The Judgement

The Judge came into the village with

A troop of the finest horse,

The sunshine gleamed on their breastplates

And their guns and their swords, of course,

He wasn’t there to be friendly, but

To make the rebels aware,

And carried the King’s own warrant to

Set up his courthouse there.

 

The troop took over the Mason’s Hall

The Judge took over the church,

And set up a bench down in the nave

As the troops set out to search,

They looked for the signs of weaponry

In the homes of the poorest men,

Tearing apart the hovels in

The search for the rebels, then.

 

To root out the roughshod army that

Had marched to defy the king,

Who tore up the standard prayer book

That the king was offering,

They forced the priests to reverse the mass

To the way it was done before,

Laying a siege to Exeter

In the way of a civil war.

 

Now the troops rode into the villages

And they held the men in chains,

Sworn to see that they paid in blood

For their temper, and their pains,

The women were wailing in the streets

As their men were taken in,

To answer to a black-hooded Judge

For their crimes against the King.

 

There wasn’t a gallows large enough

For the men that he meant to hang,

But plenty of trees around the leas

That the cattle grazed upon,

And plenty of boughs and branches that

Would groan with the weight of men,

Whose only fault was this one revolt

When their faith was changed again.

 

They hung like fruit from the saplings,

They choked their lives from a limb,

They swung on ropes from the mighty oaks

In an orgy of suffering,

The farms lay waste in the country,

The crops lay waste in the fields,

There wasn’t an army of labourers

Just troops, with their swords and shields.

 

The Judge climbed into his black teak coach

Rode out of the village grounds,

While children wailed and the women paled

In cutting their husbands down.

The horror lay in the children’s genes

For generations, it’s said,

Till years along they would right the wrong

By taking a bad king’s head.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Barbz]

Wow, your description of the troops who would wreak havoc and inflict punishment upon the villagers, by verdict of the black hooded and hearted Judge, ordered by the Kings warrant. The woman and children of the rebels witnessed this devastation, with the vow of vengeance, as "The horror lay in the children's genes", and would be satisfied, eventually by revenge. Thank you, DLP for this descriptive masterpiece.....Barbz

[andrew mitchell]

hahaha Today nothing has changed Pollies with their perks exploit the middle class and the poor while they on a good huge salary bleed the taxpayer. Injustice indeed but no one does anything. An excellent write of old that carries on today. We need a modern Robin Hood !

[A Soap Mess Stories]

Another great tale, DLP....

[R Smith]

nice work David, its like a page out of history and a worthy ending when those young rise up to avenge their wrongs, a different type of work for you i think but another example of your very fine art :)

[B]

And this poem simply show how the justice system
Well

Is not just .......

[ANTO]

Excellent tale David - a tumultuous time in English history indeed. King beheaded then Cromwell ended up with his head in a basket too (for regicide?) - madness. You couldnt make it up, as we say here. History is even more macabre than some of your tales !! And that's saying something.
I liked this portrayal of swift and merciless justice - if you could call it that.
More power to your pen my friend.

[Marie]

A ice taste of history, this. I just finished reading a book called "Towers in the Mist," about the period when Good Quwwn Bess took the thrones and started her reforms. Which, of course, didn't all work out...

[Valentine]

Wonderful and intensive write. It made me think of something like this happening in history. This one held me until the end. Too bad the judge wasn't hung too. Valentine