purported to come from the Prince of Wales in exile, calling for some
gallant to murder Cromwell. This communication, most likely a forgery, was intercepted by Parliament’s intelligence chief,
John Thurloe. 17
In their efforts to render him ever more unattractive, royalist satirists accorded Cromwell the raffish trade of brewer and
dubbed him Nol – a diminutive of Oliver. They revelled in the fact that Cromwell’s great-grandfather had been a brewer who
ran a pub in Putney. Following Pride’s Purge, a royalist news sheet lampooned the Rump Parliament as ‘Nol’s Brew-house’, satirising
it as a group of brewers under Cromwell’s leadership: ‘The devil’s in the beer-brewers (I think).’ Among the central characters
only Colonel Pride had been a brewer, but the beery imagery allowed Cromwell’s enemies to savage his abilities, his probity
and his social qualifications for leadership, all at once.
People with a ready wit were much in demand on both sides during and after the wars. Writers even turned to verse and drama.
In 1647,
Craftie Cromwell
appeared, asking sarcastically if posterity would forget ‘Nol and his levelling crew’:
Shall not his nose dominicall
In verse be celebrated;
Shall famous Harry Marten fall *
And not be nominated?
Mercurius Melancholicus
, by John Taylor, known as the Water Poet, concluded that the parliamentarians would surely not be forgotten but remembered
for their treachery:
And if my muse give aid
This shall be their memorial
The rogues their king betrayd. 18
All this knockabout fun stopped with the death of the king. Days later, followers of the Prince of Wales proclaimed him King
Charles II. Within weeks, Charles issued a bloodthirsty battle-cry against those who had sat in judgment of his father: ‘We
are firmly resolved, by the assistance of almighty God, to be severe avengers of the innocent blood of our dear father … to
chase, pursue, kill and destroy as traitors and rebels, and chiefly those bloody traitors who had any hand in our dear father’s
murder.’ 19
The difference in tone from
Eikon Basilike
could not have been greater. As Jason Peacey has said of Charles’s pronouncement, ‘Such language of revenge … seems directly
responsible for the reign of terror instigated by exiled royalists upon representatives of the Rump posted to Europe during
1649–50.’ 20 In truth, for the bloodshed that followed, there were two agents: one inanimate in the form of
Eikon Basilike
, and the other the extremely animated form of Charles II, who would prove true to his word many years later. In the meantime,
his bloody rallying call and his father’s posthumous influence together provided a mixture as inflammable as air and petrol.
In the weeks and months following the king’s execution, English communities in northern European cities became hot with outrage
and revenge fever. In Hamburg, feeling ran so high that even those who had seen Charles as a despot were deeply affected.
A parliamentary spy reported: ‘The king’s death is strangely taken here by all sorts of people; we can scarce walk in the
streets. Tis scarce credible how bitterly the vulgar and better sorts of people do resent it, though few of them hold him
less than a tyrant.’ 21
The man who sent this report, Henry Parker, was secretary to the English Merchant Adventurers in Hamburg. He had been a successful
propagandist for the parliamentary side during the Civil Wars and was one of the editors of
The King’s Cabinet Revealed
, the selection of Charles’s letters sensationally published after they were captured at the Battle of Naseby.
Parker had arrived in Hamburg at about the same time as a significant royalist agent. Sir John Cochrane was Parker’s complete
opposite in nature and deed. Whereas the latter was an urbane lawyer with a noted writing style, Cochrane was a Scottish professional
soldier whose persuasive technique was that of the
gallant to murder Cromwell. This communication, most likely a forgery, was intercepted by Parliament’s intelligence chief,
John Thurloe. 17
In their efforts to render him ever more unattractive, royalist satirists accorded Cromwell the raffish trade of brewer and
dubbed him Nol – a diminutive of Oliver. They revelled in the fact that Cromwell’s great-grandfather had been a brewer who
ran a pub in Putney. Following Pride’s Purge, a royalist news sheet lampooned the Rump Parliament as ‘Nol’s Brew-house’, satirising
it as a group of brewers under Cromwell’s leadership: ‘The devil’s in the beer-brewers (I think).’ Among the central characters
only Colonel Pride had been a brewer, but the beery imagery allowed Cromwell’s enemies to savage his abilities, his probity
and his social qualifications for leadership, all at once.
People with a ready wit were much in demand on both sides during and after the wars. Writers even turned to verse and drama.
In 1647,
Craftie Cromwell
appeared, asking sarcastically if posterity would forget ‘Nol and his levelling crew’:
Shall not his nose dominicall
In verse be celebrated;
Shall famous Harry Marten fall *
And not be nominated?
Mercurius Melancholicus
, by John Taylor, known as the Water Poet, concluded that the parliamentarians would surely not be forgotten but remembered
for their treachery:
And if my muse give aid
This shall be their memorial
The rogues their king betrayd. 18
All this knockabout fun stopped with the death of the king. Days later, followers of the Prince of Wales proclaimed him King
Charles II. Within weeks, Charles issued a bloodthirsty battle-cry against those who had sat in judgment of his father: ‘We
are firmly resolved, by the assistance of almighty God, to be severe avengers of the innocent blood of our dear father … to
chase, pursue, kill and destroy as traitors and rebels, and chiefly those bloody traitors who had any hand in our dear father’s
murder.’ 19
The difference in tone from
Eikon Basilike
could not have been greater. As Jason Peacey has said of Charles’s pronouncement, ‘Such language of revenge … seems directly
responsible for the reign of terror instigated by exiled royalists upon representatives of the Rump posted to Europe during
1649–50.’ 20 In truth, for the bloodshed that followed, there were two agents: one inanimate in the form of
Eikon Basilike
, and the other the extremely animated form of Charles II, who would prove true to his word many years later. In the meantime,
his bloody rallying call and his father’s posthumous influence together provided a mixture as inflammable as air and petrol.
In the weeks and months following the king’s execution, English communities in northern European cities became hot with outrage
and revenge fever. In Hamburg, feeling ran so high that even those who had seen Charles as a despot were deeply affected.
A parliamentary spy reported: ‘The king’s death is strangely taken here by all sorts of people; we can scarce walk in the
streets. Tis scarce credible how bitterly the vulgar and better sorts of people do resent it, though few of them hold him
less than a tyrant.’ 21
The man who sent this report, Henry Parker, was secretary to the English Merchant Adventurers in Hamburg. He had been a successful
propagandist for the parliamentary side during the Civil Wars and was one of the editors of
The King’s Cabinet Revealed
, the selection of Charles’s letters sensationally published after they were captured at the Battle of Naseby.
Parker had arrived in Hamburg at about the same time as a significant royalist agent. Sir John Cochrane was Parker’s complete
opposite in nature and deed. Whereas the latter was an urbane lawyer with a noted writing style, Cochrane was a Scottish professional
soldier whose persuasive technique was that of the
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