Address To The Queen, June 20th, 1887.
To the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty.
Most Gracious Sovereign Lady, Victoria Alexandra Guelph, Queen of the
hearts of her people throughout all civilisation, one of your Majesty’s
loyal and faithful subjects desires most respectfully to approach your
Majesty to congratulate you upon the completion of the fiftieth year of
your reign. In the same year of your Majesty’s coronation, in a wild
part of old Yorkshire, where it is said the wind never blew nor the cock
ever crew, was your Most Gracious Majesty’s humble servant born; and at
the very hour that your Majest ascended the Throne, a kind, good
Yorkshire mother was rocking her baby in an old oak cradle, while the
father was treading the treadles and picking the shuttle of his old
hand-loom to the tune of “Britons never shall be slaves”; and I am proud
to convey to your Majesty that the child in the old oak cradle was no
less a person than your Majesty’s humble and obedient servant, Bill o’th’
Hoylus End, Poet and Philosopher to the plebians of Keighley, and who now
rejoices in the fiftieth year of your Majesty’s reign that he has been
blessed with good health during that long period, having had at no time
occasion to call in a physician. John Barleycorn has been my medical
adviser, and when I begin to review the fifty years of your most
illustrious reign, from my birth, I feel grateful indeed, for great and
mighty men and nations have risen and fallen; but I am proud to think
that your Most Gracious Majesty and your humble servant have weathered
the storm, and I also can assure your Majesty that the lukewarm loyalty
of the upper ten is not a sample of people here, for during the latter
half of your Majesty’s reign up to now prosperity has shone upon the once
crooked, old, mis-shapen town, for wealth has been accumulated to the
tune of millions, which I am sorry to inform your Majesty is in the hands
of those who mean to keep it. One portion of your Majesty’s lukewarm
loyal subjects have the advancement of art and science so much on the
brain that it is feared they will go stark mad. I have also much
pleasure in informing your gracious Majesty that His Grace the Duke of
Devonshire has presented the people of Keighley with a plot of ground to
be called the Devonshire Park, which will be opened on the occasion of
your Majesty’s Jubilee; also that Henry Isaac Butterfield, Esquire, of
bonny Cliffe Castle, has erected a noble-looking structure, to be called
the Jubilee Tower, which will be opened on the day of your Majesty’s
Grand Jubilee, to commemorate your Majesty’s glorious reign. This
gentleman is a native of Keighley, and fairly entitled to be knighted by
your gracious Majesty, seeing that he has done more to beautify the town
than all the rest. It has also been given out that the town has to be
honoured by a royal visit from your Majesty’s grandson, Prince George.
But pray take a fool’s advice, your Majesty, and don’t let him come
unless he is able to pay his own expenses; for I can assure His Royal
Highness that this is the city of number oneism. Yet with the exception
of parting with the bawbees, I dare be sworn that your Majesty’s subjects
in Keighley are the grand and genuine men of the shire, take them in art
and science, flood or field.
I sincerely hope that your Most Gracious Majesty will excuse the blunt
and out-spoken Bard, who will ever remain your Majesty’s most humble and
obedient servant,—BILL O’TH’ HOYLUS END.
P.S.—I beg your Majesty’s most humble pardon, for since I addressed your
most gracious Majesty a note has come to me stating that the Brewers,
Bakers, Shoemakers, and Tailors, have subscribed and bought a splendid
Ox, which will be roasted and served to the poor on the occasion of the
celebration of your most gracious Majesty’s Jubilee.
Then Hail to England’s Gracious Queen!
’Tis now proclaimed afar,
The Jubilee of our Gracious Queen,
The Empire’s Guiding Star.
For fifty years she’s been to us
A Monarch and a Mother;
And looks her subjects in the face
As Sister or a Brother.
Then here’s a health to England’s Queen
Whom Jove to us hath given;
A better Monarch ne’er has been
Beneath His starry heaven.
There is no man of any clan,
O’er any land or sea,
But what will sing “God bless our Queen”
On her grand Jubilee.
The world looks on Old England’s Queen
In danger for protection;
Nor never yet hath England failed
To make her grand correction.
“Fair play,” she cries, no one shall harm
A child beneath my realm;
I’m Captain of Great Britain’s barque
And standing at the helm.
Had England trusted wicked men,
This day where had she been?
But lo! she had a Guiding Star,
’Twas our dear Mother Queen.
There is no foe, where’er you go
This day, I vow, could hate her;
She’s a blessing to her nation,
And a terror to a traitor.
As she has been, long may she reign,
The Grand Old Queen of Britain;
In letters of bright gold her name
Henceforward should be written.
All nations ’neath the stars above,
And canopy of heaven,
Rejoice to see her Jubilee
In Eighteen Eighty-seven.
Most Gracious Sovereign Lady, Victoria Alexandra Guelph, Queen of the
hearts of her people throughout all civilisation, one of your Majesty’s
loyal and faithful subjects desires most respectfully to approach your
Majesty to congratulate you upon the completion of the fiftieth year of
your reign. In the same year of your Majesty’s coronation, in a wild
part of old Yorkshire, where it is said the wind never blew nor the cock
ever crew, was your Most Gracious Majesty’s humble servant born; and at
the very hour that your Majest ascended the Throne, a kind, good
Yorkshire mother was rocking her baby in an old oak cradle, while the
father was treading the treadles and picking the shuttle of his old
hand-loom to the tune of “Britons never shall be slaves”; and I am proud
to convey to your Majesty that the child in the old oak cradle was no
less a person than your Majesty’s humble and obedient servant, Bill o’th’
Hoylus End, Poet and Philosopher to the plebians of Keighley, and who now
rejoices in the fiftieth year of your Majesty’s reign that he has been
blessed with good health during that long period, having had at no time
occasion to call in a physician. John Barleycorn has been my medical
adviser, and when I begin to review the fifty years of your most
illustrious reign, from my birth, I feel grateful indeed, for great and
mighty men and nations have risen and fallen; but I am proud to think
that your Most Gracious Majesty and your humble servant have weathered
the storm, and I also can assure your Majesty that the lukewarm loyalty
of the upper ten is not a sample of people here, for during the latter
half of your Majesty’s reign up to now prosperity has shone upon the once
crooked, old, mis-shapen town, for wealth has been accumulated to the
tune of millions, which I am sorry to inform your Majesty is in the hands
of those who mean to keep it. One portion of your Majesty’s lukewarm
loyal subjects have the advancement of art and science so much on the
brain that it is feared they will go stark mad. I have also much
pleasure in informing your gracious Majesty that His Grace the Duke of
Devonshire has presented the people of Keighley with a plot of ground to
be called the Devonshire Park, which will be opened on the occasion of
your Majesty’s Jubilee; also that Henry Isaac Butterfield, Esquire, of
bonny Cliffe Castle, has erected a noble-looking structure, to be called
the Jubilee Tower, which will be opened on the day of your Majesty’s
Grand Jubilee, to commemorate your Majesty’s glorious reign. This
gentleman is a native of Keighley, and fairly entitled to be knighted by
your gracious Majesty, seeing that he has done more to beautify the town
than all the rest. It has also been given out that the town has to be
honoured by a royal visit from your Majesty’s grandson, Prince George.
But pray take a fool’s advice, your Majesty, and don’t let him come
unless he is able to pay his own expenses; for I can assure His Royal
Highness that this is the city of number oneism. Yet with the exception
of parting with the bawbees, I dare be sworn that your Majesty’s subjects
in Keighley are the grand and genuine men of the shire, take them in art
and science, flood or field.
I sincerely hope that your Most Gracious Majesty will excuse the blunt
and out-spoken Bard, who will ever remain your Majesty’s most humble and
obedient servant,—BILL O’TH’ HOYLUS END.
P.S.—I beg your Majesty’s most humble pardon, for since I addressed your
most gracious Majesty a note has come to me stating that the Brewers,
Bakers, Shoemakers, and Tailors, have subscribed and bought a splendid
Ox, which will be roasted and served to the poor on the occasion of the
celebration of your most gracious Majesty’s Jubilee.
Then Hail to England’s Gracious Queen!
’Tis now proclaimed afar,
The Jubilee of our Gracious Queen,
The Empire’s Guiding Star.
For fifty years she’s been to us
A Monarch and a Mother;
And looks her subjects in the face
As Sister or a Brother.
Then here’s a health to England’s Queen
Whom Jove to us hath given;
A better Monarch ne’er has been
Beneath His starry heaven.
There is no man of any clan,
O’er any land or sea,
But what will sing “God bless our Queen”
On her grand Jubilee.
The world looks on Old England’s Queen
In danger for protection;
Nor never yet hath England failed
To make her grand correction.
“Fair play,” she cries, no one shall harm
A child beneath my realm;
I’m Captain of Great Britain’s barque
And standing at the helm.
Had England trusted wicked men,
This day where had she been?
But lo! she had a Guiding Star,
’Twas our dear Mother Queen.
There is no foe, where’er you go
This day, I vow, could hate her;
She’s a blessing to her nation,
And a terror to a traitor.
As she has been, long may she reign,
The Grand Old Queen of Britain;
In letters of bright gold her name
Henceforward should be written.
All nations ’neath the stars above,
And canopy of heaven,
Rejoice to see her Jubilee
In Eighteen Eighty-seven.
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