A hastily-scrawled poem lamenting the fate of ‘dead England’ and the toppling of the known social order may seem to the modern eye a strange means by which to reinforce common bonds of allegiance and rekindle a sense of defiance in the face of defeat. In the estimations of the poem's author, Richard Bellings – long-time secretary to the Catholic Confederation of Kilkenny, ardent Royalist, and devout Irish Catholic – the future seemed unequivocally grim. At the time of his writing to his friend and ally, the English Royalist and diplomat Sir Richard Browne, Bellings had been in exile in France for most of a decade, lending what little support he could muster to restoring Charles Stuart, son of the executed Charles I, to the throne of the ‘Three Kingdoms’ (England, Scotland, and Ireland) following the resolute defeat of the Royalist cause in the Civil Wars (or ‘Wars of the Three Kingdoms’) of 1639–51. Exile came at an immense personal cost for Bellings and his fellow Royalists, marked as it was by long periods of destitution, dislocation, and disillusionment.