The preface then descants on the persecutions and indignities suffered by King Charles I., and states that, “of all the indignities offered to the manes of the injured prince, nothing equals the inhumanity and profaneness of the Calves-head Club.”
It further alleges:—“That Milton and some other creatures of the commonwealth had instituted this club, in opposition to Bishop Juxon, Dr Sanderson, Dr Hammond, and other divines of the Church of England, who met privately every 30th of January, and, though it was during the time of the usurpation, compiled a private form of service for the day, not much different from what we now find in the Liturgy.”
It is stated further, that “after the Restoration, the eyes of the Government being upon the whole (Calves-head) party, they were obliged to meet with a great deal of precaution; but now, in the second year of the reign of King William, they meet almost in a public manner, and apprehend nothing.”
“A gentleman, about eight years ago, went out of mere curiosity to see their club, which was kept at no fixed house, but removed as they saw convenient. The place they met in, when he was with them, was in a blind alley about Moorfields; and the company wholly consisted of Independents and Anabaptists. The famous Jerry White, formerly chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, who, no doubt, came to sanctify with his pious exhortations the ribaldry of the day, said grace. After the table-cloth was removed, the anniversary anthem, as they impiously called it, was sung, and a calf’s head filled with wine, or other liquor, was placed before the company. Then a brimmer went about to the pious memory of those worthy patriots that had killed the tyrant, and had delivered the country from his arbitrary sway; and, last of all, a collection was made for the mercenary scribbler, who had composed the anthem, to which every man contributed according to his zeal for the cause, or the ability of his purse.”
Such are the principal statements contained in the edition of this curious and scarce pamphlet, published in 1703; but, in another edition, published two years afterwards, it is added: “That an axe was hung up in the club room; and that the bill of fare was a large dish of calves’-heads dressed in divers ways, a large pike with a small one in his mouth as an emblem of tyranny, a large cod’s head to represent the person of the king, and a boar’s head with an apple in its mouth to represent the king’s bestiality. After the repast, one of the elders of the club presented an Eikon Basilike, which, with great solemnity, was burnt upon the table whilst the anthem was being sung; and then another elder produced Milton’s ‘Defensio Populi Anglicani,’ upon which all laid their hands, and made a protestation, in form of an oath, for ever to stand by and to maintain it.”
The anthems for the years 1693 to 1697, inclusive, are then given in the pamphlet, and contain some things which it would be criminal to reprint. We subjoin the least objectionable specimens that we can give.
The anthem for 1693 consists of five verses of eight lines each, with a chorus. The following lines are taken from the third and fourth verses:—
“Triumphant laurels too must crown that head,
Whose righteous hand struck England’s tyrant dead;
The heroes too, adorn’d with blood and sweat,