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Wilye watt,1 wilie watt

Wats2 thou not & know thou what

Looke to thy forme and quat3

in towne & Citie

Freshe Houndes4 are on thy taile

5

that will pull downe thy saile

and make thy hart & quaile

Lord for the pittie

Lordshipp is flagg’d and fled

Captainshipp newly sped

10

Dried is the Hogsheads hed5

wily watt wilie

Make the best of thy plea

least the rest goe awaie

and thou brought for to saie

15

wily beguilie

For thy skaunce6 and pride

thy bloudy minde beside

and thy mouth gaping wide

mischievous machiavell7

20

Essex for vengeance cries8

his bloud upon thee lies

mountinge above the skies

damnable fiend of hell

mischievous matchivell

25

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Source. BL Add. MS 22601, fol. 63r

Other known sources. Ralegh, Poems 186

B5

Quick links to other poems within this section

Select page here B0. Introduction B1. Nevil for the protestant B2. The Great Archpapist B3. Come all you Farmers B4. Watt I wot well B5. Wilye watt, wilie B6. Water thy plaints B7. To whome shall cursed B8. I speake to such B9. As Cats over houses B10. Who doubts of Providence B11. The prelats Pope B12. A Romane right B13. The Divell men say B14. Here lyes the Lady B15. Heere lye’s a Lord B16. Immodest death B17. Here Lyes Dick B18. Here lieth one who B19. Heer lye’s my Lord’s B20. Bancroft Was for Playes B21. Seventh Henryes

¹   watt: Wat; abbreviated form of Walter. <back>

²   Wats: pun on Wat/Walter, and “wot”, know. <back>

³   quat: squat or crouch; cower. <back>

⁴   Fresh Houndes: i.e. Ralegh’s prosecutors. <back>

⁵   Lordshipp...Hogsheads hed: reference to Ralegh’s dramatic losses at the beginning of James I’s reign. Before his implication in the Bye and Main Plots, Ralegh had lost his office as Captain of the Guard (the “Captainshipp”) and his lucrative monopoly to license wine-sellers and wine imports (“Dried is the Hogsheads [i.e. the wine cask’s] hed”). The flight of “Lordshipp” may refer to Ralegh’s loss of lands as a result of his treason conviction. <back>

⁶   skaunce: skance; a sidelong glance. <back>

⁷   machiavell: follower of the supposedly amoral and atheistic creeds of the Italian Niccolò Machiavelli. <back>

⁸   Essex for vengeance cries: Ralegh was alleged to have engineered the fall and 1601 execution of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. Ralegh’s plotting against Essex is the main subject of the contemporary poem on Ralegh’s fall, “To whome shall cursed I my Case complaine”. <back>