(“A Hymn exalting the Mobile to Loyalty.”)
The members representing Buckingham town in the fourth parliament of Charles II., 1679, were Lord Latimer and Sir Richard Temple.
“Of thirteen men there were but six
Who did not merit hemp well,
The other seven play their tricks
For Latimer and Temple.”
The Buckingham ballad, “The Sale of Esau’s Birthright,” which relates to these members, is interesting from an electioneering point, as proving bribery, and as showing there were only thirteen electors of this limited constituency concerned in this particular return. Six voted, according to a list at the end of the ballad, “for their king and country,” and seven for Lord Latimer and Sir Timber Temple (the Earl of Danby, in another version), “for popery and their Town Hall” (“Sir R. T. his Timber, Chimney-money and Court,” according to another version). It seems certain that Sir Richard Temple had offered a present of timber for the Town Hall—in fact, some years later he is called “Timber Temple” (“State Poems”)—which was regarded as a bribe; it also appears that some delay had arisen in its payment.
“Our prating Knight doth owe his call
To Timber, and his Lady;
Though one goes longer with Town-Hall,
Than t’other with her baby.
“The Bailiff[18] is so mad a spark
(Though h’ lives by tanning leather),
That for a load of Temple’s bark,
He’d sacrifice his father.”
The other electors were a barber, two maltsters, a baker, and a farmer; the peppery ballad castigates the former, and concludes with a groan against the members returned:—
“Thus Buckingham hath led the way
To popery and sorrow;
Those seven Knaves who make us slaves,
Would sell their God to-morrow.”[19]
“The Wiltshire[20] Ballad,” also belonging to this so-called “group of election ballads,” professes to be—
“A new Song, composed by an old Cavalier,
Of wonders at Sarum by which doth appear,
That th’ old Devil came again lately there,
To raise a Rebellion
By way of Petition.