Well Done, Thou Good and Faithful Servant
1662
This is the ballad of a faithful servant
As loyal as he was true:
His name it was George Downing and
That’s ‘Sir George’ to you…
O the king sat on the Privy Council
Drinking the wine-red blood
And promising to forgive & forget
As all good Christians should.
But once he got behind closed doors
The king soon changed his fettle:
‘I’m not in the forgiving vein —
I’ve got Dad’s score to settle!
O where will I find a true-hearted man
To track his regicides down
And trick ’em to trust us & face our good justice,
Those traitors to the crown?
For as I suppose everyone knows
They’re in old Amsterdam,
And I look a right stately Johnny-come-lately
The longer they’re on the lam.’
Such was the jolly king’s request
(I mean King Charles II)
So George knelt down, suppressed a frown,
And just for a moment reckoned…
But our man didn’t need to think
Too hard about this one
Before bringing to mind where he’d most likely find
Traitors on the run
Because not three years prior to this
He’d played double with the Dutch
Hunting out spies, though George fought shy
Of talking about it much
For back in the day Cromwell had in his pay
No servant so faithful & true
As George Downing, Esquire — back then
He wasn’t ‘Sir George’ to you —
And he’d won his fame & made his name
As a good republican would
By rounding up royalist sympathisers
In that same neck of the woods.
So up George stands at the King’s command
And takes his marching orders
To ship ‘em home o’er the briny foam
To be hung, drawn & quartered.
And as it was written so it was done
And in return the state
Rewarded Downing handsomely
With some Westminster real estate.
One street in particular
Bore his name from age to age:
Thus England commemorates
Its royalist heritage —
If not the man, his works; if not
The names upon his list,
Then how kindly he served them all —
I think you get the gist.