Punch (73.1877)

AN AUTUMN MANOEUVRE.

Short-Sighted Captain. " Who the doose are these? Are they our Division, or are they the Enemy? I'll soon see I

'Tention ! Fibs a Yolley I At Three Hundred Yards ! Keady—P'sent ! "

THE FUTURE HISTORIAN OF ENGLAND.

(Vide Mr. "Wills's Letter to the " Times," October ith.)

It is with, the greatest possible interest that we look forward to a
new History of England by Mr. Wills, Author of Charles the First
at the Lyceum, Jane Shore and Mary Queen o' Scots at the Prin-
cess's, and, recently, of England in the daze, &c, at Drury Lane.
The learned and poetic Author has adopted, if we may trust his
letter to the Times, for his principle of arranging facts, a new
reading of the old proverb, which appears to be, " History does not
repeat itself." Mr. Wills will do for the History of England what
Niebuhr did for that of Rome. Reform of legends is clearly re-
quired, and our Author thinks that it is " Niebuhr too late to mend."

We regret our inability to do more than place before the public a
mere outline of some of the chief discoveries which Mr. Wills, in
his researches, has probably hit upon as demonstrating the falsehood
of much that has hitherto been accepted as history. The energetic
and gifted Author will, it is confidently expected, prove, beyond
all doubt, that—

King Charles the First was never beheaded at all. That trust-
worthy witnesses have solemnly attested the fact of the Monarch's
having been seen to walk and talk half-an-hour after his head was
cut off—a circumstance utterly incompatible with his having been
previously beheaded.

It will be put beyond all dispute that Charles retired into
very private life, eking out a livelihood by selling " parlia-
ment " (a sort of gingerbread), old stamps at so much a dozen,
and pipe-lights at a small shop in an obscure street between
Temple Bar and Drury Lane Theatre. Which street is still
uncertain. But the question was so constantly being asked at
the time, both by unfriendly Puritans and friendly Cavaliers, that
at last the locality itself came to be known as Which Street, or, in
the spelling of that epoch, " Wych Street." The present Olympic
Theatre probably stands on the site of King Charles's lodgings.
He continued to keep up a certain state at the nearest public-house,
and was well known to the box-keepers of Drury Lane Theatre as a
quiet, inoffensive elderly gentleman who was never absent from the

first night of a new piece at this establishment. He only once inter-
rupted a performance by cracking nuts, but, on being remonstrated
with by one of the officials, he produced an orange, which he sucked
in silence. Whether this was a prophetic allusion to subsequent
events connected, with William the Third, is not known. The
immediate cause of the worthy ex-Monarch's decease was a too
hearty supper off oysters and stout, with brown bread and butter,
at Rule's, in Maiden Lane, after which he was never seen to smile
again.

As to Cardinal Wolsey, doubtless Mr. Wills hopes to establish
conclusively that this celebrated ecclesiastic accepted a living from
Queen Elizabeth, but could never be induced to wear either a
double white tie and high collars, or a low waistcoat and tail-coat.
This accords with Shakspeare's description of him as " a man of
most unbounded stomach." He lived well into the reign of the
Second Charles, when he represented the then almost extinct
type of Sporting Parson, and in the last year of his life experienced
the satisfaction of having backed the right horse for the Derby.
He was noted in his parish for the admirable way in which he
used to teach little boys to swim on bladders, and often dined with
Cromwell, during the Protectorate, at Whitehall.

Of course Mr. Wills thinks that there is some certain foundation
for the assertion that Richard the Third was a gentle, amiable
creature who would not harm a Fly, though he is reported to have
killed a Clarence. He never saw Richmond but once in his life,
when he dined at the " Star and Garter" with some other choice
spirits, including Stanley, who had recently returned from Africa.
Richard was an exemplary father, a dutiful son, and a devoted
husband. He was so attached to his little nephews as to be
accused of nepotism when he bestowed on them a couple of
lucrative posts in the Tower. He received the entire support
of the Clergy, and as the emblem of the Order of Pastors is the
Crook, and as they were always backing him in his admirable works
of charity, his maligners nick-named him " The Crook-back'd."
This, in later stupid ages, was taken to allude to some personal de-
formity. He was one of the most learned and most able Kings that
ever swayed a nation's destinies, and raised the standard of the
Indian Civil Service Examination to such a height of excellence as