Some of the old print artifacts I come across in the EEBO (Early English Books Online) archive seem worth sharing. This one’s from An exact description of the manner how His Maiestie and his nobles went to Parliament, on Munday, the thirteenth day of Aprill, 1640, a broadside celebrating the assembly of England’s parliament after a long period of personal rule under Charles I. Some poetry accompanies the above representation of the royal procession, the opening stanzas of which seem to accurately capture the mood at Parliament’s assembly:

Come the merriest of the nine,
And now unto my aid incline,
I need a little helpe of thine
For now I have intent
Unto the world to say and sing
The praises of our royall King,
Who now this present hopefull spring
Hath call’d a Parliament.

This happy Aprill will, I trust,
Give all true subjects reason just
Of joy to feele a pleasant gust,
To yeeld them hearts content:
For we may be assur’d of this,
If any thing hath beene amisse,
Our King and State will all redresse
In this good Parliament.

I’ll go ahead and share the closing stanza as well:

Besides all this which hath been told
(To speake the same I dare be bold)
Though corporall eyes could not behold,
A Legion did present
Celestiall service to attend
King Charles, and him from harm defend,
The King of Kings did’s Angels send
T’assist our Parliament.

Despite assistance from such lofty quarters, and despite numerous MPs who sought to “restore Parliament… [as] the bed of reconciliation betweene a king & his people,” the assembly of April 13 collapsed after three short weeks — and so earned its latter-day name, “The Short Parliament.” As one particularly ardent Parliamentarian (Sir Benjamin Rudyerd) would lament, “all kings naturally love power as people liberty.”