Kentish Longtails

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2 Responses

  1. Ian Topham says:

    Re: Kentish Longtails
    Andrew Marvel (Born 1621 – Died 1678) – ‘The Loyal Scot’

    “But who considers right will find, indeed,
    ’Tis Holy Island parts us, not the Tweed.
    Nothing but clergy could us two seclude,
    No Scotch was ever like a bishop’s feud.
    All Litanys in this have wanted faith,
    There’s no—Deliver us from a Bishop’s wrath.
    Never shall Calvin pardon’d be for sales,
    Never for Burnet’s sake, the Lauderdales;
    For Becket’s sake, Kent always shall have tails.”

  2. Ian Topham says:

    Re: Kentish Longtails
    THE WORKS OF Mr Thomas Brown Serious and Comical Prose and Verse (1730)

    Advice to the Kentish Long Tails by theWife Men of Gotham In Answer to their late sawcy Petition to the Parliament 1701

    WE the long beads of Gotham o er our merry cups meeting
    To the long tails of Kent, by these presents sent greeting
    Whereas we re inform’d that your Maidstone grand jury
    A most monstrous petition has penn’d in a fury
    We are strangely surpriz d at the news we’ll assure ye
    Unless both our reading and memory fails
    Old Kent has been fam’d not for heads but for tails
    Not to make on your intellects any reflection
    The senate needs none of the Kentish direction
    To prevent foreign insults and home insurrection
    Without your intruding and sage interposing
    And thrusting where no body calls you your nose in
    Our Commons will steer the great boat of themselves
    And save it from dashing on rocks or on shelves
    They’ll provide for our tars and settle the nation
    Then let each private man be content in his station
    We therefore advise you to lead sober lives
    To look after your orchards and comfort your wive
    To gibbets and gallows your owlers advance
    That that’s the sure way to mortisy France
    For Monfieur our nation will always be gulling
    While you take such care to supply him with woollen
    And if your allegiance to Caesar’s so great
    All smuggling and stealing of customs defeat
    Or else all your loyalty’s nought but a cheat
    Above all let each Long Tail his talent employ
    On his spouse’s soft anvil to get such a boy
    As will equal in vigour the fam d William Joy
    Then in peace you may eat both your boild and your roast
    And the French will be damn’d e’er they land on your coast

    Signed by the Mayor Aldermen and the Common Council all the Inhabitants both Men Women and Children that could make their marks at the Quarter Sessions bddenat Gotham in Co rnitatu Eslex the 1 2th of May 1701