The Lady's Dance. Devil's Ridden Whore

I don't think I'd be lonesome when sayin' that turning toward the Lord did her more harm than when she was merely the "Devil's Ridden' Whore." I mean, unless you~ mate would so forward to follow that line of thinking~ for that name, and call our dear late King: the Merry Monarch Charlie a "Devil" if you get my meanin'. Oh yes, she was His, and several of the Burghers of several townships you know and several manors you know. 

They dressed her in sequined silks from Calicut, and ruby of Thakurs, and perfumes of Parisian salon houses. Though admittedly, everything French was rightfully becoming a woman like her.

 ...And so she was, that thrilling merchandize, well rented and besotted with brandy- roused love, calling all her buyers as her riders. And...well, speaking of horses~ who could forget that time when she made that horse "Her Merry Husband? " 

Alas, she threw away all of that to God. And if you recall, some times those past years, there was something that was even made of this "Second Magdalene" among the more pious circles of the realm. The Good Lord had worked in mysterious ways. At least that's what the pious preachers reasoned. 

What's more mysterious was that the Lord might have actually made a real good woman of her. That after that slaughter at Sedgemoor, after that chirping- merry bastard King Jim Scott Monmouth fled his men, that she was hiding all of these tattered rebel boys in her barn from the crown's soldiers?

Oh that didn't please none. And those boys were hang like lamp from Taunton to Bridgwater- have their bellies gutted like fish, if not hacked n' quarter'ed' . And that Duke Jim Monmouth lost his young head. And she too~ however she was hated before she turned good, was nothing compared to how she's hated after found to have saved those unworthy lives. Especially by those who once preached that she was a "Second Magdalene" and some such. Certainly not those burghers of those manors either. The "Devil's Ridden' Whore" would die, hanged tall until dead, then have her unhappy head struck off and tarred and posted, while cursed by all.

Some say, a traitress against King was worse than havin' been' a thousand "Devil's Ridden Whore."  Others say she was unwise in her Christian charity. Still others persist she was never a good woman at all. 

But that's above our pay, Lads.

We've only paid enough to strangle her.

*Morning heralded something exciting for the wintry gallows gawkers around Stone Gallows near Taunton- which was located in the wooded intersection between several main roads in Somerset, and where tattered corpses dangle like lanterns before all passing wagons. Of the several triangular beamed gallows in the region, there was one with the distinction that was particularly reserved for women and- at special times, even some ill- fated ladies of quality. The verification from court which confirmed that several traitresses who had acted against the interest of the King would be promptly executed without mercy soon drew a sizeable crowd of all distinctions and age groups. After all, how many times does one get to see a "Devil's Ridden Whore" rightfully punished? -Even if she had long stopped being one.