A web-based edition of early seventeenth-century political poetry from manuscript sources. It brings into the public domain over 350 poems, many of which have never before been published.
Pi18 Heere lies a gratious graceles Peere
Notes. Like “Fortunes darling, Kings Content”, this epitaph economically weaves together a wide array of charges against the late Duke. The poem also uses Buckingham’s scandalous reputation as a poisoner—his “trade” was “Murther”—to legitimate the assassin Felton’s morally and legally troubling decision to take the law into his own hands.
“Epitaph”
Heere lies a gratious graceles Peere,
Of King belov’d, to ’s countrie deere,1
That did both Foot and horse commaund,
And beare the sway by Sea and Land;2
To death which many thousand sent3
5Ere hee receiv’d the death hee lent.
Nor Law nor Justice had to doe
With what his Will consented to,
Nor was there any question made
With him of Murther:4 ’twas his trade:
10And will his Ghost bee angrie trowe5
If any other6 should doe soe?
Can any thinke his scholler naught
For doeing that himself hath taught?
But he that killd this killer thus,
15Did it to save himself and us:
Thus farr then with him wee’l dispence,
Hee did it in his owne defence,7
Besides, his Act redeem’d agen
Great multitudes of honest Men.
20Then all the Fault, and all the Wrong
Was, that hee let him live soe long.
Source. BL MS Sloane 826, fol. 183r-v
Other known sources. Bodleian MS Malone 23, p. 144; BL MS Egerton 2725, fol. 82r; St. John’s MS K.56, no. 22
Pi18
1 deere: pun on the double meaning of “dear”, as cherished and as costly, with the implication that although Buckingham was cherished by his king, he was costly to his country. <back>
2 That did both Foot...and Land: Buckingham was Lord Admiral and commander of the English army during the war with France in 1627-28. <back>
3 To death which many thousand sent: news reports estimated the English casualties suffered during the 1627 expedition to the Ile de Ré in the thousands. <back>
4 Murther: the murders in question were the alleged poisonings of James I and a handful of rival courtiers. The charges were first levelled in George Eglisham’s 1626 pamphlet, The Forerunner of Revenge, and later repeated in many libels. <back>
6 any other: i.e. Felton. <back>
7 Hee did it in his owne defence: i.e. if Buckingham was a mortal threat to the whole nation (including the assassin), Felton acted in self-defence and was thus no murderer. <back>
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