Page:The cavalier songs and ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 (IA cavaliersongsbal00mack).pdf/23



This is perhaps the most popular of all the Cavalier songs—a favour which it partly owes to the excellent melody with which it is associated. The song, says Mr Chappell, is ascertained to be by Martin Parker, by the following extract from the Gossips’ Feast, or Moral Tales, 1647. “By my faith, Martin Parker never got a fairer treat: no, not when he indited that sweet ballad, When the King enjoys his own again.” In the poet’s Blind Man's Bough (or Buff), 1641, Martin Parker says,

but this song was printed without his name or initials, at a time when it would have been dangerous to give either his own name or that of his publisher. Ritson calls it the most famous song of any time or country. Invented to support the declining interest of Charles I., it served afterwards with more success to keep up the spirits of the Cavaliers, and promote the restoration of his son; an event which it was employed to celebrate all over the kingdom. At the Revolution of 1688, it of course became an adherent of the exiled King, whose cause it never deserted. It did equal service in 1715 and 1745. The tune appears to have been originally known as Marry me,