1641, December.
Every day the lobbies of the Houses were thronged by people eagerly watching the fate of the documents which expressed their opinions. Every day the area of Westminster Hall echoed with the tramp of jostling crowds and the loud buzz of angry talk touching Church and Bishops. Episcopalians came face to face with Puritans and Separatists. Staid and sober citizens anxious for reform, were elbowed by rollicking country squires, who wished to see things restored to the state in which they had been in the days of Lord Strafford. Cavaliers, full of pride and state, crossed the path of patriots whom they denounced as the enemies of their country. Soldiers, with swords by their side, marched up and down amidst the rabble, who carried staves or clubs. Roistering apprentices, with idlers and vagabonds of all descriptions, putting on a semblance of religious zeal, shouted at the top of their voice favourite watchwords as they went along, and delighted in all sorts of mischief.[243]
Westminster Riots.
December the 27th, being the Monday after Christmas Day, Colonel Lunsford, just appointed Lieutenant of the Tower—much to the disquietude of the Londoners, who denounced him as a Papist, and as being on that account utterly unfit for such a trust—came into the Hall; when some of the citizens beginning to abuse him, he and his companions drew their swords. The same day, Archbishop Williams walked towards the House of Peers with the Earl of Dover, when an apprentice lad, seeing his Grace, vociferated the popular cry of "No Bishop." This so aroused the Welshman's ire, that, leaving his noble friend, he rushed toward the vulgar urchin, and laid hands on him. This unbecoming act,—for "a Bishop should be no striker,"—made the wrath of the populace boil up afresh; and hemming in the prelate so that he could not stir, they continued shouting in his ears, "No Bishop," "No Bishop:" until they proceeded to an act of violence, and tore his gown "as he passed from the stairhead into the entry that leads to the Lords' House."[244] It is also stated that he was beaten by the prentices. A blustering "reformado," named David Hide, mingled in the fray, and looking savagely on the apprentices with their cropped hair, declared that he would cut the throats of "those round-headed dogs that bawled against bishops."[245] "Round-headed,"—the words so aptly fitted to the London lads—took with the Cavalier gentlemen; they forthwith applied it to the whole Puritan party, and so David Hide's impromptu became Court slang, and rose into the dignity of a world-known appellation.
The next day, certain people in the Abbey, who said that they were tarrying there a little while for some friends, who had just brought up a petition, but who were charged with coming to commit depredations in the sacred edifice, were attacked by the retainers of Archbishop Williams—who continued Dean of Westminster—and a sort of siege and assault followed. Amidst the riot and uproar several persons were hurt, and a stone thrown from the battlements[246] fatally injured Sir Richard Wiseman, who appeared conspicuous amongst the anti-episcopal citizens.
1641, December.
Westminster Riots.
On Wednesday, the 29th, between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, when "the scum of the people[247]" had floated down to Westminster, there occurred a disturbance which, in a confused way, is apparent in the records of the period, but which becomes more luminous when examined in the light of the depositions of witnesses, still preserved amongst the State papers.[248] The tumult seems to have commenced by Whitehall Gate. Some military gentlemen were walking "within the rails," in the direction of Charing Cross. The difficulty is to make out who commenced the quarrel. One deponent says, the apprentices called the "red coats a knot of Papists," meaning, of course, the Royalist officers. Another declared, the gentlemen within the rails cried, "If they were the soldiers they would charge the mob with pikes and shoot them." Thereupon—so it was affirmed—the people replied, "You had best do it, red coats," and threw at them clots of dry dust. Then the cavalier swordsmen leaped over the rails, and, sword in hand, dashed into the midst of the mob. Other gentlemen came out of the Court gate and joined their friends; upon which the parties fell to, pell-mell. One witness says, that he saw but one sword drawn on the citizens' side, but he saw many of the citizens wounded by the gentlemen. Another affirms, that one of the gentlemen received a wound in the forehead. It is manifest that the disturbance was made the very most of by each party, so as to reflect discredit upon the opposite side: for in a letter written the next morning, the writer, after recording how apprentices were wounded, and how they lost their hats and cloaks, gravely states, "It is feared they will be at Whitehall this day to the number of ten thousand." The City was in an uproar on account of the outrage on the apprentices, and the Court gentry were full of indignation at the abuse which the apprentices had heaped on the Bishops. The High Church Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, who rode about all night to preserve peace, had the City gates shut, the watch set, and the trained-bands called out. By those of a different class in politics this was thought quite unnecessary; as they implicitly believed that the citizens would commit no act of violence if the courtiers would but keep their swords in their scabbards. The majority of the Commons, too, were jealous of interfering with those whom they hailed as friends to reform; while the King, the Court, and the Archbishop, exaggerated the disturbance, and were for coercing the people as enemies of order. The whole story, as it appears from the documents we have mentioned, indicates rudeness and insolence on the part of the populace, but not any disposition in the first instance to proceed to violence. Their opponents sought to bolster up their own cause by highly-coloured reports of the uproar; the irritated pride and hot revenge of a few royalist officers having really brought on the bloodshed, to be followed by the blackest recrimination on the Puritan side.[249] The squabble would be beneath our notice, were it not for the consequences which followed it;[250] and for its significance as illustrating the way in which religious questions became mixed up with political ones, and how both, in some cases, sunk down to the most vulgar level.
Protest of the Bishops.
1641, December.