Fragments of Two Centuries: Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was KingKingston, Alfred
History
Fragments of Two Centuries: Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King
Kingston, Alfred
Country life -- England
"Died in the Workhouse in Royston, Thomas Keightly, and on the
following Friday his remains were interred in the family burying ground
in the Churchyard of that parish. He was the eldest son of the late
Wm. Keightley, Esq., of that place, who some years ago, to his immortal
honour, stood forward on behalf of the parish, and at his own expense
supported a very litigious and expensive law-suit, which he gained and
for which the said parish as an acknowledgment made him and his
posterity a present of the aforesaid burying ground."
What the law-suit was about I am unable to say.
The following remarkable incident is taken from an old newspaper, the
_Cambridge Intelligencer_--
1794. June 15th. On Wednesday last a son and two daughters of the
Widow Curtis, of Wimpole, in this county, were returning from Royston
Fair in a one-horse tilted cart. They were stopped in the street at
Royston by a concourse of people surrounding some recruiting sergeants
who had been parading the streets with a flag and playing "God Save the
King." The young man, being in liquor, attempted to drive through the
crowd. The horse reared up, being frightened by a musket let off close
to him, the young man whipped the horse and struck some persons who
obstructed the cart. This aroused the courage of the sons of Mars, who
thrust their swords through the tilt of the cart, which alarmed the
young women who leaped from the cart, and, fainting away, were carried
to a house at a trifling distance. The soldiers, not satisfied with
the exploit, wreaked their anger upon the horse by stabbing it with a
bayonet in such a manner that the poor animal died in a few minutes.
During the tumult, one of the sergeants threatened a tradesman in the
town, a person of unsuspected loyalty, that if he did not say "God Save
the King," he would run him through the body. To which he replied with
the spirit of a Briton--"You may stab me if you dare, but no man shall
make me say 'God Save the King' only when I please."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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