The Living Age 698, 10.10.1857
"True blue" has always been the Tory color in Suffolk. Fifty years ago, when party spirit ran high, the predominant opinion of constancy implied by it was embodied in a fugitive verse which deserves to be rescued from oblivion:
True Blue will never stain;
Yellow will with a drop of rain!
T— G— for ever."
The attachment to this color thus pervaded all ranks. A very old woman at Ipswich used to boast, "Whenever I die, I shall die 'Church and King,' 'Church and King,' wonderful!" Accordingly, when that event happened, it was found that she had directed her coffin to be lined with "true blue," which was actually done, and she was buried in her favorite color.
— T. C.
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The Living Age 699, 17.10.1857
"True Blue" has generally been considered the Tory color. Your correspondent may find a sadly misplaced allusion to this color on a tombstone in Ferry Hincksey churchyard, a few miles front Oxford. It runs as follows:
"Beneath are deposited the remains of Richard Spindlove, an independent freeman of the city of Oxford, who departed this life June 13, 1825, aged 76 years.
-
"Sacred to Friendship, and to Memory dear,
All that was mortal of a Blue lies here.
One that stoodfirm throughout his lengthen'd day,
Though adverse scenes oft' mark'd his cheq-uer'd way.
Hence love of country glowing in his breast
Was uniformly by his vote exprest.
For 'twas his Pride, and Fame the truth bath told,
To prize his birthright more than sordid gold.
I once found myself under the necessity of refusing to admit a tombstone into a country churchyard, because it bore an inscription in which the huntsman's horn was put in juxtaposition with the angle's trumpet at the day of judgment.
Yet even such irreverence is hardly more shocking than the monstrous adulation upon some of the monuments found within our churches.
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