic that causes him to throw off his stomach several heavy articles which had been troubling him for years. First, the "Tobacco Patent" comes up with a terrible wrench. As each article appears, the doctor and his patient converse upon it:
"Doctor. What's this? A book? Whosoever hath bin at church may exercise lawful recreations on Sunday. What's the meaning of this?
"Canterbury. 'Tis the booke for Pastimes on the Sunday, which I caused to be made. But hold! here comes something. What is it?
"Doctor. 'Tis another book. The title is, 'Sunday no Sabbath.' Did you cause this to be made also?
"Canterbury. No; Doctor Pocklington made it; but I licensed it.
"Doctor. But what's this? A paper 'tis; if I be not mistaken, a Star-Chamber order made against Mr. Prinne, Mr. Burton, and Dr. Bastwicke. Had you any hand in this?