*
This crowning of a king
Is a strange, uncomfortable thing:
*
Among the watching crowd:
A pleasant peasant madness;
On our screens: choreographed grandness
While unseen cops arrest and make all protest voiceless;
And he who is crowned
Bares visible sadness.
*
How different this third Charles from his predecessor, the second one. The one thing they do have in common is that both are ruled by their mistresses. As Rochester had it:
In th’ isle of Britain, long since famous grown
For breeding the best cunts in Christendom,
There reigns, and oh! long may he reign and thrive,
The easiest King and best bred man alive.
Him no ambition moves to get reknown
Like the French fool, that wanders up and down
Starving his people, hazarding his crown.
Peace is his aim, his gentleness is such,
And love he loves, for he loves fucking much.
Nor are his high desires above his strength:
His scepter and his prick are of a length;
And she may sway the one who plays with th’ other,
And make him little wiser than his brother.
Poor Prince! thy prick, like thy buffoons at court,
Will govern thee because it makes thee sport.
‘Tis sure the sauciest prick that e’er did swive,
The proudest, peremptoriest prick alive.
Though safety, law, religion, life lay on ‘t,
‘Twould break through all to make its way to cunt.
Restless he rolls about from whore to whore,
A merry monarch, scandalous and poor.
To Carwell, the most dear of all his dears,
The best relief of his declining years,
Oft he bewails his fortune, and her fate:
To love so well, and be beloved so late.
Yet his dull, graceless bollocks hang an arse.
This you’d believe, had I but time to tell ye
The pains it costs to poor, laborious Nelly,
Whilst she employs hands, fingers, mouth, and thighs,
Ere she can raise the member she enjoys.
All monarchs I hate, and the thrones they sit on,
From the hector of France to the cully of Britain.
The one great contrast between the Charleses II and III, aside from II’s horniness, is that while CII was “a merry monarch, scandalous and poor”, CIII is sad, but scandalously rich.
“A mournful monarch, scandalously rich” ?
Nicely nails the claustrophobia Charles must have felt as the heavy crown weighed down his head.
“A pleasant peasant madness” is finely calibrated
Great poem!
Grazie, Luisa!