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.
F1 A page a knight a Vicount, and an Earle [1613 version]
Notes. This poem was written shortly after Frances Howard’s marriage to Robert Carr in December 1613. After the 1615 revelations of the couple’s involvement in the murder of Thomas Overbury, the last line of the poem was adapted to reflect the new charges against the Countess (see ‘A page, a knight, a viscount and an Erle’). The Rawlinson version of the 1613 poem is printed and discussed by Lindley (178), while Bellany (Politics 98, 149) comments briefly on the relationship between the 1613 and 1615 versions.
A page a knight a Vicount, and an Earle1
was matched Lately to an English girle
But such A one as nere was seene before
A mayde, a wyfe, a Countesse and A whore
Source. Bodleian MS Ashmole 38, p. 116
Other known sources. Bodleian MS Rawl. D. 1048, fol. 64r
F1
1 A page...an Earle: Robert Carr came to the Court of James I in England as a page to the Earl of Dunbar, was knighted in 1607, made Viscount Rochester in 1611, and Earl of Somerset in 1613. <back>
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