Page:Explanatory notes of a pack of Cavalier playing cards.djvu/44

20 adultery. After some years spent in Holland and America, he returned in 1641, and became chaplain to Lord Brooke's regiment. He was a most burlesque preacher, and actually performed the act stated on the card. He styled the king Barabbas and compared the army to Christ. He advised the destruction of Stonehenge. Clarendon calls him the "ungodly confessor" who contrived the tragedy of the two Hothams (Rebellion, vol. ii. p. 383). He is said to have been one of the masked executioners of Charles I. He was beheaded October 16th 1660, and certainly deserved his fate if any of the Regicides did.

42. Knave of Clubs.

"Ireton holds that saints may pass through all forms to obtain his ends."

Ireton was born in 1610, and commanded the left wing of the Parliamentarians at Naseby. He married a daughter of Oliver Cromwell, whom he succeeded as Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, where he died in 1651.

43. Knave of Spades.

"Sir H. Vane finds a distinction betwixt a Legal and an Evangelical Conscience."

Vane was the principal mover of the Solemn League and Covenant, but did not sit on the King's trial.

44. Knave of Diamonds.

"H. Martin moues y$e$ House that y$e$ King may take the Covenant."

Martin, Vane and Hazelrigg were the principal supporters of the self-denying Ordinance.