Note 218 — TO THE READER.
Reading edition
Birmingham was already noted for base and counterfeit coinage. In a Panegyrick on their Royal Highnesses congratulating their return from Scotland, 1682, mention is thus made of Shaftesbury's medal:
The wretch that stamped it got immortal fame; 'Twas coined by stealth, like groats at Birmingham.
Tom Brown also alluded to the same practice; "I coined heroes as fast as Brumingham groats."[219] The affected zeal of the country party for the Protestant religion, led them to be called Birmingham Protestants, while the pretensions of Monmouth to legitimacy led his adversaries to compare him to a spurious impression of the king's coin; and thus Birmingham became a term of reproach for him, his assumed title, and his faction in general. There are numerous allusions to this in the libels of the age. Thus, in "Old Jemmy, an excellent new Ballad,"
Old Jemmy is the top, And cheef among the princes; No mobile gay fop With Bromingham pretences.
In another ballad bearing the same title, the same phrase occurs:
Let Whig and Bremingham repine, They shew their teeth in vain; The glory of the British line, Old Jemmy's come again.
These are in Mr Luttrell's collection; where there is another Tory song, entitled, "A proper new Birmingham ballad, to the tune of Hey Boys Up Go We."
In another Grubstreet performance, entitled, "a Medley on the plot, by Mathew Taubman:"
Confound the hypocrites, Birminghams royal, Who thinks allegeance a transgression; Since to oppose the king is counted loyal, And to rail high at the succession. — — — — — — — Let them boast of loyal Birminghams, and true, And with these make up their kirk of separation; We have honest Tory Tom, Dick, and Hugh, Will drink on, and do more service for the nation.
North, however, gives rather a different derivation. He says, that the loyalists, becoming anxious to retort some nickname in return for that of tories with which they had been branded, first called their "adversaries true blues; because such were not satisfied to be Protestants as the churchmen were, but must be true Protestants, implying the others to be false ones, just not Papists. Then they went on, and stiled the adversary Birmingham Protestants, alluding to the false groats struck at that place. This held a considerable time; but the word was not fluent enough for hasty repartee, and after divers changes, the lot fell on the word whig, which was very significative, as well as ready, being vernacular in Scotland, whence it was borrowed, for sour and corrupted whey. Immediately the train took, and, upon the first touch of the experiment, it ran like wild fire, and became general." Examen. p. 321.
By the phrase of Anti-Brominghams, used in the text, Dryden therefore means those who opposed the duke of Monmouth's pretensions, and were execrated for doing so by his fanatical followers.