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.
D27 Ould Sarum now is dead Younge Salisburie lyves
Notes. In the only known source, this poem immediately follows a text of the Earl of Pembroke’s sympathetic epitaph for Cecil, “You that reade passing by”.
Ould Sarum1 now is dead Younge Salisburie2 lyves
soe Crafte3 to pryde what he enjoyed gyves
interred thone, thother lives in hate
cause thould Foxe4 made our hopes unfortunate5
Twas his false crafte when nought was done amisse
5by him6 whose thoughts never dreampte of Fall of his:
But since tis thus our Comforte is this one
nowe all that viperous brood is deade and gone
Salisburye stood in Suffolke7 wote ye not whie;
That Suffolke now might stand for Salisburye.8
10Source. NCRO MS IL 4296
D27
1 Ould Sarum: Robert Cecil. Sarum is the ecclesiastical name for Salisbury. <back>
2 Younge Salisburie: Robert Cecil’s son William Cecil, Viscount Cranborne, succeeded his father as Earl of Salisbury in 1612. <back>
3 Crafte: Cecil’s fox-like cunning. <back>
4 thould Foxe: another reference to Cecil’s cunning. <back>
5 made our hopes unfortunate: although the meaning of this phrase and of the following two lines is not entirely clear, they seem to refer to Cecil’s alleged engineering of the fall and destruction of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. <back>
7 stood in Suffolke: a bawdy pun alluding to Cecil’s alleged sexual relationship with Catherine Howard, Countess of Suffolk. <back>
8 Suffolke now might stand for Salisburye: the exact meaning of the last line is difficult to pin down, although it is probable that Suffolk here refers to Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, one of the chief courtiers who stood to gain new office from Cecil’s death. <back>
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