This is perhaps the most popular of all the Cavalier songs - a
favour which it partly owes to the excellent melody with which it
is associated. The song, says Mr Chappell, is ascertained to be by
Martin Parker, by the following extract from the GOSSIPS' FEAST, or
Moral Tales, 1647. "By my faith, Martin Parker never got a fairer
treat: no, not when he indited that sweet ballad, When the King
enjoys his own again." In the poet's Blind Man's Bough (or Buff),
1641, Martin Parker says,


"Whatever yet was published by me
Was known as Martin Parker, or M. P.;"


but this song was printed without his name or initials, at a time
when it would have been dangerous to give either his own name or
that of his publisher. Ritson calls it the most famous song of any
time or country. Invented to support the declining interest of
Charles I., it served afterwards with more success to keep up the
spirits of the Cavaliers, and promote the restoration of his son;
an event which it was employed to celebrate all over the kingdom.
At the Revolution of 1688, it of course became an adherent of the
exiled King, whose cause it never deserted. It did equal service
in 1715 and 1745. The tune appears to have been originally known
as MARRY ME, MARRY ME, QUOTH THE BONNIE LASS. Booker, Pond,
Hammond, Rivers, Swallow, Dade, and "The Man in the Moon," were all
astrologers and Almanac makers in the early days of the civil war.
"The Man in the Moon" appears to have been a loyalist in his
predictions. Hammond's Almanac is called "bloody" because the