Undone, undone the lawyers are,
They wander about the towne,
Nor can find the way to Westminster,
Now Charing-cross is downe:
At the end of the Strand, they make a stand, 5
Swearing they are at a loss,
And chaffing say, that's not the way,
They must go by Charing-cross.
The parliament to vote it down
Conceived it very fitting, 10
For fear it should fall, and kill them all,
In the house, as they were sitting.
They were told god-wot, it had a plot,
Which made them so hard-hearted,
To give command, it should not stand, 15
But be taken down and carted.
Men talk of plots, this might have been worse
For any thing I know,
Than that Tomkins, and Chaloner,
Were hang'd for long agoe. 20
Our parliament did that prevent,
And wisely them defended,
For plots they will discover still,
Before they were intended.
But neither man, woman, nor child, 25
Will say, I'm confident,
They ever heard it speak one word
Against the parliament.
An informer swore, it letters bore,
Or else it had been freed; 30
I'll take, in troth, my Bible oath,
It could neither write, nor read.
The committee said, that verily
To popery it was bent;
For ought I know, it might be so, 35
For to church it never went.
What with excise, and such device,
The kingdom doth begin
To think you'll leave them ne'er a cross,
Without doors nor within. 40
Methinks the common-council shou'd
Of it have taken pity,
'Cause, good old cross, it always stood
So firmly to the city.
Since crosses you so much disdain, 45
Faith, if I were as you,
For fear the king should rule again,
I'd pull down Tiburn too.
XII.
LOYALTY CONFINED.
This excellent old song is preserved in David Lloyd's Memoires of those that suffered in the cause of Charles I. Lond. 1668, fol. p. 96. He speaks of it as the composition of a worthy personage, who suffered deeply in those times, and was still living with no other reward than the conscience of having suffered. The author's name he has not mentioned, but, if tradition may be credited, this song was written by Sir Roger L'Estrange.—Some mistakes in Lloyd's copy are corrected by two others, one in MS., the other in the Westminster Drollery, or a choice Collection of Songs and Poems, 1671, 12mo.