Hawkubites
The Hawkubites were a gang that terrorized the city of London from 1711 to 1714, during the reign of Queen Anne.[1] It is claimed that the Hawkubites beat up women, children, watchmen, and old men in the streets after dark. They preceded the dreaded Mohocks.
Reverend Divine's pamphlet
A pamphlet of the time by "Reverend Divine" was An Argument, proving from History, Reason, and Scripture, that the present Race of Mohocks and Hawke-bites are the Gog and Magog mentioned in the Revelations; and therefore that this vain and transitory World will shortly be brought to its final Dissolution. Divine claimed to have taken his words "from the Mouth of the Spirit of a Person who was slain by the Mohocks".
The "victim" in the pamphlet, called the "Spirit", writes that "I am the porter that was barbarously slain in Fleet Street. - By the Mohocks and Hawkubites was I slain, when they laid violent hands upon me. They put their hook into my mouth, they divided my nostrils asunder, they sent me, as they thought, to my long home; but now I am returned again to foretell their destruction." He goes on to write:
- From Mohock and from Hawkubite,
- Good Lord, deliver me!
- Who wander through the streets at night,
- Committing cruelty.
- They slash our sons with bloody knives,
- And on our daughters fall;
- And if they murder not our wives,
- We have good luck withal
- Coaches and chairs they overturn,
- Nay, carts most easily;
- Therefore from Gog and Magog,
- Good Lord, deliver me![2]
References
- ↑ Brewer, E. Cobham. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898)
- ↑ "June 6th". Chambers Book of Days. Retrieved 2010-10-14.