But the
rising, it seems, should have been on the true protestant side; "for
he has tried," says ingenious Mr Hunt, "what he could do, towards
making the charter forfeitable, by some extravagancy and disorder of
the people." A wise man I had been, doubtless, for my pains, to raise
the rabble to a tumult, where I had been certainly one of the first
men whom they had limbed, or dragged to the next convenient sign-post.
But on second thought, he says, this ought not to move the citizens.
He is much in the right; for the rabble scene was written on purpose
to keep his party of them in the bounds of duty. It is the business of
factious men to stir up the populace: Sir Edmond on horseback,
attended by a swinging pope in effigy, and forty thousand true
protestants for his guard to execution, are a show more proper for
that design, than a thousand stage-plays[22].
Well, he has fortified his opinion with a reason, however, why the
people should not be moved; "because I have so maliciously and
mischievously represented the king, and the king's son; nay, and his
favourite," saith he, "the duke too; to whom I give the worst strokes
of my unlucky fancy."
This need not be answered; for it is already manifest that neither the
king, nor the king's son, are represented; neither that son he means,
nor any of the rest, God bless them all. What strokes of my unlucky
fancy I have given to his royal highness, will be seen; and it will be
seen also, who strikes him worst and most unluckily.
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