George Somes Layard

“God bless the King, I mean the faith’s defender, God bless—no harm in blessing—the Pretender. Who that Pretender is, and who is King— God bless us all!—that’s quite another thing.”

SO sang the old Jacobite John Byrom, and, taking my cue from him, I do not propose to enter here into the vexed question of James Francis Edward Stuart’s claim to this or that title.37 It is merely a happy accident that lends me so picturesque a figure round which to group certain pictorial rarities, germane to our subject, of which little is known, and of which the petit-maÎtre will be therefore grateful for some particulars.

The history of the engraved copperplate is full of that kind of romance which peculiarly {193} commends itself to the lover of what is quaint and curious in the byways of art, and perhaps the most romantic phase of its history is that with which I am about to deal. It is the sort of romance which was inseparable from what may be called the pre-machinery days, and is as foreign to the spirit of this age as are the slashed doublets of our forefathers or the starched irrelevances of their wives.

It may be, of course, that the Process block of to-day will be found to be as full of romance to-morrow. Indeed we have already found some indications of this in a former chapter, and it is probably true that romance is as all-pervading in the mental as ether is in the physical world, and that it is only lack of the proper intellectual reagent that makes the discovery of it difficult.

However that may be, one thing is certain, that most of us find it easier to come at the “poetry of cir­cum­stance” when centuries or decades have left it behind than when it is at our immediate threshold.

In these days of lightning pictorial satire, when Monday’s political move is on Tuesday served up {194} in genial topsy-turvy by “F. C. G.” in the Westminster or “G. R. H.” in the Pall Mall, and when Punch’s weekly cartoon is voted seven days late by the Man in the Street, it is difficult for us to realise the shifts to which political satire was put when the laborious engraved or etched broadside was the quickest method of getting at the picture-loving masses. Just imagine the agony of impatience of the political satirist who had designed his broadside and had to await the tardy engraving of the copperplate, to be followed by the deliberate hand-printing and hand-painting of the impressions before they could be published, perhaps only to find in the end that the nine-days’ wonder was past, or that events had blunted his most telling points.

So, too, when satirist was employed against satirist, how hopeless it seemed for retaliation to follow swiftly enough upon the occasion to make any retort in kind worth while at all.

Then it was that the wit of man, quickened by necessity, conceived the clever stratagem of the adapted copperplate, of which it is here my purpose to give some remarkable examples. {195}

I fancy I see the victim of some shrewder libel than usual, with which the town has been flooded, pricking off in hot haste to the pictorial satirist in his pay, and demanding the production of a trenchant and immediate reply, so that the retort may be in the printsellers’ windows before the attack has had time to do its deadly work.

The satirist names a month as the earliest possible date. His employer curses him for a blundering slowcoach. Before a month is out the mischief will be done beyond repairing. And he is flinging himself out of the workshop when a happy thought comes with a flash into his head.

How about the copperplate of that broadside which fell so flat a year ago because of its tardiness? It was meant to be a counter-thrust to just such another attack as this, but it was a month too late. Is there no way of fitting a new barb on to the old arrow? Is there no way of adapting the year-old weapon to the present necessity?

And then there follows anxious discussion and careful examination. The head of A. burnished out here can be re-engraved in the similitude of B. {196} C. will stand as he is and do duty, with a new index number and altered footnote, for D. Here an inappropriate object can be replaced by a panel of appropriate verse. The inscriptions on the banderoles issuing from the characters’ mouths must be altered. And, hey presto! in the twinkling of a bedpost we have our answer ready for a not too critical public.

The original lampooner, who counted on a good month’s start, will be confronted with a retort before he has time to turn round. The whole town will be set buzzing about the successful ruse, and the laugh will be turned upon the aggressor.

Of course it would be comparatively rarely that the adapted plate could be wholly apropos, but such capital ingenuity was exercised, once the stratagem had been imagined, that the practice was not so uncommon nor so unsuccessful as might be naturally expected. In this chapter I am only treating of those dealing with one particular episode, but I have in my possession at least thirty of these remarkable productions.

From them we find that it was not always the engraver of a plate who re-adjusted his own {197} handiwork, but piratical hands were sometimes laid upon the work of a master by mere journeymen engravers who did not scruple to leave the original artist’s name for the better selling of the plate, although it had ceased to represent even in the remotest degree his sentiments or intentions.

Indeed, I could tell of at least one remarkable plate originally prepared in honour of a certain great personage, which, being thievishly appropriated by his opponents, was by them so judiciously metamorphosed as to cover him with as much confusion as it had originally panoplied him with honour.38

This is, I believe, the first time that any attempt has been made to bring this fascinating subject before the public. Incidentally it has {198} been touched upon once or twice in pub­li­ca­tions of my own as it affected other byways in art, and has been alluded to in the Introductions to the Catalogue of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum (Satires), prepared under the direction of the late Keeper of the Prints and Drawings, George William Reid, by F. G. Stephens, to which monumental work all students of such subjects are profoundly indebted. But it has never been treated with anything approaching the completeness that it deserves. It is practically an unworked phase of print-collecting—a new craze in which the dilettante may specialise.

As I have said, we are fortunate in having in this place so picturesque a figure as that of the Old Pretender, or the Chevalier de St. George, as some like to call him, round whom to group our first batch of these pictorial palimpsests.

James Francis Edward Stuart was, as all who know their history will remember, the son of James II. by his second wife, Mary of Modena. He was born on June 10, 1688, at St James’s Palace.

James II. was then in his fifty-fifth year. By {199} his cruelties after Monmouth’s rebellion, by his attack on the Universities, by the Trial of the Seven Bishops, by his Court of Commissioners of Ecclesiastical Causes, and by his misuse of the Dispensing Power he had alienated the whole nation, with the exception of a few Roman Catholics and hangers-on of the Court, and his throne was tottering.

The only element of strength in his position was the certainty that sooner or later the crown was bound to pass to one of the Protestant daughters of his first marriage; for though the present Queen had borne him four or five children they had all died young. It was now six years since there had been any hint of a royal birth. What were probably grossly exaggerated accounts of the King’s early irregularities were matter of common gossip, and the Queen’s health was far from robust. Suddenly, at a most opportune moment for the Roman Catholics—so opportune a moment indeed that intrigue at once suggested itself—it was announced to the world that Mary was with child, and a day of thanksgiving was appointed five months before the Queen’s delivery. {200}

Now was the occasion for reviving a report which had been sedulously spread by the enemies of the Court from the very earliest days of the Queen’s marriage—that the King, in order to transmit his dominions and his bigotry to a Roman Catholic heir, had determined to impose a surreptitious offspring on his Protestant subjects.

In due course came her Majesty’s lying-in at St. James’s, and although the King took every precaution, by the solemn depositions of forty-two persons of rank who were present, against questions arising as to the child’s identity, the celebrated “warming-pan” story was hatched, which continued to gain credence for more than half a century. Nor were circumstantial details of the most intimate nature in support of the lie wanting. During the labour, it was maintained, the curtains of the bed were drawn more closely than usual on such occasions; neither the Princess of Orange, the nearest Protestant heir to the throne, nor her immediate adherents were asked to be in attendance; an apartment had been selected for the Queen’s accommodation in which there was a door near the head of the bed which opened on a back {201} staircase. Though the weather was hot, and the room heated by the great crowd of persons present, a warming-pan was introduced into the bed; and finally the pan contained a new-born child, which was immediately afterwards presented to the bystanders as the offspring of the Queen!

The following song, sung by two gentlemen at the Maypole in the Strand, is sufficiently explanatory:

The last line referred to the fact that the Queen had played at cards at Whitehall Palace till eleven o’clock on Saturday, June 9, whence she was carried in a chair to St. James’s Palace, and on the Sunday, June 10, between the hours of nine and ten in the morning, “was brought to bed of a prince.”

It is a remarkable fact [says Jesse] that as early as 1682 (six years before this), when the Queen, then Duchess of York, was declared to be pregnant, the same rumours were {202} propagated as on the present occasion—that an imposture was intended to be obtruded upon the nation. Fortunately on that occasion the infant proved to be a female, or doubtless some improbable fiction would have been invented similar to that which obtained credit in 1688.

Undoubtedly the whole thing was a lie, but it did its deadly work.39 The whole nation was prepared to accept the flimsiest evidence, and within six months father, mother, and child had fled to France.

So much for the story that inspired the remarkable broadsides with which it is here our purpose to deal. It will be noticed that these broadsides are all Dutch in their origin, a fact that is not surprising when we remember that they formed part of the propagandum which was soon to land William of Orange, the husband of James’s eldest daughter, on the throne of England.

The first that we reproduce is entitled “L’Europe AlarmÉe pour le Fils d’un Meunier.”

The artist is that remarkably clever Dutchman, {203} Romeyn de Hooghe, whose delicate and facile handling of the point is well exemplified in the seascape at the back of the picture.

Let us examine in detail the most important features of this elaborate broadside.

The centre of attraction is, of course, the surreptitious infant Prince of Wales, who lies in his cradle to the left of the picture. Those assembled about him are discussing the possibility of the plot having been discovered. On his coverlet are various playthings, amongst which is conspicuous a toy mill, emphasising, of course, the generally accepted belief that he was the son of a miller, for, in their lying, James’s enemies were nothing if not circumstantial. This allusive toy figures in almost all the satiric prints dealing with the Old Pretender.

At the foot of the cradle, which is decorated with an owl, an owlet, and a snake (emblems of evil), is a pap-bowl and spoon, half concealed by the arm of “the first mother”40 (1) {204} who seems to be pointing out to Father Petre (2), the instigator of the plot, that the child has been born too old. The Father, whose intimacy with the lady is suggested by a tender fondling of her right hand with his left, fingers his rosary with the other, and gazes fixedly into her eyes.

Edward Petre was one of the best-hated men in the country, and was popularly looked upon as James’s evil genius. The King would have made him Archbishop of York, but the Pope refused his dispensation. In the year preceding the production of this satire he had been made a Privy Councillor.

In the middle of the picture sits the “second mother” (3) in a highly-wrought chair, round the legs of which twine carved serpents. Tears course down her cheeks. With her right hand she points to the cradle as she listens to the counsels of the papal nuncio Count Ferdinand d’Adda (4), who, with armour peeping from under {205} his robes and with his armoured foot treading on his naked weapon, recommends submission of the whole matter to the arbitrament of the sword.

Immediately beyond the Cardinal stands Louis XIV. (5), James’s faithful ally. In one hand he carries a bag of money, referring, doubtless, to his offer of five hundred thousand livres for the equipment of an English fleet to oppose the Prince of Orange’s threatened invasion; with the other he exposes to view a list of his army.

Behind, and to the right of Cardinal d’Adda, Louis’ son, the Dauphin of France, makes as though he would draw his sword, whilst the Pope (Innocent XI.), in shadow at the extreme right of the picture (7, the number is very indistinctly seen on the dark clothing) grasps the keys of St. Peter, and would seem to be sarcastically doubtful of the whole affair. “The Pope,” says Voltaire, “founded very little hopes on the proceedings of James, and constantly refused Petre a cardinal’s hat.”

Beyond the Pope is seen the armoured figure of Leopold I. (8), with the German eagle on his helmet. With his right hand he grasps his {206} sword-hilt; with his left he gesticulates as though reminding the war party that he also has to be reckoned with. No. 9 I cannot identify.

Behind Mary of Modena’s chair stands (13, the figure is on her breast) Catherine of Braganza, the childless wife of Charles II. She is doubtless lamenting that, when residing at Whitehall, she had not herself manufactured a prince on the Modena plan. Next to her (11, the figure is on the pillar) a doctor of the Sorbonne promises them all dispensations—a hit at James’s well-known misuse of the dispensing powers. Next to him, with his right hand convulsively grasping a roll of charters, stands James himself (10). In his left he carries parliamentary and corporation papers. With despairing eyes he gazes at the baby who, so far from giving, as he had fondly hoped, the finishing touch to the Roman Catholic triumph in England, is likely to prove the most damning count in the country’s indictment of his iniquities and treasons. To the left the midwife (12) encourages him to proceed with the imposture. Below her two monks (14 and 15), greatly alarmed, pray aloud at the head of the cradle. {207}

Immediately behind them two heralds, one mounted on an ass, blow on trumpets to call attention to the Dutch fleet, which is seen approaching through the right-hand arch, whilst through the left a fort is seen belching forth smoke and resisting the landing of the longboats.

In the left corner of the picture certain Quakers (17, 18, 19), whose curious friendship with James must not be forgotten, deprecate the priests’ blasphemies, whilst beyond them a crowd of Irish papists is suggested by their waving symbols and a torn flag embroidered with the sacred monogram. Behind the Quakers an oriental-looking person scans the heavens through a telescope.

The colonnade beneath which all this takes place has its pillars surmounted by owls and a demoniacal bat. The arches are inscribed with the words “Het word hier nacht,” and other inscriptions are seen on the walls. On the extreme right of the picture is reared a banner bearing what appear to be the words “In utrumque Turgam,” of which it is difficult to imagine the meaning. “In utramque Furcam,” which would be intelligible, has been suggested to me as an {208} alternative reading, but cannot, I think, be accepted. Another friend hazards “In utrumque (modum) resurgam,” which may be freely translated, “I shall be ‘dormy’ either way,” and would certainly make sense. Farther than that I cannot go with him.

So much for the first state of this elaborate copperplate which did its part in propagating the lie which went far to lose for James II. the crown of England.

After having served this purpose the plate was laid aside for nearly a quarter of a century. During this period the throne of England had been occupied by James II.’s two daughters, Mary and Anne, to the exclusion of their father, who died in exile in 1701, and of the Chevalier de St. George, whose proclamation by Louis of France as James III. of England41 had been followed by the war of the Spanish Succession.

In 1713, just twenty-four years after the plate had been engraved, the Peace of Utrecht, so vitally important as marking the beginning of {209} England’s commercial prosperity, was signed between England and France. Amongst other things it secured the Protestant Succession to the throne of England through the House of Hanover, and the dismissal of the Chevalier from France. The suspension of arms between the English and the French which preceded the signing of the treaty was seized upon as the opportunity for resuscitating the plate and adapting: it to the altered cir­cum­stances. Now did some pictorial vandal wrench and twist the figures to new and undreamt-of uses and turn the Council of War of 1688 into the Court of Peace between the Roses and Lilies of 1712! The plate now professes to be published in London, though, from the fact that the pub­li­ca­tion line runs. “A Londres chez Turner,” and from sundry misspellings, it would appear certain that the alterations on the plate were effected abroad.

In this second state the plate has been reduced at the top as far as the capitals of the pillars, and at the bottom as far as the left foot of the figure which represented Father Petre in the original. The index figures have also been changed. {210}

The explanation of the design as it now stands is contained in eighty-three lines of doggerel French verse. Taking the alterations one by one we find in the first place that the infant and cradle have been bodily removed, and (1) the “Plan de Paix” substituted. It bears the legend “Vrede tussen het Lelien en Roosen hof. Paix entre les Lis et les Roses picantes.”

The central figure (2) of the picture is now changed into an allegorical personage labelled “Pax,” who holds in her left hand a paper inscribed “Juste Protestation des AlliÉs,” whilst with her right she indicates the “Plan de Paix.” In this way the new artist, with some ingenuity, suggests that the spirit of peace is in sympathy with the dissatisfaction of the Allies at the negotiations which are proceeding between England and France. Her remonstrances are addressed to the figure on her left (3), which formerly represented Cardinal d’Adda, but is now labelled “Pole.” (the AbbÉ Melchior de Polignac), who tries to allay her forebodings. The difficulty of the Cardinal’s hat, which is of course out of place on an AbbÉ, is ingeniously got over by the writer of the French {211} libretto, who refers to him as a Cardinal in petto. As a matter of fact the writer proved a good prophet, for, on the conclusion of the peace, for which Polignac was largely responsible, he was, on the nomination of the Chevalier de St. George, created and appointed Cardinal MaÎtre de la Chapelle du Roi. He was at the time of the pub­li­ca­tion of the altered plate plenipotentiary in Holland for the French. It will be noticed that the pince-nez and moustache have now been dispensed with.

The figure behind Polignac (4), which originally stood for the Dauphin, who, by the way, was but lately dead, is now labelled at the foot “Mont-or” (the Duke of Ormond’s name reversed), and at the head “Tori.” By an ingenious turn of thought, the Dauphin’s warlike action of drawing his sword is now metamorphosed into the Duke’s conciliatory action of sheathing his. This refers, of course, to the instructions which he had received from the English Government, on taking over the command of the troops in the Low Countries from the Duke of Marlborough, to do all in his power to bring about a peaceful issue. {212}

Beyond Polignac the figure (5) which formerly represented Louis XIV. is now put to humbler uses, and merely represents a French herald. The paper in his left hand, which originally enumerated Louis’ forces, now bears the gratifying legend:

The lady in front of him (6), who formerly stood for Catherine of Braganza, now represents Maria Louisa of Savoy, the first wife of Philip V. of Spain (fortunately for him not such a firebrand as his second wife proved to be). She turns to her handsome young husband (7) (here somewhat libellously represented by the whilom “Old Hatchet Face”) who has just renounced for himself and descendants all claims of succession to the crown of France. His right hand rests on the scroll of “charters” as before, but the document in his left now bears the legend: “Leli afstand onder Conditie” (The lily to surrender under conditions).

Passing almost to the extreme right of the picture, the eagle-helmeted figure (8) which {213} before represented the Emperor Leopold I. now represents his son Charles VI., “Le Seigneur juste de la Cour d’Orient et Occident.” Clutching his huge sword, he expresses the anger of the Imperialists at the project for peace between England and France. In the end he refused to concur in the peace of Utrecht, and continued at war with France until 1714.

On either side of him are two figures numbered alike (9, 9). That on his right, which bears the word “Wigh” engraved on his hat, represents the Duke of Marlborough, the deposed military leader of the Whigs. That on his left is one of the Duke’s followers, who, by his drawn sword, points the allusion of the librettist to the “Pacificateur par le fer.”

To the extreme right of the picture (10) the Pope, now Clement XI. in place of Innocent XI., encourages Polignac in his efforts for peace, and promises him “La Pourpre” as his reward.

Returning to the middle background of the crowd we find (11, 11) two Jesuits. The one who looks over the left shoulder of No. 7 was in the first state of the plate a doctor of the {214} Sorbonne. The index number of this figure is now on his hat. Originally it was on the pillar above him. This the adapter has apparently attempted to turn into a rough ornamentation by the addition of parallel strokes. Becoming dissatisfied, he has crossed out the whole by irregular horizontal lines. To the left of figure 7 is seen (12) the Pretender, the surreptitious infant of the original, now grown to manhood, whispering in Philip of Spain’s ear that though he claims as a Protestant the throne of his father, he is in his heart of the Romish faith. This figure originally represented the midwife, but has been metamorphosed by the addition of a man’s hat, wig, and ruffles.

To the extreme left of the foreground of the picture the erstwhile Father Petre is now transformed (13) into a Jesuit confessor, who amorously converses with (14) “La Courtisane de Bourbon,” Madame de Maintenon. This cruel aspersion on the character of one who was really, though secretly, Louis XIV.’s wife, and whose nobleness of character is now fully established, was characteristic of the times. The Plan de Paix, {215} which was so obnoxious to the author of the satire, would seem to have just fallen from her fingers, and doubtless he is right in recognising that she had a hand in its consummation. Beyond the table sit a monk and friar (15, 15), as formerly, except that the removal of the cradle has necessitated an extension of their figures. In the background, against the left-hand pillar, is (16) the “Harlequin de France.” In front of him the three figures (17, 18, 19), originally Quakers, are now referred to as “Esprits Libres.” The man with the telescope (20) is “The Observer of Foreign Countries.” The other subordinate figures are the same as before, save for the addition, in some cases, of index numbers.

It is interesting to notice that this plate was so successful in its adapted state that it was made the basis of a design engraved for a German broadside of the following year entitled “Der Fridens-Hoffzwischen der Rose und der versÖhnten Lilie,” with which it has many points in common.

I have treated of this plate at considerable length because it is the most important of the palimpsest plates of this period. I shall close {216} this chapter by reproducing one other remarkable example designed in its first state to expose the same supposed wicked plot. In the next chapter I shall give another dealing with the birth of the Old Pretender, from which we shall gain some idea of the extent to which this clever stratagem of the adapted copperplate was made use of in the deliberate days of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

For the present I must pass over two elaborate broadsides engraved by Jean Bollard, and entitled respectively “Aan den Experten Hollandschen Hoofd-Smith” (To the Expert Dutch Head-Smith), and “Aan der Meester Tonge-Slyper” (To the Master Tongue-Grinder). These, as we shall see later, after doing their work against James II. and the Old Pretender, were seized upon many years afterwards by the piratical publisher of a remarkable Jansenist tract, called “Roma Perturbata, Ofte’t Beroerde Romen, etc.,” and adapted to the uses of the anti-Jesuit propagandum, in the same way as “L’Europe AlarmÉe pour le Fils d’un Meunier,” described above, was adapted after twenty-five years of idleness as a satire upon the Peace of Utrecht. {217}

It was this same piratical tractarian who seized upon the elaborate plate which I am here reproducing, divorced it from its letterpress, cut the plate down to the size of his tract, and appropriated it in its second state to the purposes of “Roma Perturba ta.”

In its first state, which I give here, together with its accompanying letterpress, the line of pub­li­ca­tion runs: “Gisling, Geneve, exc.” and the title:

The design is very elaborate and crowded with figures, those in the foreground being executed with considerable spirit. The Dutch Lion (1) carries a sword in its right front claws, as does that on the Persian flag of to-day. On its back rides William of Orange (7) with lance in rest and bearing a shield upon which St. Michael is represented combating sin in the shape of a dragon. William is supported by mounted soldiers, one of whom bears a flag inscribed with {218} the words “Prot religion and libe”—(For religion and liberty). Over his head flies a winged Revenge (3) carrying a shield in one hand and the lightnings of God’s wrath in the other. Before him flies the seven-headed Beast of Babel (2), shorn of two of his heads, which lie bleeding on the ground beneath the lion. The monster, which “utters horrible shrieks,” bears upon its back between its wings Father Petre (6), who holds on his lap the infant Pretender (5), to whom his “brains have so infamously given birth.” The too-old infant carries in his hand the ever-present toy windmill. Blood pours from the decapitated necks of the Beast as he plunges with his accompanying rabble into the “pool of horrors.” Priests and other Romish officials, some mounted on goats, asses, and wolves, flee (4) or are trampled under foot (8).

In the mid background William of Orange (9), by a poetic licence able to be in two places at once, a fairly common convention even in serious pictures of that and an earlier date,42 is being {221} greeted by the English nobles as their saviour. To the left, through an archway, James II. (10) is seen fleeing by boat with his wife and infant, though, as a matter of fact, he remained in England some months after the latter were safely abroad. To the right, through another arch, Louis XIV. (11) is seen “embracing the child and taking pity on his mother,” and putting two of the curious, hearse-like carriages of the period at their disposal. Here we not only find Mary of Modena duplicated, but the infant Pretender triplicated in the same picture! So much for the plate in its first state.

In its second and adapted state it takes its place in the armoury of the anti-Jesuits. The Jansenist controversy was at its height in the year of grace 1705, and Jansenism, although nominally subject to Rome, was regarded favourably by the Protestant Dutch as being a reforming movement within the Roman Catholic Church against the theological casuistry of the Jesuits.

This is not the place to go into the anti-Jansenist polemics of the Jesuits since the pub­li­ca­tion of the “Augustinus” of 1640, though the {222} interest of the matter is sufficiently tempting. We must content ourselves with remembering that now at the beginning of a new century a supreme effort was being made by the Jesuits in France to destroy completely the pious community of Port Royal; that within four years they were to succeed in dispersing the nuns; within another year the cloister itself was to be pulled down; that in 1711 the very bodies of the departed members of the community were destined to be disinterred from the burial ground with the greatest brutalities and indecencies; and in 1713 the church itself demolished.

But, though Port Royal itself was doomed, Jansenism was finding freedom under the Protestant Government of Holland.

In 1689 Archbishop Codde had been appointed by the Pope Vicar Apostolic in Holland. Soon, however, it was discovered by the Jesuits that he favoured the Jansenists.

By the machinations of the Jesuits he was therefore invited to Rome, and treacherously detained there for three years, in defiance of all canonical regulations. In the meantime the Pope {223} appointed Theodore de Cock in his place, with the intention of crushing the Jansenists in Holland. Codde thereupon made his escape from Rome, and the well-known struggle of the Jansenists of Utrecht and Haarlem for a legitimate episcopal succession began.

This was the juncture at which our copperplate was to do duty a second time, and for such different ends.

It has been divorced from its letterpress, altered in certain details and slightly cut away at the top and bottom. Like those dealing with the Head Smith and Tongue Sharpener, as will be seen in the next chapter, it has been appropriated to the uses of “Roma Perturbata.” It is now entitled on the panel which has been inserted at the spring of the arches “Door Munnike-Jagt, Word Babel Verkracht” (By chasing monks, Babel is assailed), and the piratical publisher has made many ingenious alterations. The possibly punning pub­li­ca­tion line runs: “Benedictus Antisolitarius excudit Rom.” Above this appears the chronograph: “HOS HEROS MONACHOS APPRENDE BATAVE REBELLES.” {224}

The Lion (1) still represents Holland and hunts the Beast of Babel (2) assisted by the winged Revenge (3), whose lightnings have now been increased to seven to represent the heraldic arrows of the Seven United Provinces. This device also now appears on the shield of Holland’s Knight (7) in place of that of St. Michael and the Dragon. The banner of his followers is now inscribed “Pro Secularibus.” As champion of the Jansenists the Knight puts to rout “all the bald heads (4, 4, 4, 4), together with ‘their protector Kok’” (6), who “in disguise” rides between the wings of the Beast with an illegitimate child (5) on his lap, from whose right hand the toy windmill of the infant Pretender has been removed. In the background to the left, others, in the quaint words of the Dutch letterpress (10), “escape quickly from the town by water, while they are clothed like gentlemen in order not to be known as monks.” In the background to the right, others flee “like great gentlemen in carriages,” a fairly ingenious adaptation of James II.’s flight and Louis’ welcome of the fugitives. {225}

The group in the middle background is now made to represent Codde (8.B), who has escaped from Rome and is being welcomed back by the rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the State (9, 9).