If Archbishop Laud was really the author of this petition he appears to have expected that his long imprisonment would end in banishment rather than death. He was beheaded on Tower Hill, January 10, 1645. There is a woodcut portrait of the Archbishop printed on the title-page of the petition. [Illustration: ARCHBISHOP LAUD.] FOOTNOTE: [1] _Life of Gustavus Adolphus_. Family Library. CHAPTER III. Ben Jonson's Ridicule of the Early Newspapers--Fondness of the Old News-Writers for the Marvellous--The Smithfield Ghost--The Wonderful Whale--The Newbury Witch--Satirical Tracts and Caricatures at the Commencement of the Civil War--Religion Tossed in a Blanket--Caricatures of the Pope and the Bishops--Pluralists and Patentees--Taylor, the Water Poet--_Mercurius Aulicus_--Activity of the Pamphleteers--Welshmen Satirised--Satires on Prince Rupert--On the King and Queen--The Ladies' Parliament--Illustrated Tracts relating to Social and Political Subjects--Sir Kenelm Digby's Duel--The King entertained by the City of London, 1641--Executions in 1641--The Liquor Traffic and Sunday Closing in 1641--Abuses of the Ecclesiastical Courts--Ritualism and Nunneries in 1641--Truths enforced by Lieing--Stage Players and the Plague in 1641--Bartholomew Fair in 1641--Destruction of Charing Cross and Cheapside Cross--Strange Apparition--Method of Enforcing their Views adopted by the Puritan Pamphleteers--Parodies of Roundhead Sermons--Matthew Hopkins the Witch-finder--_The Welsh Post_ of 1643--William Lilly the Astrologer--Three Suns seen in London on the King's Birthday. When Ben Jonson called the newspaper 'a weekly cheat to draw money,' and ridiculed the growing taste for news, he had some reason for satirising the journalism of the period. To satisfy the craving for news all kinds of impositions were freely circulated. Nothing was too wonderful for the credulity of the age, and people eagerly accepted what was placed before them, fully believing that whatever was in print must be true. It was not, however, till many years after Ben Jonson's death that the so-called newspapers put forward their full powers as purveyors of the marvellous. _Mercurius Democritus_ was the _Punch_ of that day. While he satirised men and things he laboured to satisfy the popular taste for the wonderful, as in the following account of a ghost that was said to haunt the neighbourhood of Smithfield:--'There is a great report of a ghoast that walks every Night amongst the Butchers at _Smithfield Barrs_, the _Shambles_, White-_Chappell_, and _Eastcheape_, in the habit of _Mallet_, the Lawyer, pulling the meat off the Butchers Tainters; many have adventured to strike at him with Cleavers and Chopping-knives, but cannot feel anything but Aire, every Saturday at night between 9 and 12, he walks his stations, in this very habit as you see, doing more mischiefe to the _Butchers_ than ever _Robin Goodfellow_ did to the Country Hindes.'