All this time perpetual battles and skirmishes went on between the Whigs and Tories at the different windows, and thousands of volleys of squibs were discharged.
When the pope was at last toppled into the fire a prodigious shout was raised, that spread as far as Somerset House, where the queen then was, and, as a pamphleteer of the time says, before it ceased, reached Scotland, France, and even Rome.
From these processions the word MOB (mobile vulgus) became introduced into our language.[11] In 1682, Charles II. tried to prohibit this annual festival, but it continued nevertheless till the reign of Queen Anne, or even later.[12]
At Temple Bar, where the houses seemed turned into mountains of heads, and many fireworks were let off, a man representing the English cardinal (Philip Howard, brother of the Duke of Norfolk) sang a rude part-song with other men who personated the people of England. The cardinal first began:—
“From York to London town we come
To talk of Popish ire,
To reconcile you all to Rome,
And prevent Smithfield fire.”
To which the people replied, valorously:—
“Cease, cease, thou Norfolk cardinal,
See! yonder stands Queen Bess,
Who saved our souls from Popish thrall:
Oh, Bess! Queen Bess! Queen Bess!
“Your Popish plot, and Smithfield threat,
We do not fear at all,
For, lo! beneath Queen Bess’s feet,
You fall! you fall! you fall!
“’Tis true our king’s on t’other side,
A looking t’wards Whitehall,
But could we bring him round about,
He’d counterplot you all.
“Then down with James and up with Charles,
On good Queen Bess’s side,
That all true commons, lords, and earls
May wish him a fruitful bride.
“Now God preserve great Charles our king,
And eke all honest men,
And traitors all to justice bring:
Amen! Amen! Amen!”
It was formerly the barbarous and brutal custom to place the heads and quarters of traitors upon Temple Bar as scarecrows to all persons who did not consider William of Orange, or the Elector of Hanover, the rightful possessors of the English crown.
Sir Thomas Armstrong was the first to help to deck Wren’s new arch. When Shaftesbury fled in 1683, and the Court had partly discovered his intrigues with Monmouth and the Duke of Argyle, the more desperate men of the Exclusion Party plotted to stop the king’s coach as he returned from Newmarket to London, at the Rye House, a lonely mansion near Hoddesden. The plot was discovered, and Monmouth escaped to Holland. In the meantime the informers dragged Russell and Sydney into the scheme, for which they were falsely put to death. Sir Thomas Armstrong, who had been taken at Leyden and delivered up to the English Ambassador at the Hague, claimed a trial as a surrendered outlaw, according to the 6th Edward VI. But Judge Jeffreys refused him his request, as he had not surrendered voluntarily, but had been brought by force. Armstrong still claiming the benefit of the law, the brutal judge replied:—“And the benefit of the law you shall have, by the grace of God. See that execution be done on Friday next, according to law.”
Armstrong had sinned deeply against the king. He had sold himself to the French ambassador, he had urged Monmouth on in his undutiful conduct to his father, and he had been an active agent in the Rye House Plot. Charles would listen to no voice in his favour. On the scaffold he denied any intention of assassinating the king or changing the form of government.[13]