OR,

Cavaliers and Roundheads.

A NOVEL

BY ONE OF THE

AUTHORS OF THE REJECTED ADDRESSES."

** Now universal England getteth drunk

For joy that Charles her monarch is restor’d.
And she, that sometime wore a saintly mask,
The stale grown vizor from her face doth pluck,

And weareth now a suit of morris-bells,
With which she jingling goes through all her towns and villages."

Lamb's John Woodvil.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

BOSTON:
WELLS AND LILLY-STATE STREET.

1826.

BRAMBLETYE HOUSE.

CHAPTER I.

66

Among themselves the tourney they divide.
In equal squadrons ranged on either side;
Then turn their horses' heads, and man to man,
And steed to steed oppos'd, the justs began."

DRYDEN.

On crossing the frontiers of France, Sir John and his son had an opportunity of observing the extreme misery of the peasantry, who, in addition to the gabelle, and other taxes and impositions by which they were already oppressed, were subject to such perpetual depredation from foreigners and free-booters of all the contending parties, that those who were not already ruined by contribution and pillage, found it prudent to present an appearance of the most squalid wretchedness, as their only security against further exactions. Leaving these forlorn borderers, like corn between the upper and nether mill-stones, to be ground and crushed by the collision of the two nations, they pushed forward for Paris, at which capital they duly arrived. The