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.
J3 Heere lyes the breife of badnes vices nurse
Notes. William Davenport’s copy of this stinging attack on the imprisoned Lady Mary Lake is headed “An Ephitaphe put uppon the Ladie Lakes Dore” (CCRO MS CR 63/2/19).
“Encomium infamissime et infande Cuiusdam Mulieris ignote”1
Heere lyes the breife2 of badnes vices nurse
The badge of usurie the clergies curse,
The staine of weomen kind, tradsmens decay
The patroness of prid, Extortions highway
The forge of slaunder, and each vile action
5Frend to Romes whore,3 Spy to the Spanish faction4
A bitch of Court, a comon stincking snake5
Worse then all these, Heere Lyes the Ladie Lake.
Source. Bodleian MS Malone 23, p. 5
Other known sources. Bodleian MS Ashmole 36-37, fol. 70r and 145v; Bodleian MS Firth d.7, fol. 153r; Bodleian MS Smith 17, p. 113; BL MS Harley 791, fol. 59r; CCRO MS CR 63/2/19, fol. 20r; Folger MS V.a.345, p. 285; Huntington MS HM 116, p. 174
J3
1 Encomium...ignote: In praise of a certain unknown, infamous, unspeakable woman. <back>
2 breife: variants include “breast”, “bride” and “prize”. <back>
3 Romes whore: the Church of Rome, identified in Protestant polemic as the Whore of Babylon. <back>
4 Spy to the Spanish faction: Sir Thomas Lake was often linked at this time with the pro-Spanish Court faction. <back>
5 snake: James I compared Lady Lake to the serpent in the Garden of Eden (Birch 2.136). <back>
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