The Whigs Unmask’d

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The Calves' Head Club was a secret association of anti-monarchical incendiaries who met each 30 January to mock Charles I and celebrate the anniversary of his execution. They met at night and their alcohol-fuelled shenaningans included dining on cod's, boar's, and calves' heads; and performances symbolising the King's beheading. Though a piece of Tory propaganda, Edward Ward's Secret History of the Calves'-Head Club remains the main source of information relating to this scandalous society. Via documents and testimonies, he shines a light on their shady gatherings, and conducts an exegesis of their songs, which prove replete with insolence, arrogance, and mean-spirited revanchism. Who did they think they were? seems to be the underlying question. Ward's popular text was published during the reign of Queen Anne, and enjoyed numerous reprints. This one, based on the 8th edition, comes with an appendix and other enlargments, including, as the author saw it, exposes, in verse and in prose, of the character of Presbyterians and modern Whigs; a vindication of Charles; and a defense of his character. The author has the cheek to nominate his targets his patrons, ostensibly posing as a 'friend' desiring to 'help' them by encouraging them to desist and thereby avoid prison or the chopping block.