Martin Parker

   [undated]

In its often imitated opening line, Parker's ballad refers to one of the more celebrated fortune tellers of the time, John Booker, engaging the theme of prophecy in order to describe a wish. Booker (23 March 1603-8 April 1667), was born in Manchester but apprenticed to a London haberdasher; disliking the business, he taught writing at Hadley School in Middlesex. According to Mr. William Lilly's History of His Life and Times, From the Year 1602, to 1681 (1715), "he wrote singularly well both Secretary and Roman" and served as clerk to various London Aldermen "and by that Means became not only well known, but as well respected of the most eminent Citizens of London, even to his dying day" (p. 28). His first almanack was Telescopium Uranium (1631). After successfully predicting the deaths of Gustavus Adolphus and the Elector Palatine, Booker gained the position of licenser of mathematical books. Elias Ashmole bought his papers for £140 -- "far more Money than they were worth" according to Lilly (p. 29) -- and erected a gravestone for him (Ebsworth, RB, 7:634). "To say no more of him," wrote Lilly, "he lived an honest Man, his Fame now questioned at his Death" (p. 29).²⁷

   The original stanzas map a program of loyal resignation suitable for the second half of the 1640s when royalist affairs were going poorly. The stanzas added in 1660 touch on several topics that seem to have been commonly in the thoughts of hopeful royalists that year: reform of the universities, settlement of the church, agreement between parliament and the crown, and a return of many things -- prosperous trading, justice, law, security, peace, and marital harmony.

   There are two printed versions in the British Library, one in roman type, the other in blackletter, that presumably belong to the year of the king's return, though both are undated. The text given here follows the version in roman type (L1) rather than that in blackletter (L2), since it contains more substantive variants from earlier versions, suggesting a greater degree of revision specifically for the occasion. The major difference between the two printings is that the roman version maintains focus on domestic issues, trusting that treacherous "Rogues," rather than "Frenchees," will flee with the king's return (line 77). The xenophobic note, however, is sharpened in another version of this ballad -- England's Great Prognosticator -- which is given next.