[73] Fiddlers.
[74] An allusion to the Christmas money-box, made of earthenware which required to be broken to obtain possession of the money it held.
CHAPTER X.
CHRISTMAS FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE DEATH OF GEORGE II.
(1660-1760.)
The Restoration of the Monarchy
under Charles II., sometimes styled the "Merry Monarch," was an occasion of great rejoicing, and the spirit in which the so-long-fugitive Prince, who once eluded his pursuers by hiding in an oak, was now welcomed as "Charles our King" by "the roaring, ranting" portion of the populace is set forth in the following ballad, written for the first Christmas after the Restoration, printed in London, the same year, and now copied from a collection of illustrated broadsides preserved in the Library of the British Museum:—