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.
Nv1 What suddayne change hath dark’t of late
Notes. This poem, written by King James on the occasion of Prince Charles’s and Buckingham’s highly controversial journey to Madrid (February-October 1623), passed into manuscript culture, and contributed to the broader public debate on the Spanish Match. Cogswell (Blessed Revolution 43-44) places James’s poem in context of the wider debates, while Perry (“Late Manuscript Poetry of James I” 217-224) offers a detailed reading of the politics of the poem’s manipulation of the “pastoral idiom” (217).
“A Poeme made by Kinge James, upon the voyage of his sonne Charles & Marquesse Buckingham, into Spayne. March: 1622”1
What suddayne change hath dark’t of late,
The glory of th’ Arcadian state?2
The fleecy flockes refuse to feede;
The lambes to play, the ewes to breede.
The Altars smoake, the offringes burne,
5Till Jack & Tom3 doe safe returne.
The spring neglects his course to keepe,
The ayre with mightie stormes doth weepe;
The prety birdes disdaine to singe,
The meades to swell, the woodes to springe.
10The mountaynes droppe, the fountaynes mourne,
Till Jack and Tom doe safe returne.
What may it bee, that mooves this woe,
Whose want affectes Arcadia soe?
The hope of Greece, the proppe of artes,
15Was princely Jacke, the Joy of heartes.
And Tom was to our royall Pan,4
The chiefest Swayne, and truest man.
The lofty toppes of Menalus,5
Did shake with winde from Hesperus,6
20Whose sweete delicious ayre did fly,
Through all the boundes of Arcadie.
Which moov’d a vayne in Jacke and Tom,
To see the coast, it issued from.
The winde was love; the Princes stout
25To Pages turnes;7 but who can doubt,
(Where equall fortune love procures,
And æquall love successe assures,)
But venturous Jacke will bring to Greece,
The best of price, the Golden fleece.8
30Love is a world of many Spaynes,
Where coldest hilles and hottest playnes,
With barren rockes and fertill feelds
By turne despayre and comfort yeelds.
But who can doubt of prosperous luck,
35Where love and fortune doth conduct?
Thy grandsire, godsire, father too,9
Were thyne examples so to doe.
Their brave attempts in heate of love,10
France, Scotland, Denmarke did approve.
40So Jacke and Tom doe nothing new
When love and fortune they pursue.
Kinde shepheards11 that have lov’d them long,
Bee not too rashe in censuring wrong:
Correct your feares, leave of to mourne,
45The heavens shall favour their returne.
Committ the care to Regall Pan,
Of Jack his sonne, and Tom his man.
Source. Bodleian MS Rawl. Poet. 26, fol. 21r-v
Other known sources. James VI and I 2.192; “Poems from a Seventeenth-Century Manuscript” 124; Bodleian MS Rawl. D. 1048, fol. 73r; BL Add. MS 28640, fol. 128v; BL MS Harley 837, fol. 74r; St. John’s MS K.56, no. 71; Beinecke MS Osborn b.197, p. 104
Nv1
1 March: 1622: i.e. March 1623 (new-style dating). <back>
2 th’ Arcadian state: Arcadia, a mountainous region of Greece, and quintessential pastoral state; here standing for England. <back>
3 Jack & Tom: as they made their way from England, in disguise, Prince Charles and Buckingham had assumed the pseudonyms Jack and Tom Smith. Charles was Jack, Buckingham Tom. <back>
4 royall Pan: the god of shepherds, primarily worshipped in Arcadia; here standing for James. <back>
5 Menalus: a mountain in Greece. <back>
6 Hesperus: the West. For Romans, Hesperus was Spain. <back>
7 Princes stout / To Pages turnes: allusion to Charles and Buckingham’s adoption of servants’ guise as they left England. <back>
8 Golden fleece: in Greek myth, Jason and the Argonauts sailed to Colchis to secure the golden fleece. Here—as in other poems on the 1623 adventure—the fleece is the Infanta of Spain. <back>
9 Thy grandsire, godsire, father too: a better reading—which makes sense of the allusion, and which is found in other copies—has “Thy grandsire great, thy father too”. <back>
10 Their brave...love: allusion to the actions of Charles’s father and great-grandfather in sailing off from Scotland to collect their wives. James VI and I sailed to Denmark in 1589 to marry Anne and bring her home to Scotland. James V of Scotland went to France to woo his wife. <back>
11 Kinde shepheards: English critics of Charles and Buckingham’s voyage to Spain. James’s dismissal of his subjects’ complaints, and insistence they “Committ the care to Regall Pan” links this poem to the sentiments expressed in a number of royal pronouncements and actions during the debates about the Spanish Match. <back>
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