Frequently imitated before and after the Restoration, Martin Parker's ballad was by far the best known of the popular cavalier songs of the civil war and commonwealth period, keeping alive in a communal form the wish that the king would soon return.²⁰ According to Ebsworth, it was first printed between 1643 and 1646 in a five-stanza version entitled Upon Defacing of Whitehall, to the tune of "Marry me, marry me, quoth the Country Lass."²¹ But in several reprintings and subsequent versions, the tune -- and the stanzaic patterning that accompanies it -- soon came to be known and recognized as "When the King enjoys his own again." Several ballads printed during 1660 imitate other features of Parker's original, but making versions of it was not an activity confined to print since the familiarity of the tune and refrain would surely have provoked any number of ad hoc performances and versions among royalists.²² At least one vanquished cavalier wrote a version into his commonplace book.²³

   Other notable ballads to this tune include the "trunk" ballad The Glory of These Nations, and The Last News from France which purports to offer Jane Lane's account of the king's escape.²⁴ The tune remained popular once the king was back. One blackletter ballad on the coronation signed "By me O. G.," Englands Joyfull Holiday, or, St Georges-Day, holy[. . .] Honoured being the joyfull Solemnity, so long lookt for, of the Coronation of King CHARLS the second, who was most highly attended by all his Dukes, Earls, and Barons from the Tower, through the City to Westminster, where he was Crowned on St. Georges Day, being 23. of April: To the Tune, The King enjoys his own again, is printed on the verso of another ballad; a ms note reads "This page and fol 28b were covered with thick paper till 1881."²⁵

   

[20] For Martin Parker, see DNB and Rollins, Cavalier and Puritan.

[21] Ebsworth, RB, 7:633-34. I have not been able to find the original of this ballad, also mentioned by the DNB entry on Parker, so have followed Ebsworth's text in the subsequent notes and comments when referring to this work.

[22] See Lois Potter, Secret Writing, pp. 33-5, on the singing of subversive songs by defeated cavaliers.

[23] Now in the Edinburgh National Library at shelfmark ADV l9.3.4(29).

[24] I have only seen the copy at GU Euing 181. This undated ballad provides such an inaccurate account of the events that it was probably issued shortly after the events it describes.

[25] The colophon reads: London, Printed for Richard Burton at the Horse-shoe in Smithfield; O Wood 401(27/28b).

   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.