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“A Song”

O Ladies, ladies howle & cry,

For you have lost your Salisbury.

He that of late was your protection,

He is now dead by your infection.1

Come with your teares bedew his lockes,

5

Death kild him not; it was the pockes.2

Lett Suffolke now, & Walsingham.3

Leave their adulterous lives for shame:

Or else their Ladiships must know,

There is noe helpe in Doctor Poe.4

10

For though the man be very cunning,

He canne not stay the poxe5 from running.

And now these lecherous wretches all,

Which plotted worthy Essex fall,6

May see by this foule loathsome end,

15

How foulie then they did offend.

And as they all deserv’d this curse,

Oh lett them all die soe, & worse.

And lett all, that abuse the King,

Themselves to greatnes soe to bring,

20

Be forc'd to travell to the bath,7

To purge themselves of filthie froath:

And when they back againe returne,

Then lett the pockes their bowells burne.

Soe shall the King, & state be blest,

25

And subjects all shall live in rest,

All which long time have been abused

By tricks, which divellish whores have used.

But now the cheife is gone before,

I hope to see the end of more.

30

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Source. Bodleian MS Tanner 299, fols. 11v-12r

Other known sources. Folger MS V.a.345, p. 36 (first stanza only)

D12

Quick links to other poems within this section

Select page here D0: Introduction D1 Heere lies Hobbinoll D2 Advance, advance D3 Ah was there nott D4 Heere lieth Robbin D5 Two R:R:rs twoe D6 Robert E. of Salisburie D7 The old Cicilian fox D8 The divell now hath D9 This Taper, fedd D10 He nowe is deade D11 Falshoods Jewell D12 O Ladies, ladies D13 You say that Malefacit D14 Reader, if that desert D15 Heere lyes interred D16 Heere sleepes D17 Heere Robbin rousteth D18 At Hattfeilde neere D19 Passer by know heere D20 Heere lyes Salisbury D21 Heere lyes great Salisbury D22 Heere lyeth our great D23 You that reade D24 If greatnes, wisedome D25 Oh that such wisdome D26 When that rich soul D27 Ould Sarum now

¹   infection: syphilis. <back>

²   pockes: syphilis. <back>

³   Suffolke...Walsingham: Cecil’s two alleged lovers, Audrey, Lady Walsingham, wife of Sir Thomas Walsingham and Mistress of the Robes to Queen Anne (Croft, “Reputation” 58), and Catherine Howard, Countess of Suffolk, wife of Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk. <back>

⁴   Doctor Poe: Leonard Poe, one of Cecil’s physicians. <back>

⁵   poxe: syphilis. <back>

⁶   Cecil was frequently accused, both at the time and in the libellous epitaphs, of engineering the fall and 1601 execution of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex <back>

⁷   the bath: Cecil died on his return journey from taking the waters at Bath. <back>