Philobiblon: Street urchins will be street urchins

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Street urchins will be street urchins

At the end of May 1651 Queen Henrietta Maria invited Prince James, the future James II, to join her in a palace near Paris. He had been visiting his sister Mary in The Hague, where:

"The boys of the town had greeted the regicide's ambassadors with cries of 'Connick-stickers'. James and his sister took much pleasure in openly riding past the official residence allotted to Cromwell's representatives. Their attendants took equal delight in teaching the willing youngsters to shout 'Cromwell's bastards' after them whenever they appeared in public. Such was the widespread hostility that [Walter] St John and [Oliver] Strickland were at times reluctant to venture out of their lodgings."
Footnote: "The cat-calls were not difficult for the ambassadors to understand: "Crownels-Bastardts, Koninghs-Moorders, Enherlsche-Beuls."

OK, I've got the first two of those, but not "Connick-stickers", or the last, "English balls?".

Any Dutch-speakers out there to help?

From: "Six Unpublished Letters of Queen Henrietta Maria," by R.A. Beddard, The British Library Journal, Volume 25, 199, pp. 129-143.

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