“In good King Charles’s golden days, When loyalty had no harm in’t, A zealous High Churchman I was, And so I got preferment. To teach my flock I never miss’d, Kings were by God appointed, And they are damned who dare resist, Or touch the Lord’s anointed. When Royal James obtained the throne, And Popery grew in fashion, The penal laws I hooted down, And read the Declaration. The Church of Rome I found would fit Full well my constitution, And I had been a Jesuit, But for the Revolution. When William, our deliverer, came To heal the nation’s grievance, Then I turned cat-in-pan again, And swore to him allegiance. Old principles I did revoke, Set conscience at a distance; Passive resistance was a joke, A jest was non-resistance. When glorious Anne became our Queen, The Church of England’s glory, Another face of things was seen, And I became a Tory; Occasional conformists’ case— I damned such moderation, And thought the Church in danger was By such prevarication. When George in pudding-time came o’er, And moderate men looked big, sir, My principles I changed once more, And so became a Whig, sir, And thus preferment I procured From our Faith’s great Defender, And almost every day abjured The Pope and the Pretender. The illustrious House of Hanover, And Protestant Succession, By these I lustily will swear, While they can keep possession, For in my faith and loyalty I never once will falter, But George my King shall ever be— Until the times do alter.” Another vicar of Bray distinguished himself in rather a sorry fashion, according to legend, in the time of James the First. He was dining with his curate at the Greyhound, or, by another account, the Bear, at Maidenhead, when there burst in upon them a hungry sportsman, who expressed a wish to join them at table. The vicar agreed, but with a bad grace, but the curate made him welcome, and entertained him well in conversation. When the time came to pay, the vicar let it be seen that, so far as he was concerned, the stranger should settle for his share, but the curate declared he could permit no such thing, and paid the sportsman’s score out of his own scanty pocket. Presently, as they stood taking the air at the window, other sportsmen came cantering along the street, and seeing the first, halted, and one, dismounting, dropped upon one knee, and uncovered. It was the King. The vicar, too late, apologised, but the King, turning to him, said: “Have no fear. You shall always be vicar of Bray, but your curate I will set over you, and make him Canon of Windsor.”