The Vicar of Bray

IN 1 good King Charles’s golden days,   When loyalty no harm meant, A zealous high-churchman was I,   And so I got preferment. To teach my flock I never missed:   Kings were by God appointed, And lost are those that dare resist   Or touch the Lord’s anointed.     And this is law that I ’ll maintain       Until my dying day, sir,     That whatsoever king shall reign,       Still I ’ll be the Vicar of Bray, sir. When royal James possessed the crown,   And popery came in fashion, The penal laws I hooted down,   And read the Declaration; The Church of Rome I found would fit   Full well my constitution; And I had been a Jesuit   But for the Revolution.     And this is law, etc. When William was our king declared,   To ease the nation’s grievance; With this new wind about I steered,   And swore to him allegiance; Old principles I did revoke,   Set conscience at a distance; Passive obedience was a joke,   A jest was non-resistance.     And this is law, etc. When royal Anne became our queen,   The Church of England’s glory, Another face of things was seen,   And I became a Tory; Occasional conformists base,   I blamed their moderation; And thought the Church in danger was,   By such prevarication.     And this is law, etc. When George in pudding-time came o’er,   And moderate men looked big, sir, My principles I changed once more,   And so became a Whig, sir; And thus preferment I procured   From our new faith’s-defender, And almost every day adjured   The Pope and the Pretender.     And this is law, etc. The illustrious house of Hanover,   And Protestant succession, To these I do allegiance swear—   While they can keep possession: For in my faith and loyalty   I nevermore will falter, And George my lawful king shall be—   Until the times do alter.     And this is law that I ’ll maintain       Until my dying day, sir,     That whatsoever king shall reign,       Still I ’ll be the Vicar of Bray, sir. Note 1. “The Vicar of Bray in Berkshire, England, was Simon Alleyn, or Allen, who held his place from 1540 to 1588. He was a Papist under the reign of Henry the Eighth, and a Protestant under Edward the Sixth. He was a Papist again under Mary, and once more became a Protestant in the reign of Elizabeth. When this scandal to the gown was reproached for his versatility of religious creeds, and taxed for being a turn-coat and an inconstant changeling, as Fuller expresses it, he replied: ‘Not so neither; for if I changed my religion, I am sure I kept true to my principle, which is to live and die the Vicar of Bray.’”—DISRAELI. [back]