This speech was received
with the loudest acclamations. The bells were tolled; the soldiers were
feasted; bonfires were lighted; and among the frolics of the night was "the
roasting of the rump," a practical joke which long lived in the traditions
of the city. Scot and Robinson, who had been sent to lead back the general
to Whitehall, slunk away in secrecy, that they might escape the indignation
of the populace.[1]
At Westminster, the parliamentary leaders affected a calmness and
intrepidity which they did not feel. Of the insult offered to their
authority they took no notice; but, as an admonition to Monk, they brought
in a bill[a] to appoint his rival, Fleetwood, commander-in-chief in England
and Scotland. The intervention of the Sunday allowed more sober counsels to
prevail.
[Footnote 1: Price, 765-768. Clar. Pap. iii. 681, 692, 714. Ludlow, 337.
Gumble, 249. Skinner, 237-243. Old Parl. Hist. xxii. 94. Pepys, i. 24,
25. "At Strand-bridge I could at one time tell thirty-one fires; in
King-street, seven or eight, and all along burning, and roasting, and
drinking for rumps; there being rumps tied upon sticks, and carried up and
down. The butchers at the May-pole in the Strand rang a peal with their
knives, when they were going to sacrifice their rump.
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