To the Tower must Ely;
Come away, Ely.
A third obnoxious prelate was bishop Williams. Williams was a Welshman who had been high in favour with James I., but he had given offence to the government of Charles I., and been imprisoned in the Tower during the earlier part of that king’s reign. He was released by the parliament in 1640, and so far regained the favour of king Charles, that he was raised to the archbishopric of York in the year following. When the civil war began, he retired into Wales, and garrisoned Conway for the king. Williams’s warlike behaviour was the source of much mirth among the Roundheads. In 1642 was published a large caricature on the three classes to whom the parliamentarians were especially hostile—the royalist judges, the prelates, and the ruffling cavaliers; represented here, as we are told in writing in the copy among the king’s pamphlets, by judge Mallet, bishop Williams, and colonel Lunsford. These three figures are placed in as many compartments with doggrel verses under each. That of bishop Williams is copied in our cut No. 178. The bishop is armed cap-à-pie, and in the distance behind him are seen on one side his cathedral church, and on the other his war-horse. The verses beneath it contain an allusion to this prelate’s Welsh extraction in the orthography of some of the words:—
Oh, sir, I’me ready, did you never heere
How forward I have byn t’is many a yeare,
T’oppose the practice dat is now on foote,
Which plucks my brethren up both pranch and roote?
My posture and my hart toth well agree
To fight; now plud is up: come, follow mee.
