Oliver’s eldest son Richard was, by him before his death, declared his successor; and, by order of privy-council, proclaimed Lord Protector, and received the compliments of congratulation and condolence, at the same time, from the lord mayor and court of aldermen: and addresses were presented to him from all parts of the nation, promising to stand by him with their lives and fortunes. He summoned a parliament to meet at Westminster, which recognized him Lord Protector: yet, notwithstanding, Fleetwood, Desborough, and their partisans, managed affairs so, that he was obliged to resign. ↩
John of Leyden, whose name was Buckhold, was a butcher of the same place, but a crafty, eloquent, and seditious fellow and one of those called Anabaptists. He went and set up at Munster, where, with Knipperdoling, and others of the same faction, they spread their abominable errors, and run about the streets in enthusiastical raptures, crying, “Repent and be baptized,” pronouncing dismal woes against all those that would not embrace their tenets. About the year 1533 they broke out into an open insurrection, and seized the palace and magazines, and grew so formidable that it was very dangerous for those who were not of their persuasion to dwell in Munster; but at length he and his associates being subdued and taken, he was executed at Munster, had his flesh pulled off by two executioners with red-hot pincers for the space of an hour, and then run through with a sword. ↩
This was the famous E. of S. who was endued with a particular faculty of undermining and subverting all sorts of government. ↩
The famous Lord Napier, of Scotland, the first inventor of logarithms, contrived also a set of square pieces, with numbers on them, made generally of ivory, (which perform arithmetical and geometrical calculations,) and are commonly called Napier’s Bones. ↩
The great Colonel John Lilbourn, whose trial is so remarkable, and well known at this time. ↩
After the Grecians had spent ten years in the siege of Troy, without the least prospect of success, they bethought of a stratagem, and made a wooden horse capable of containing a considerable number of armed men: this they filled with the choicest of their army, and then pretended to raise the siege; upon which the credulous Trojans made a breach in the walls of the city to bring in this fatal plunder; but when it was brought in, the enclosed heroes soon appeared, and surprising the city, the rest entered in at the breach. ↩
That parliament used to have public fasts kept in St. Margaret’s church, Westminster, as is done to this present time. ↩
It is reported of Muhammad the great impostor, that having built a mosque, the roof whereof was of loadstone, and ordering his corpse, when he was dead, to be put into an iron coffin, and brought into that place, the loadstone soon attracted it near the top, where it still hangs in the air.
No less fabulous is what the legend says of Ignatius Loyola, that his zeal and devotion transported him so, that at his prayers he has been seen to be raised from the ground for some considerable time together. ↩
Naturalists report, that snakes, serpents, etc. cast their skins every year. ↩
It is said that in the Islands of the Orcades, in Scotland, there are trees which bear those barnacles, which dropping off into the water, receive life, and become those birds called Soland geese. ↩
The poets feign the dog Cerberus, that is the porter of hell, to have three heads. ↩
Two great factions in Italy, distinguished by those names, miserably distracted and wasted it about the year 1130. ↩
Burton, Prynn, and Bastwick, three notorious ringleaders of the factious, just at the beginning of the late horrid rebellion. ↩
Fisher’s Folly, was where Devonshire-Square now stands, and was a great place of consultation in those days. ↩
Plato’s year, or the grand revolution of the entire machine of the world, was accounted 4,000 years. ↩
General Fairfax, who was soon laid aside after he had done some of their drudgery for them. ↩
Two ridiculous scribblers, that were often pestering the world with nonsense. ↩
The one a brewer, the other a shoemaker, and both colonels in the rebels’ army. ↩
This is an accurate description of the mob’s burning rumps upon the admission of the secluded members, in contempt of the Rump Parliament. ↩
The hangman’s name at that time was Dun. ↩
Cook acted as solicitor-general against King Charles the First at his trial; and afterwards received his just reward for the same. Pride, a colonel in the Parliament’s army. ↩
Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the society of the Jesuits, was a gentleman of Biscay, in Spain, and bred a soldier; was at Pampelune when it was besieged by the French in the year 1521, and was so very lame in both feet, by the damage he sustained there, that he was forced to keep his bed. ↩
Athanasius Kircher, a Jesuit, hath wrote largely on the Egyptian mystical learning. ↩
The Egyptians represented their kings, (many of whose names were Ptolemy) under the hieroglyphic of a bee, dispensing honey to the good and virtuous, and having a sting for the wicked and dissolute. ↩
Alluding to the vulgar opinion, that witches have their imps, or familiar spirits, that are employed in their diabolical practices, and suck private teats they have about them. ↩
