In autumn 1674, verses circulated On the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen presenting the late King and Duke of York each with a copy of their Freedom. The libel was attributed to Andrew Marvell. Whether he wrote them or not is less important than the fact that, in terms of their content and intent, he (and his friends) clearly could have done so. Marvell was hardly averse to satirising the Stuarts. He was also fully acquainted with the political and idiomatic contexts that, in this instance, informed the satirist's pen: indeed, his friend Richard Thompson sat on the committee charged with costing the presentation of the freedom to the Duke of York. The poet's initial objection to the presentation was that ‘you Addle-Brain'd Citts’ had wasted money on ‘Diamonds and Gold’ when ‘your Orphans want Bread to feed on’. As importantly, neither Charles nor James was worthy of enfranchisement. The king ‘ne'er knew not he / How to serve or be free’. Since being ‘bound’ as monarch in 1661, he had ‘every Day broke his Indentures’: instead of learning his trade he wasted all his time ‘Revelling, Drinking and Whoring’. A bad apprentice, he was also profligate. Although his ‘Masters’ – the public – had ‘Intrusted him with Cash’, he had spent and borrowed so ‘his Creditors’ were ‘all left in Sorrow’. He ‘molested the neighbours’, kept ‘Company lewd’, and left only ‘Debts / And the Bastards he gets’ in his wake.