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Hampden's regiment was regarded as one of the best; and even Hampden's regiment was described by Cromwell as a mere rabble of tapsters and serving men out of place.
Thus far my researches, though they threw much light on the history of tapsters, fishmongers, and Lord Mayors, yet disappointed me in the great object of my quest, the picture of the Boar's Head Tavern. No such painting was to be found in the church of St. Michael's. "Marry and amen," said I, "here endeth my research!"
He seemed, indeed, to have a pleasure in displaying the alertness with which he could baffle investigation, and amuse himself by putting the curiosity of tapsters and inn-keepers on a false scent.
Why, the grass would all be trampled down; and these dirty people, these slum folk, who seem to spring out of the earth when anything of a disagreeable or shameful nature is taking place, a fire, for instance, or a brawl, might easily bring infectious diseases on to those gravel paths where the little Tapsters and their like run about, playing their innocent games.
Not only the wholesale commerce oh the provinces was suspended, but the minute and indispensable traffic of daily life was entirely at a stand. The shops were all shut. "The brewers," says a contemporary, "refused to brew, the bakers to bake, the tapsters to tap." Multitudes, thrown entirely out of employment, and wholly dependent upon charity, swarmed in every city.
When Cromwell asked the Parliament for soldiers in lieu of the decayed serving-men and tapsters who filled the Commonwealth's army, he required that they should be men "who made some conscience of what they did;" and such were the men of which his celebrated regiment of "Ironsides" was composed. The man of character is also reverential.
A frightened maid had touched the torch to the tall candelabra, and the room blazed with a score of lights; while in at the doorway pressed the multitude the mob of low tapsters, brutal butchers, coarse pedlers, and drunkards just staggering from their cups. The scene was one of pandemonium.
And, after this congenial panegyric, he was proceeding with a tale of a dog and a bull, which threatened to be somewhat of the longest, when he was interrupted by the return of the old crone, and two of his own tapsters, bearing the various kinds of drinkables which he had demanded, and which probably was the only species of interruption he would have endured with equanimity.
Cromwell knew this and said to Cousin John Hampden: "Old, decayed serving-men and tapsters can never encounter gentlemen. To match men of honor you must have God-fearing, sober, serious men who fight for conscience, freedom, and their wives, children, aged parents, and their farms. Give me a few honest men and I will not demand numbers save for enemies."
Not so much, quoth I, but this tapsters linnen apron, which you weare before you, to protect your appareil from the imperfections of the spigot, most amply bewrais your lowly minde. I speake it with teares, too fewe such humble spirited noble men haue we, that will draw drinke in linen aprons.
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