This cant name had been given to the precinct of Whitefriars before 1623, then and for many years a notorious refuge for persons wishing to avoid bailiffs and creditors.

We shall not charge upon a whole party the profligacy and baseness of the horse-boys, gamblers, and bravoes, whom the hope of license and plunder attracted from the dens of Whitefriars to the standard of Charles, and who disgraced their associates by excesses which, under the stricter discipline of the Parliamentary armies, were never tolerated.