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.
D16 Heere sleepes in the Lorde beepepperde with pox
Notes. The sole extant copy of this libel was included in a newsletter sent in August 1612 by Benjamin Norton to Thomas More, the agent in Rome for the English Archpriest, George Birkhead. Norton reported that “there bee a multitude of Epitaphes” attacking Cecil, and claimed this one was “one of the cleaneste” (Newsletters from the Archpresbyterate of George Birkhead 193).
Heere sleepes in the Lorde beepepperde with pox1
a Ciciliane monster beegott of a fox2
some caulde him crookebacke & some litle Robbin3
hee bore on his backe a packe4 like ower Dobbin5
yett none coulde rule him, ride, or beestride him
5butt he beestrid many or els they beelyde him
by crafte hee gott creditt, & honor by moneye
much hee delighted in huntinge the Cunniye6
but Rotten with ruttinge like sores in september
hee died as hee lived wth a faulte in one member.7
10Source. Newsletters from the Archpresbyterate of George Birkhead 193 (from Archives of the Archdiocese of Westminter, Series A, AAW A XI, no. 136, pp. 369-72)
D16
2 fox: Robert Cecil’s father,William Cecil, Lord Burghley was also widely credited with the cunning of a fox—he was, for instance, the courtier Fox in Spenser’s Mother Hubberds Tale. <back>
3 Robbin: diminutive of Robert. <back>
4 a packe: Cecil’s hump on his back. <back>
5 Dobbin: a horse, and also a diminutive nickname for Robin/Robert. <back>
6 huntinge the Cunniye: a lewd pun, literally meaning rabbit (coney) hunting, but here clearly also meaning sexual pursuit of women. <back>
7 faulte in one member: presumbly referring to the syphilitic infection of Cecil’s genitals. <back>
Web Marketing & Design
by FourSquare Innovations 
