The King and his brother shot down, and the city in the hands of the conspirators, punishment was then swiftly to overtake those who had favored the past policy of Charles. The late Lord Mayor of London, who had specially shown himself the creature of the court in willing to yield the charter of the corporation, was to be killed. A similar fate was to befall the existing Lord Mayor, also guilty of the same subservience; with this addition, that after death “his skin should be flayed off and stuffed and hung up in Guildhall, as one who had betrayed the rights and privileges of the city.” The office of chief magistrate of the city thus vacant, it was to be filled by one Alderman Cornish; should he refuse to accept the dignity, he was to be “knocked on the head.” Certain members of the corporation, who “had behaved themselves like trimmers, and neglected to repeal several by-laws,” were to be forced to appear publicly and admit the fact: in the event of their declining to be thus humiliated, they also were to be “knocked on the head.” The civic authorities chastened by this process of correction applied to the cranium, the bench was next to fall under the ire of the plotters. All such judges as had been guilty of passing arbitrary judgments, and of identifying the law with the royal will, were to be brought to trial, “and their skins stuffed and hung up in Westminster Hall.” Then came the turn of the ecclesiastics; in the vicious hour of mob rule the Church is always one of the first and greatest sufferers. On this occasion “bishops, deans, and chapters were to be wholly laid aside,” their lands confiscated, and such sums as it was the custom to apply to educational purposes were to be appropriated “to public uses in ease of the people from taxes.” Men who had made themselves unpopular during the late Parliament as greedy pensioners of the Crown were to be “brought to trial and death, and their skins stuffed and then hung up in the Parliament House as betrayers of the people and of the trust.” It was also thought “convenient” that certain Ministers of State, such as my Lord Halifax, and my Lord Hyde, should be “taken off.” To complete the programme, should funds be lacking, a raid was to be made upon the city magnates, for, said these advocates of communism, “there was money and plate enough among the bankers and goldsmiths.” This scheme of revenge and spoliation was to be rigidly carried out; and those to whom it was entrusted were to fulfil it as they would “obey the commandments.”[70]