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.
J2 There is a close Prisoner in the Tower
Notes. This rare poem mixes topical allusions with conventional strains of misogyny.
“Of the Lady Lake”
There is a close Prisoner in the Tower
A woe-to-man1 who brought him to a bower.
Of sinnes deep Lake to droune in gulph of fraud
A caterpiller2 with fell-foule venome daub’de
That cropps the fruite of blooming faire delight
5Of falce worlds witt, gott by wealth meritts spight
She Rideing loves for Ryder3 was her name
Her horse Arme-strider metteld4 for the same
But now saies Fate wee have orday’nd it soe
For Rydeing fast, a foote pace she shall goe.
10Source. Bodleian MS Smith 17, p. 113
J2
1 A woe-to-man: a woman and a trouble to man. This and the following line repeat James I’s assessment that Lady Lake had been the fount of the conspiracy against Roos and the Exeters. According to the King, Lady Lake was the serpent in the Garden who first seduced Eve (Lady Roos) into sin, and then dragged Adam (Sir Thomas Lake) into the mire (Birch 2.136). <back>
2 caterpiller: common term for a corrupt and rapacious person. <back>
3 Ryder: Mary Lake was the daughter of William Ryder, a former Alderman and Lord Mayor of London. <back>
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