Titlepage: Scutum Regale, / THE / Royal Buckler; / OR, / VOX LEGIS, / A / Lecture to Traytors: / Who most wickedly murthered / CHARLES the I, / AND / Contrary to all Law and Religion banished / CHARLES THE II. / 3d MONARCH of / GREAT BRITAIN, &c. / [rule] / [design] / [rule] / Salus populi, Salus Regis. / LONDON, 1660. / [enclosed within double-rule box] [printed in black and red inks].

    Engraved frontispiece headed "Iam redit Astr'a, Redeunt Saturnia regna, / Iam nova progenies, c'lo Demittur alto." shows Charles on his throne with the Lords and Dukes of York and Gloucester; below them the Commons; below them the Bishops with common prayer book. At the bottom, a double set of images: "Traytors rewarded:" and "Sectaries reiected."

   Wing: D 2599a and B3557; mistaken double-entry.
Format and date: 8to. Advertised in the Parliamentary Intelligencer 22 (21-28 May), p. 348.

   Copies: O1 Tanner 624, has an additional cut after the t/p and before the Epistle to the Reader of Charles about to be crowned by an angel, followed by a dedication page "To His Most Sacred Majestie," COPYTEXT 9/95; O2 Linc 8to c.183; additional engraving of Charles appears between sigs A and B; L1 292.a.15, plate of shepherd missing; L2 1483.aa.26; L3 G3535 (Charles 2's copy); ms note: "This Copy belonged to the Royal Library of Charles 2d whose cypher is on the binding. It has not only a very fine impression of the Frontispiece, but it has also a 2d Plate which precedes the "Shepherd's Complaint" at the end of the book, & is very seldom found with it. This Plate has been by some called "Charles 2d" but it is so unlike that it is not easy to believe it could be meant for his portrait"; C Adams 8.66.8; WF 140413; additional engraving of Charles appears between sigs A and B; CT; P; CH; CN; MH; Y; Exeter.

    Giles Duncombe was a young lawyer who evidently hoped to improve his situation by declaring, in print, his loyalty to the Stuarts with strong conviction, dedication, and learning, at some length, and as soon as possible. Scutum Regale was advertised in the last week of May, but must have been in almost continuous preparation from much earlier in the year. Later in December, Duncombe identifies himself as the author of this book in the signature printed at the end of A Counter-Blast to the Phanaticks (which cannot have appeared before the death of Princess Mary on the 24th of that month): "Giles Duncombe of the Inner Temple Gent. / Author of Scutum Regale, the Royall / Buckler. Or, Vox Legis, a Lecture / to Traytors."

    Evidence of haste and of last minute revision, or at least of the desire to seem to be among the first in print, abounds. Most copies are gathered differently from each other. One of the British Library copies mis-prints the anagram "Gimelgus Bonde," to which a contemporary hand has added "giles Duncomb Turn'd a -- -" (L2 sig. A5) suggesting that there were some around who knew who the author really was. The Errata page mentions that Monk, who "hath now cheared us with the hopes of a Free-Parliament," soon will "bring in our exiled King" (sig. A6v), suggesting that the book was being rushed along to appear in advance of the King. The Epistle to the Reader ends with a prayer for the arrival of "Charls the 2d our Augustus, and C'sars Successor" (sig. A4v); the major prose section of the book ends "let the Cryes of thy People come unto thee O God, and restore our Gracious King Charles the second to his H'reditary Crown: Whose Youth thou has seasoned with the Afflications of King David" (p. 393, sig. [Cc5]), while the mood of the whole enterprise is that of hopeful anticipation.

    The Reader addressed by the Epistle is specifically identified as urban and supposed susceptible to arguments concerning property rights:

O purblind City, how long will you enslave your selves to ravenous woolves? who by their often changing of their feigned Governments, do but change the thief, and still your Store-houses must be the Magazine, to furnish them with plunder. You must never look to enjoy your lives, estates, or Gods blessing, with the fruition of your Wives, and Children, before your lawful King and Soveraign CHARLS the II. unjustly banished by Rebells, be restored to his Crown and Kingdom. (sig. Av).

    "The Epistle to the Reader," ends with some Latin and English verses calling for a return of the king:

Enough of hail and cruel snow,
Hath Jove now showr'd on us below,
Enough with thundering Steeples down,
Frightned the Town.
Frightned the World.

O thou God of Order, now hold thy punishing hand, cement our Differences, and unite the lines of our Discord in the true Centre. Let Charls the 2d. our Augustus, and C'sars Successor, revenge the bloody Murther of C'sar. O most worthy Augustus, our only lawfull Soveraign, be thou a stay to our falling Kingdom, Patiens vocari C'saris ultor, do thou hasten to be C'sars Revenger, and then

Serus in co/elum redeas, diuque
L'tus intersis populo Quirini,
Neve te nostris vitiis iniquum,
Otyor aura


Tollat, his magnos, potius triumphos,
Hic ames dici pater, atque Princeps,
Neusinas Medos equitare inultos,
Te duce C'sar.


Return to Heaven late we pray,
And long with us the Britains stay,
Nor let disdain of our offence,
Take thee from hence.


Love here victorious, Triumphs rather,
Love here the name of Prince, and father,
Nor let the Rebels scot-free ride,
Thou being our Guide.³⁸⁸


Which is the continual Prayer of

Your Graces most humble, true, faith-
full and obdedient Subject, and most
dutifull Servant, usque ad aras.

Cimelgus Bonde.
(sigs. [A4v-A5])

   Since his style often recalls the political poetry of the early Civil War period, Duncombe would hardly claim to be an Augustan. Yet he was certainly among the first to address Charles in print directly as Augustus.³⁸⁹

    By adopting an anagrammatic pseudonym for the publication of Scutum Regale, Duncombe perhaps wished to suggest that there was still some personal danger involved in publishing his desire for a return to monarchy as early and as earnestly as he did. The author of some dedicatory verses, signed "T. F.", possibly Thomas Flatman, draws attention to Duncombe's personal heroism for writing when he does.³⁹⁰ While there is no direct evidence that "T. F." was Flatman, Scutum Regale is clearly the product of the Inns of Court, a coterie context in which the initials would have been unmistakable. "T. F."'s verses, however, do not appear in any of the editions of Flatman's Poems and Songs published in 1674, 1676, 1682, and 1686.

   Other internal evidence suggests that the book was being prepared in a hurry during the early months of 1660. The Errata list which precedes "T. F.'s" dedicatory verses, advises us "since the last in execution, is the first in the intention; I must request the Reader to begin with the last part of the Book, and end with the first part in his reading" (sig. [A6]). This proves to be not bad advise, since we find him complaining about Monk --

Monck prov'd worse than Pharaoh himself, and instead of relieving of our distressed Jerusalem . . . he heaped misery to misery, and executed such a grand piece of Tyranny that none in the world . . . could invent. On Thursday the ninth day of February, 1659, . . . he drew up all his souldiers into the City, with their matches lighted, in a warlike posture, doubled his guards, and tore down all the gates, and posts of the City; neither did his intoxicated malice stay upon the gates, but leapt upon the Aldermen, and other Citizens, whom he presently cast into prison, so that now he is become odious, and stinks in the nostrils of all the Citizens and People: and whereas he was the common hopes of all men, he is now the common hatred of all men, as a Traytor more detestable than Oliver himself; who, though he manacled the Citizens hands, yet never took away the doores of their City, whereby all manner of beasts, (as well the Wolves at Westminster, as other out-lying Foxes, and Birds of prey) may come in, and destroy them when they please. (pp. 373-74).

   Within three pages, however, he starts a new section -- "Englands Redemption" -- and finds himself recanting this complaint: "No sooner had I written these last words of the momentary prosperity of the wicked, but immediately the same hour, news was brought me, that General Monck and the City were agreeed,[sic] and resolved to declare for a free Parliament, and decline the Rump . . . I was strucken with amazement, joy made me tremble, and the goodnesse of the news would scarce permit me to believe it" (p. 377).³⁹¹

    The dedicatory verses signed T. F. are followed by "The History of Phaeton," an extended allegory in which King Phoebus, "representing the King," punishes Phaeton, "the hare-brained people" (sigs B-C2). The main body of the book, "A Lecture to Traytors" (sigs C2v-Aa4v) is interspersed with verses in Latin with English translations. The prose "Lecture" draws to an end with two final sections, "Englands Confusion" (sigs Aa5-Bb4v), and "Englands Redemption" (sigs [Bb4v-Cc5v]. Pagination also ends here. Two short poems, "On the late MIRACULOUS REVOLUTIONS IN ENGLAND, &c.," also signed "T. F.," and "Repentance for the Murther of Charles the Martyr and The Restuaration of Charles the II," both printed on separate leaves, are variously tipped in amongst the final gatherings.³⁹²

   The final section of the book features an engraving of a Shepherd and some Latin and English verses evidently written well before there was any public certainty that Charles would be returning. Of this engraving, marginalia in the copy that once belonged to the private library of Charles comments: "but it has also a 2d Plate which precedes the "Shepherd's Complaint" at the end of the book, & is very seldom found with it. This plate has been by some called `Charles 2d' but it is so unlike that it is not easy to believe it could be meant for his portrait." [reproduce engraving]

   Some of the interest of Duncombes's version of pastoral is his use of the shepherd's voice to express a sense of natural justice in line with the call for law throughout Scutum Regale as a whole. The voice begins with a shepherd's conventional rejection of civic, political, and military ambition in favour of rural contentment, a theme Duncombe maintains throughout. At the same time, the voice nostalgically recalls and comes to personify a self-sufficient England that, disrupted by the civil wars, no longer exists. Personal greed and ambition now drive the men in political office while encouraging others to abandon their former ways of life to seek wealth in foreign lands. The shepherd, however, can still find peace away from it all in rural isolation; the same choice adopted by Astell's urban persona in Vota Non Bella.

   The Latin verses "Pastor Vit' Su'" (sigs. Cc6-Cc8v) are translated as follows: