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.
Nv15 All the newes thats stirringe now
Notes. Most versions of this popular poem include six stanzas; however, a few have an extra stanza. Although the text of Bodleian MS Rawl. Poet. 160 is otherwise inferior, we include the extra stanza here, in its place as indicated. The poem’s sense that the Spanish Match was perhaps now not to be concluded, and its focus on the English fleet originally assembled to retrieve Charles and the Infanta from Spain, but which eventually brought home only Charles, allows us to date the verse to June-August 1623.
“On the Spanish match”
All the newes thats stirringe now
Is of the Golden Ladye:1
The Pope as yet will not agree
King James should bee her Dadye.2
The Prince he wanteth victualls,3
5Sufficient for his trayne
His horses & his Trumpeters,
Are all turn’d backe againe.
Gundimore his breech is soare4
He rides beesides the saddle,
10And hath long tyme bin hatching egges5
Now they may proove all addle.
And those false harted Englishmen,
Which wrought with him for Spaine,
Doe stand and scratch because the match
15Doth doubtfull yet remaine.
Count Buckingham & Cottington
With their Endymion swayne6
Us’d their best trickes with Catholiques
To bring our Prince to Spaine.
20But now shee’s there, wee need not feare
The Lady must not marrye
God send our Charles safe home againe
And let her worship tarrye
Earle Rutland is our admirall7
25Lord Winsor is the Reare8
Lord Marley9 cannot doe withall
Unlesse his wench weare theare.
God send them all a merrye wind
And rid them from our shore
30God grant all Papistes love the Prince
As Marley loves his whore.
[The Navy is well furnished
with papists wondros store
And Captaines many & Admiralls
35that never fought before
Lets pray then that our mariners
to their tacklings stout may stand
And fling the papists overbard
to floate unto the land.]
40But shall I tell you what I thinke
I doubt tis but a rumor
The Fox hee knowes how for to wincke
To fitt the peoples humor.
For quæstionles all doubts weare scand
45Beefore our Charles went thither
And now a Navy is at hand
To sayle the Lord knowes whether.
But God preserve our Kinge & Prince,
A plague uppon their foes,
50And all that are Hispanioliz’d
And would their Country loose.
God grant all that matches make
Beefore the partyes woe
May goe sell matches up & downe
55As now poore Frenchmen doe.
Source. Bodleian MS Malone 19, pp. 32-33 [Bodleian MS Rawl. Poet. 160, fols. 177v-178r]
Other known sources. “Poems from a Seventeenth-Century Manuscript” 172 and 174; Bodleian MS Don. b.8, p. 117; Bodleian MS Rawl. D. 1048, fol. 76r; Bodleian MS Rawl. Poet. 26, fol. 24v; BL Add. MS 5832, fol. 200v; BL Add. MS 29492, fol. 30v; BL Add. MS 61683, fol. 73r; BL MS Harley 907, fol. 75v; BL MS Sloane 1792, fol. 52v; CUL MS Gg.4.13, p. 48; St. John’s MS K.56, no. 72; Beinecke MS Osborn b.197, p. 222; Folger MS V.a.162, fol. 73r; Rosenbach MS 1083/16, p. 250
Nv15
1 Golden Ladye: the Spanish Infanta Maria. She was “Golden” because it was believed she would bring with her a massive dowry. <back>
2 The Pope...her Dadye: Maria could not marry a Protestant without a special dispensation from the pope. <back>
3 The Prince he wanteth victualls: news reports of the shortage of food in Spain were common at this time. See, e.g., Richard Corbett’s mocking dismissal of such news stories in “I’ve read of Ilands flotinge and removed”. <back>
4 Gundimore his breech is soare: Count Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador to England, 1613-18 and 1620-22, and leading architect of the Spanish Match, was alleged to suffer from an anal fistula. <back>
5 hatching egges: depictions of Gondomar in anti-Spanish writing portrayed him as a Machiavellian plotter. <back>
6 Count Buckingham...Endymion swayne: George Villiers, Marquess (and by May 1623, Duke) of Buckingham; Sir Francis Cottington, Charles’s secretary; and Endymion Porter, Groom of the Prince’s Bedchamber. All three travelled with Charles to Spain in 1623, and all three were rumoured to be crypto-Catholic or Catholic, and pro-Spanish sympathizers. Both Cottington and Porter had spent significant lengths of time in Spain. <back>
7 Earle Rutland is our admirall: Francis Manners, Earl of Rutland and Buckingham’s father-in-law. Rutland, a prominent Catholic peer, was appointed Admiral to lead the flotilla of ships originally intended for Spain to carry the Infanta to England. The flotilla left England at the end of July 1623. <back>
8 Lord Winsor is the Reare: Thomas, Lord Windsor, a Catholic peer, was appointed Rear-Admiral in 1623 and was a member of the flotilla intended for Spain that left England in late July 1623. <back>
9 Lord Marley: Henry Parker, Lord Morley, a Catholic peer, and presumably also a member of the flotilla intended to retrieve Charles from Spain, that sailed from England at the end of July 1623. <back>
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