THE CALVES' HEAD CLUB. 169 maintains that infinitely more was under this impartment than either the suspicions of the time seemed to have conceived, or modern ideas ever to have speculated upon. The effect produced, on the scaffold, on the witnesses of the execution, by this significant injunction, is proven by the pains which were immediately taken to find out the meaning. We have reason to conclude that Bishop Juxon was not only inquired of, concerning it, on the scaffold, after the tragedy of the king's execution had been consummated, but that he was sent for to Whitehall, to be questioned by Cromwell and the king's judges. Great things-extraordinary things-wonderful things were in Charles's mind after the excitements of his trial and the terrible results in condemnation. What should be the state of a man's mind, under such circumstances, we can only conceive. In this tumult of new sensations, and in the intense and preternatural stretch and agony of his mind, it is very possible that he might have achieved, in the state of exaltation well known to those who are conversant with the phenomena (during paroxysms) of clairvoyant 'far-seeing,' to a real, prophetic conviction of things to happen after him, and of the restoration of monarchy in England, and of the attainment-little as it seemed likely then-of his son to the throne. This was a vision in the sense that we understand it of saints. But chiefest of all in proof of these convictions regarding this interesting and hitherto unexplained matter, is the declaration that such a vision—or supernatural, prophetic judgment was really experienced by the king. We hope, in future accounts of King Charles the First, that this present little history of a doubtful but important passage will find its proper room." Colonel Tomlinson commanded the regiment of cavalry on guard at the execution. They are shown in a picture made of Whitehall at the time. In the histories Colonel Tomlinson is said to have been "converted" at the beheading of the king. Could this "conversion" consist in his belief of a miracle in the king's assurance! John Aubrey, under the date of 1696, in his Miscellanies—the edition published after his death-states, as a fact within his precise knowledge, that:-" After King Charles the First was condemned, he did tell Colonel Tomlinson that he believed the English Monarchy was now at an end.' About half an hour after, with a radiant countenance, and as if with a preternaturally assured manner, he affirmed to the Colonel, positively, that his son should reign after him. This information I had from Fabian Phillips, Esq., of the Inner Temple, who had the best authority for the truth of it. I forget whether Mr. Phillips, who was under some reserve, named to me the particular person. But I suspect that it was Colonel Tomlinson himself." This divination it was that probably "converted" Colonel Tomlinson. THE CALVES' HEAD CLUB. This was a pretended Society held "in ridicule of the memory of Charles I.," first noticed in the Secret History, supposed to be written by Ned Ward, attributing the formation of the Club to Milton and some 170 ROYALTY DEDUCED FROM A TUB-WOMAN. other friends of the Commonwealth, who were said to meet privately every 30th of January, with a private form of service for the day. After the Restoration they met very secretly; but in the reign of King William, in a public manner, at no fixed house, the Secret History states, in a blind alley near Moorfields, where an axe hung up in the club room. The bill of fare was a large dish of calves' heads, by which was represented the King and his friends; a large pike with a small one in his mouth, as an emblem of tyranny; a large cod's head representing the person of the King singly, and a boar's head with an apple in its mouth, to represent the King as bestial. After the repast the Ikon Basilike was burnt upon the table, anthems were sung, and the oath was sworn upon Milton's Defensio Populi Anglicani. The company consisted of Independents and Anabaptists; Jerry White, formerly chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, said grace, and after the removal of the table-cloth, the anniversary anthem was sung, and a calf's skull filled with wine or other liquor, and then a brimmer went about to the memory of those worthy patriots who had killed the tyrant, &c. The tract went through nine editions, but it was a literary fraud, to keep alive the calumny, there being actually no Club at all. Some thirty years after occurred a scene which seemed to give colour to the truth of the existence of the Club; some young noblemen and gentlemen met at a tavern in Suffolk-street, called themselves the Calves'-head Club, dressed up a calf's-head in a napkin, threw it upon a bonfire, dipped their napkins in red wine, and waved them out of the windows; the mob in the street had strong beer given them, but taking umbrage at some healths proposed, they broke the windows, and rushed into the house; but the guards being sent for, prevented further mischief. This outrage took place on January 30th, the fact to expiate the murder of Charles I. To sum up, the whole affair was a hoax, kept alive by the pretended Secret History. An accidental riot, following a debauch on one 30th of January, has been distributed between two successive years, owing to a misapprehension of the mode of reckoning time prevalent in the early part of the last century; and there is no more reason for believing in the existence of a Calves'-head Club, in 1734-5, than there is for believing it to exist in 1868. ROYALTY DEDUCED FROM A TUB-WOMAN. In 1768, there appeared in the newspapers the following paragraph :— "During the troubles of the reign of Charles I., a country girl came to London in search of a place; but not succeeding, she applied to be allowed to carry out beer from a brewhouse. These women were then called tub-women. The brewer, observing her to be a very good-looking girl, took her from this low situation into his house, and afterwards married her; and while she was yet a young woman, he died, and left her a large fortune. She was recommended, on giving up the brewery, to Mr. Hyde, a most able lawyer, to settle her husband's affairs; he, in process of time, married the widow, and was made Earl of Clarendon. Of this marriage, there was a daughter, who was afterwards wife tʊ James II., and mother of Mary and Anne, queens of England." This statement was answered by a letter in the London Chronicle, December 20, 1768, proving that "Lord Clarendon married Frances, the daughter of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, knight and baronet, one of the Masters of Request to King Charles I., by whom he had four sons-viz., Henry, afterwards Earl of Clarendon; Lawrence, afterwards Earl of Rochester; Edward, who died unmarried; and James, drowned on board the Gloucester frigate: also two daughters-Anne, married to the Duke of York; and Frances, married to Thomas Keightley, of Hertingfordbury, in the county of Herts, Esq." The story appears to have been a piece of political scandal. The mother of the Protector, Oliver Cromwell, is said to have conducted with great ability the affairs of her husband's brewhouse at Huntingdon. This some republican spirit appears to have thought an indignity; so, by way of retaliation, he determined on sinking the origin of the inheritors of the crown to the lowest possible grade -that of a tub-woman. The same story has been told of the wife of Sir Thomas Aylesbury, great-grandmother of the two queens; and for anything we know yet of her family, it may be quite true. CHARLES II. IN ADVERSITY AND PROSPERITY. Happy, says John Evelyn, had it been for this sovereign, if he had demeaned himself as well in his prosperity as in his adverse fortune. The recorded facts are highly honourable to him and the companions of his exile. While Cromwell, as the Queen of Bohemia said, was the Beast in the Revelations, that all kings and nations worshipped, Charles's horses, and some of them were favourites, were sold at Brussels because he could not pay for their keep, and during the two years that he resided at Cologne he never kept a coach. So straitened were the exiles for money, that even the postage of letters between Sir Richard Browne and Hyde, was no easy burthen; and there was a mutiny in the Ambassador's kitchen, because the maid might not be trusted with the government, and the buying of meat, in which she was thought too lavish. Hyde writes that he had not been master of a crown for many months; that he was cold for want of clothes and fire; and for all the meat which he had eaten for three months, he was in debt to a poor woman who was no longer able to trust. "Our necessities," he says, "would be more insupportable, if we did not see the king reduced to greater distress than you can believe or imagine." Of Charles, in prosperity, a few days before his death, Evelyn draws a fearful picture of dissipation. Writing on the day when James II. was proclaimed, he says: "I can never forget the inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming and all dissoluteness, and as it were, total forgetfulness of God, (it being Sunday evening,) which, this day se'nnight, I was witness of, the king sitting and toying with his concubines, Portsmouth, Cleaveland, and Mazarine, &c., a French boy singing love songs in that glorious gallery [at Whitehall]; whilst about twenty of the 172 WEARING OAK ON THE 29TH OF MAY. great courtiers, and other dissolute persons, were at basset round a large table-a bank of at least 2000l. in gold before them; upon which two gentlemen, who were with me, made reflexions with astonishment. Six days after, all was in the dust!" SIR RICHARD WILLIS'S PLOT AGAINST CHARLES THE SECOND. At No. 13, in chambers of the old courts of Lincoln's Inn, built in the reign of James I., lived John Thurloe, secretary to Oliver Cromwell, who must often have been here. Burch, in his Life of Thurloe, relates that one night, early in 659, Cromwell came here for the purpose of discussing secret and important business with Thurloe. They had conversed together for some time, when Cromwell suddenly perceived a clerk asleep at his desk. This happened to be Mr. Morland (afterwards Sir Samuel Morland) the famous mechanist, and not unknown as a statesman. Cromwell, it is affirmed, drew his dagger, and would have despatched him on the spot had not Thurloe, with some difficulty, prevented him. He assured him that his intended victim was certainly sound asleep, since, to his own knowledge, he had been sitting up the two previous nights. But Morland only feigned sleep, and overheard the conversation, which was a plot for throwing the young King Charles II., then resident at Bruges, and the Dukes of York and Gloucester, into the hands of the Protector; Sir Richard Willis having planned that on a stated day they should pass over to a certain port in Sussex, where they would be received on landing by a body of 500 men, to be augmented on the following morning by 2000 horse. Had they fallen into the snare, it seems that all three would have been shot immediately on their reaching the shore; but Morland disclosed the designs to the royal party, and thus frustrated the diabolical scheme. This is a good story, but, unfortunately, it rests upon very questionable evidence. WEARING OAK ON THE TWENTY-NINTH OF MAY. The origin of wearing this badge is commonly believed to be to commemorate the preservation of Charles II. in the oak, on May 29. Now, Charles fought the battle of Worcester on Wednesday, the 3rd of September 1651; he fled from the field, attended by Lords Derby and Wilmot, and others, and arrived early next morning at Whiteladies, about three quarters of a mile from Boscobel House. At this place Charles secreted himself in a wood, and in a tree (from the king's own account, a pollard oak), since termed " the royal oak;" and at night Boscobel House was his place of refuge. At Whiteladies he exchanged his habiliments for those of the faithful Penderell. Subsequently he embarked at Shoreham on the 15th of October, and landed next day at Fescamp in Normandy. On his return to England, Charles entered London on his birthday, the 29th of May, when the Royalists displayed THE SON OF CHARLES II. 173 the branch of oak, from that tree having been instrumental in the king's restoration: hence the custom of wearing oak on this day, and not from Charles being then concealed in the oak. It may be added, that the oak could scarcely have been in sufficient leaf in May to have concealed the king. Boscobel House is situated near Bridgnorth, Salop, 140 miles from the metropolis; and that part of it which rendered such essential service to the sovereign is still shown. The oak has long been removed; but another, presumed to have been a seedling from it, occupies its place, and is walled round for preservation. GENERAL MONK'S MARRIAGE. 66 The most curious portion of Monk's private history is his marriage to Ann, daughter of John Clarges, a farrier, in the Savoy, in the Strand. She was first married to Thomas Radford, farrier. She sold washballs, powder, gloves, &c., at the New Exchange, Strand, and she taught plain work to girls. In 1647, she and her husband fell out and separated; no certificate of any parish register appears recording his burial. In 1652, she was married at the Church of St. George, Southwark, to General Monk, though it is said her first husband was living at the time. In the following year she was delivered of a son, Christopher, who was suckled by Honour Mills, who sold apples, herbs, oysters, &c. Nan's mother was one of Five Women Barbers, celebrated in her time. Nan is described by Clarendon as a person "of the lowest extraction, without either wit or beauty;" and Aubrey says, she was not at all handsome nor cleanly," and that she was seamstress to Monk when he was imprisoned in the Tower. She is known to have had great control and authority over him. Upon his being raised to a dukedom, and her becoming Duchess of Albemarle, her father, the farrier (who had his forge upon the site of No. 317, on the north side of the Strand,) is said here to have raised a Maypole to commemorate his daughter's good fortune. She died a few days after the Duke, and is interred by his side, in Henry the Seventh's Chapel, Westminster Abbey. The Duke was succeeded by his son, Christopher, who married Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, grand-daughter of the Duke of Newcastle, and who died childless. The Duchess' brother, Thomas Clarges, became a physician of note, and was created a baronet in 1674, after whose son, Sir Thomas Clarges, was named Clarges-street, Piccadilly, built about 1717. LA CLOCHE, THE SON OF CHARLES II. The existence of this son has hitherto entirely escaped the knowledge of the biographers of Charles; and, indeed, the only notices of him even still attainable are derived from the papers published by Boero, the letters of his father, and the entries in the records of the noviciate of St. Andrew at Rome. Charles himself, in one of his letters to the general of the Jesuits, states that his boy was born to him "in the |