Hawkubites

The Hawkubites were a gang that supposedly 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 a "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[]