Mercy (Version 2)

Mary Broad of Fowey stole
a silken bonnet and other goods
to the value of eleven guineas.

Hang by the neck until you are dead.

Truan Kernow, was not said
in her defence. Cornwall is poor. Young men
are pressed into the American war; their boats
lie rotting. Candles are taxed, and windows;
salt taxed and scarce, so fish cannot be cured.
Land is enclosed, small farmers dispossessed,
and corn is dear. Thus great offence is done
against the mariner William Broad, and Grace his wife,
their daughters Grace and Mary, and their neighbours.

But now the fairy-tale begins.
For Mary’s knight would come,
in shiny shiny armour buffed
and polished to perfection

bearing a message from
and through the offices of

His Exceptionable Jobbery
the Lord Goblet of Vintage,
His Majesty's High Palterer
and Keeper of the Leghorns

conveying to the Court
the cogitations of His Majesty
the fervours and the ardours
of His Jesterly King George

His Majesty hath been gra-
The Royal hath-been hath been gra-
ciously pleased hath been ungra-
ciously indifferent hath been

pleased the word is pleased
the paper word is pleased

to grant his Royal arsy-versy
Mercy. Not mercy; Mercy.

His Travesty is greased to grunt
his romyeralcy, his meroycyal.

Mercy, noun. The lower decks
of stinking prison hulks;
scurvy; typhoid; dysentry;
a pretence of kindness.

His Majesty’s Lords and Commons
are here indicted for conspiring to deprive
the families of Barsby, Kneebone, Fryer,
Piggott, Broad and sundry others

of their living to the value
of a thousand candles; and of life
to the value of the whole green Earth.

Have you reached a verdict?



Mercy (Version 1)

Mary Broad of Fowey stole
a silken bonnet and other goods
to the value of eleven guineas.

But King George’s constables
were well-informed and prompt,
and brought her to the Exeter Assize.

Hang by the neck until you are dead.

No speech was made
in her defence. The following
was not said:

Truan Kernow. Cornwall is poor. Young men
are pressed into the American war; their boats
lie rotting. Candles are taxed, and windows;
salt taxed and scarce, so fish cannot be cured.
Land is enclosed, small farmers dispossessed,
and corn is dear. Thus great offence is done
against William Broad, his goodwife Grace,
their daughters Grace and Mary, and their neighbours.

But now the fairy-tale begins.
For Mary’s knight would come,
in shiny shiny armour buffed
and polished to perfection

bearing a message from
and through the offices of

His Exceptionable Jobbery
the Lord Goblet of Vintage,
His Majesty's High Palterer
and Keeper of the Leghorns

conveying to the Court
the cogitations of His Majesty
the fervours and the ardours
of His Jesterly King George

His Majesty hath been gra-
The Royal hath-been hath been gra-
ciously pleased hath been ungra-
ciously indifferent hath been

pleased the word is pleased
the paper word is pleased

to grant his Royal arsy-versy
Mercy. Not mercy; Mercy.

His Travesty is greased to grunt
his romyeralcy, his meroycyal.

Mercy, noun. The lower decks
of stinking prison hulks;
scurvy; typhoid; dysentry;
a pretence of kindness.

Truan Kernow. Grace and William Broad,
and their daughters Grace and Mary, and all
the fisher-folk of Fowey, were by His Majesty’s

rotten-borough Lords and Commons
robbed of their living to the value
of a thousand candles; and of life
to the value of the whole green Earth.