It was the object of neither of the great political parties of that day to discredit this narrative, which gave great satisfaction both to the cavaliers and roundheads; the former conceiving that the license given to the demons, was in consequence of the impious desecration of the King’s furniture and apartments, so that the citizens of Woodstock almost adored the supposed spirits, as avengers of the cause of royalty; while the friends of the Parliament, on the other hand, imputed to the malice of the fiend the obstruction of the pious work, as they judged that which they had in hand. At the risk of prolonging a curious quotation, I include a page or two from Mr. Hone’s Every-day Book. “The honourable the Commissioners arrived at Woodstock manor-house, October 13th, and took up their residence in the King’s own rooms. His Majesty’s bedchamber they made their kitchen, the council-hall their pantry, and the presence-chamber was the place where they sat for despatch of business. His Majesty’s dining-room they made their wood-yard, and stowed it with no other wood but that of the famous Royal Oak from the High Park, which, that nothing might be left with the name of the King about it, they had dug up by the roots, and bundled up into fagots for their firing. “October 16. This day they first sat for the despatch of business. In the midst of their first debate there entered a large black dog (as they thought), which made a terrible howling, overturned two or three of their chairs, and doing some other damage, went under the bed, and there gnawed the cords. The door this while continued constantly shut, when, after some two or three hours, Giles Sharp, their secretary, looking under the bed, perceived that the creature was vanished, and that a plate of meat that the servants had hid there was untouched, and showing them to their honours, they were all convinced there could be no real dog concerned in the case; the said Giles also deposed on oath, that, to his certain knowledge, there was not.