Lord Howard tooke a sword in hand, And off he smote Sir Andrewes head, "I must have left England many a daye, If thou wert alive as thou art dead." He caused his body to be cast Over the hatchbord into the sea, And about his middle three hundred crownes: "Wherever thou land this will bury thee." Thus from the warres lord Howard came, And backe he sayled ore the maine, With mickle joy and triumphing Into Thames mouth he came againe. Lord Howard then a letter wrote, And sealed it with seale and ring; "Such a noble prize have I brought to your grace, As never did subject to a king: "Sir Andrewes shipp I bring with mee; "The rover, he is safe, my liege, Full many a fadom in the sea; If he were alive as he is dead, I must have left England many a day: And your grace may thank four men i' the ship For the victory wee have wonne, These are William Horseley, Henry Hunt, And Peter Simon, and his sonne." To Henry Hunt, the king then sayd, In lieu of what was from thee tane, A noble a day now thou shalt have, Sir Andrewes jewels and his chayne. And Horseley thou shalt be a knight, And lands and livings shalt have store; Howard shall be erle Surrye hight, As Howards erst have been before. Nowe, Peter Simon, thou art old, will maintaine thee and thy sonne: And the men shall have five hundred markes For the good service they have done. Then in came the queene with ladyes fair To see Sir Andrewe Barton knight: They weend that hee were brought on shore, And thought to have seen a gallant sight. But when they see his deadlye face, And eyes soe hollow in his head, I wold give, quoth the king, a thousand markes, This man were alive as hee is dead: Yett for the manfull part hee playd, Which fought soe well with heart and hand, His men shall have twelvepence a day, Till they come to my brother kings high land. XIII.-LADY ANNE BOTHWELL'S LAMENT. A SCOTTISH SONG. THE subject of this pathetic ballad the Editor once thought might possibly relate to the Earl of Bothwell and his desertion of his wife, Lady Jean Gordon, to make room for his marriage with the Queen of Scots. But this opinion he now believes to be groundless; indeed, Earl Bothwell's age, who was upwards of sixty at the time of that marriage, renders it unlikely that he should be the object of so warm a passion as this elegy supposes. He has been since informed, that it entirely refers to a private story: A young lady of the name of Bothwell, or rather Boswell, having been together with her child deserted by her husband or lover, composed these affecting lines herself, which here are given from a copy in the Editor's folio MS. corrected by another in Allan Ramsay's Miscellany. Balow, my babe, lye still and sleipe! Balow, my babe, ly stil and sleipe, Whan he began to court my luve, Balow, etc. Lye still, ray darling, sleipe a while, *When sugar was first imported into Europe, it was a very great dairty; and therefore the epithet sugred is used by all our old writers metaphorically to express extreme and delicate sweetness. (See above, No. XI. V. 10) Sugar at present is cheap and common, and therefore suggests now a coarse and vulgar idea. I cannae chuse, but ever will Balow, etc. But doe not, doe not, prettie mine, Bairne, sin thy cruel father is gane, Balow, etc. Fareweil, fareweil, thou falsest youth, XIV. THE MURDER OF THE KING OF SCOTS.* THE catastrophe of Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, the unfortunate husband of Mary Queen of Scots, is the subject of this ballad. It is here related in that partial imperfect manner, in which such an event would naturally strike the subjects of another kingdom, of which he was a native. Henry, Lord Darnley, was eldest son of the Earl of Lennox, by the Lady Margaret Douglas, niece of Henry VIII. and daughter of Margaret, Queen of Scotland, by the Earl of Angus, whom that princess married after the death of James IV. Darnley, who had been born and educated in England, was but in his twenty-first year, when he was murdered Feb. 9, 1567-8. This crime was perpetrated by the Earl of Bothwell, not out of respect to the memory of Rizzio, but in order to pave the way for his own marriage with the queen. This ballad (printed, with a few corrections, from the Editor's folio MS.) seems to have been written soon after Mary's escape into England in 1568, see v. 65. Woe worth, woe worth thee, false Scot lànde ! For thou hast ever wrought by sleight; The worthyest prince that ever was borne, You hanged under a cloud by night. The queene of France a letter wrote, And sealed itt with harte and ringe; And bade him come Scotland within, And shee wold marry and crowne him kinge. To be a king is a pleasant thing, To bee a prince unto a peere : There was an Italyan in that place, Was as well beloved as ever was hee, Lord David was his name, Chamberlaine to the queene was hee. If the king had risen forth of his place, And tho itt beseemed him not so well, Some lords in Scotlande waxed wroth, I shall you tell how it befell, Twelve daggers were in him att once. When the queene saw her chamberlaine was slaine, For him her faire cheeks shee did weete, And made a vowe for a yeare and a day The king and shee wold not come in one sheete. Then some of the lords they waxed wrothe, And made their vow all vehementlye; For the death of the queenes chamberlaine, The king himselfe, how he shall dye. With gun-powder they strewed his roome, To bedd the king he made him bowne; But his chamber was on a blasing fire. Up he lope, and the window brake, * Given in folio as "Earle Bodwell XV.-A SONNET BY QUEEN ELIZABETH. THE following lines, if they display no rich vein of poetry, are yet so strongly characteristic of their great and spirited authoress, that the insertion of them will be pardoned. They are preserved in Puttenham's Arte of English Poesie, a book in which are many sly addresses to the queen's foible of shining as a poetess. |