sev'ral Nation And nothing more than England hold in scorn So live as Strangers whereas they were born But thy return in this I do not read Thou art a perfect Gentleman indeed O God forbid that Howards Noble line From ancient Vertue should so far decline The Muses train whereof your self are chief Only to me participate their Grief To sooth their humors I do lend them ears He gives a Poet that his Verses hears Till thy return by hope they only live Yet had they all they all away would give The World and they so ill according be That Wealth and Poets never can agree Few live in Court that of their good have care The Muses friends are every-where so rare Some praise thy Worth that it did never know Only because the better sort do so Whose judgment never further doth extend Than it doth please the greatest to commend So great an ill upon desert doth chance When it doth pass by beastly ignorance Why art thou slack whilst no man puts his hand stand * To raise the mount where Surrey's Towers must Or Who the groundsil of that work doth lay Whilst like a Wand'rer thou abroad do'st stray Clip'd in the Arms of some lascivious Dame When thou shouldst rear an Ilion to thy Name When shall the Muses by fair Norwich dwell To be the City of the learned Well Or Phoebus Altars there with Incense heap'd As once in Cyrrha or in Thebe kept Or when shall that fair hoof-plow'd Spring distill From great Mount-Surrey out of Leonards Hill Till thou return the Court I will exchange For some poor Cottage or some Country Grange Where to our Distaves as we sit and Spin My Maid and I will tell what things have bin Our Lutes unstrung shall hang upon the Wall Our Lessons serve to wrap our Towe withal And pass the Night whiles Winter tales we tell Of many things that long ago befell Or tune such homely Carrols as were sung In Courtly Sport when we our selves were young In prety Riddles to bewray our Loves In questions purpose or in drawing Gloves The Noblest Spirits to Vertue most inclin'd These here in Court thy greatest want do find Others there be on which we feed our Eye * Like Arras-work or such like Image'ry Many of us desire Queen Kath'rines state But very few her Vertues imitate Then as Vlysses Wife write I to thee Make no reply but come thy self to me ANNOTATIONS on the Chronicle History Then Windsors or Fitz-Geralds Families THe cost of many Kings which from time to time have adorned the Castle at Windsor with their Princely Magnificence hath made it more Noble than that it need to be spoken of now as though obscure and I hold it more meet to refer you to your vulgar Monuments for the Founders and Finishers thereof than to meddle with matter nothing to the purpose As for the Family of the Fitz-Geralds of whence this excellent Lady was lineally descended the original was English though the Branches did spread themselves into distant Places and Names nothing consonant as in former times it was usual to denominate themselves of their Manours or Forenames as may partly appear in that which ensueth the light whereof proceeded from my learned and very worthy Friend Master Francis Thin Walter of Windsor the Son of Oterus had to Issue William of whom Henry now Lord Windsor is descended and Robert of Windsor of whom Robert the now Earl of Essex and Gerald of Windsor his third Son who married the Daughter of Rees the great Prince of Wales of whom came Nesta Paramour to Henry the First Which Gerald had Issue Maurice Fitz-Gerald Ancestor to Thomas Fitz-Maurice Justice of Ireland buryed at Trayly leaving Issue John his Eldest Son first Earl of Kildare Ancestor to Geraldine and Maurice his second Son first Earl of Desmond To raise the Mount where Surrey's Tow'rs must stand Alluding to the sumptuous House which was afterward builded by him upon Leonard's Hill right against Norwich which in the Rebellion of Norfolk under Ket in King Edward the Sixth's time was much defaced by that impure Rabble Betwixt the Hill and the City as Alexander Nevil describes it the River of Yarmouth râ—…s having West and South thereof a Wood and a little Village called Thorp and on the North the pastures of Mousholl which contain about six miles in length and breadth So that besides the stately greatness of Mount Surrey which was the Houses name the Prospect and Sight thereof was passing pleasant and commodious and no where else did that increasing evil of the Norfolk Fury enkennel it self then but there as it were for a manifest token of their intent to debase all high things and to profane all holy Like Arras-work or rather Imagery Such was he whom Juvenal taxeth in this manner Truncoque similimus Herme Nullo quippe alio vincis discrimine quam quod Illi marmorcum caput est tua vivit Imago Seeming to be born for nothing else but Apparel and the outward appearance intituled Complement with whom the ridiculous Fable of the Ape in Aesop sorteth fitly who coming into a Carver's House and viewing many Marble Works took up the Head of a Man very cunningly wrought who greatly in praising did seem to pity it that having so comely an outside it had nothing within like empty Figures walk and talk in every place at whom the Noble Geraldine modestly glanceth FINIS The Lady Jane Gray TO THE Lord GILFORD DVDLEY The ARGUMENT After the death of that vertuous Prince King Edward the Sixth the Son of that famous King Henry the Eighth Jane the Daughter of Henry Gray Duke of Suffolk by the consent of John Dudley Duke of Northumberland was proclaimed Queen of England being married to Gilford Dudley the fourth Son of the aforesaid Duke of Northumberland which Match was concluded by their ambitious Father who went about by this means to bring the Crown unto their Children and to dispossess the Princess Mary eldest Daughter of King Henry the Eighth Heir to King Edward her Brother Queen Mary rising in Arms to claim her rightful Crown taketh the said Jane Gray and the Lord Gilford her Husband being lodged in the Tower for their more safety which place being lastly their Pallace by this means becomes their Prison where being severed in sundry prisons they write these Epistles one to another MIne own dear Lord since thou art lock'd from me In this disguise my love must steal to thee Since to renue all Loves all kindness past This refuge scarcely left yet this the last My Keeper coming I of thee enquire Who with thy greeting answers my desire Which my tongue willing to return again Grief stops my words and I but strive in vain Where-with amaz'd away in hast he goes When through my Lips my Heart thrusts forth my Woes But then the doors that make a doleful sound Drive back my words that in the noise are drown'd Which somewhat hush'd the Eccho doth record And
And Nature too well taught them to invade us They but too well know how what when and where To write to speak to sue and to forbear By signs by sighs by motions and by tears When Vows should serve when Oaths when Smiles when Prayers What one Delight our Humors most doth move Only in that you make us nourish Love If any natural blemish blot our Face You do protest it gives our Beauty grace And what Attire we most are us'd to wear That of all other excellent'st you swear And if we walk or sit or stand or lie It must resemble some one Diety And what you know we take delight to hear That are you ever sounding in our ear And yet so shameless when you tempt us thus To lay the fault on Beauty and on us Romes wanton Ovid did those Rules impart O that your Nature should be help'd with Att Who would have thought a King that cares to reign Inforc'd by Love so Poet-like should feign To say that Beauty Times stern rage to shun In my Cheeks Lillies hid her from the Sun And when she meant to triumph in her May Made that her East and here she broke her Day And that fair Summer still is in my sight And but where I am all the World is Night As though the fair'st ere since the World began To me a Sun-burnt base Egyptian But yet I know more than I mean to tell O would to God you knew it not too well That Women oft their most admirers raise Though publickly not flat'ring their own praise Our churlish Husbands which our Youth injoy'd Who with our Dainties have their stomacks cloy'd Do loath our smooth Hands with their Lips to feel T' inrich our Favours by our Beds to kneel At our Command to wait to send to go As ev'ry Hour our amorous servants do Which makes a stoln Kiss often we bestow In earnest of a greater good we owe. When he all day torments us with a Frown Yet sports with Venus in a Bed of Down Whose rude imbracement but too ill beseems Her span-broad Waste her white and dainty Limbs And yet still preaching abstinence of Meat When he himself of ev'ry Dish will eat Blame you our Husbands then if they deny Our publique Walking our loose Liberty If with exception still they us debarr * The Circuit of the publique Theater To hear the Poet in a Comick strain Able t' infect with his lascivious Scene And the young wanton Wits when they applaud The slie perswasion of some subtil Bawd Or passionate Tragedian in his rage Acting a Love sick Passion on the Stage When though abroad restraining us to rome They very hardly keep us safe at home And oft are touch'd with fear and inward grief Knowing rich Prizes soonest tempt a Thief What Sports have we whereon our minds to set Our Dogg our Parat or our Marmuzet Or once a week to walk into the field Small is the pleasure that these Toys do yield But to this grief a medicine you apply To cure restraint with that sweet Liberty And Soveraignty O that bewitching thing Yet made more great by promise of a King And more that Honour which doth most intice The holi'st Nun and she that 's ne're so nice Thus still we strive yet overcome at length For men want mercy and poor women strength Yet grant that we could meaner men resist When Kings once come they conquer as they list Thou art the cause Shore pleaseth not my sight That his embraces give me no delight Thou art the cause I to my self am strange Thy coming is my Full thy Set my Change Long Winter nights be minutes if thou here Short minutes if thou absent be a year And thus by strength thou art become my fate And mak'st me love even in the midst of hate ANNOTATIONS on the Chronicle History Would I had led an humble Shepheards life Not known the name of Shores admired wife TWo or three Poems written by sundry men have magnified this Womans Beauty whom that ornament of England and Londons more perticular glory Sir Thomas Moor very highly hath praised her for beauty she being alive in his time though poor and aged Her Stature was mean her Hair of a dark yellow her Face round and full her Eye gray delicate harmony being betwixt each parts proportion and each proportions colour her Body fat white and smooth her Countenance chearful and like to her Condition That Picture which I have seen of hers was such as she rose cut-of her Bed in the morning having nothing on but a rich Mantle cast under one Arm over her shoulder and sitting in a Chair on which her naked Arm did lie What her Fathers name was or where she was born is not certainly known But Shore a young man of right goodly person wealth and behaviour abandoned her Bed after the King had made her his Concubine Richard the Third causing her to do penance in Pauls Church-yard commanded that no man should relieve her which the Tyrant did not so much for his hatred to sin but that by making his Brothers life odious he might cover his horrible Treasons the more cunningly May number Rumneys Flowers or Isis Fish Rumney is that famous Marsh in Kent at whose side Rie a Haven Town doth stand Hereof the excellent English Antiquary Master Camden and Master Lambert in his Perambulation do make mention And Marshes are commonly called those low Grounds which abut upon the Sea and from the Latin word are so denominated Isis is here used for Thamesis by a Synecdockical kind of speech or by a Poetical liberty in using one for another for it is said that Thamesis is compounded of Tame and Isis making when they are met that renowned Water running by London a City much more renowned than that Water Which being plentiful of Fish is the cause also why all things else are plentiful therein Moreover I am perswaded that there is no River in the World beholds more stately Buildings on either side clean throw than the Thames Much is reported of the Grand Canale in Venice for that the Fronts on either side are so gorgeous That might intice some foul-mouth'd Mantuan Mantuan a Pastoral Poet in one of his Eclogues bitterly inveyeth against Womankind some of the which by way of an Appendix might be here inserted seeing the fantastick and insolent Humors of many of that Sex deserve much sharper Physick were it not that they are grown wiser than to amend for such an idle Poets speech as Mantuan yea or for Euripides himself or Seneca's inflexible Hippolitus The Circuit of the publick Theatre Ovid a most fit Author for so dissolute a Sectarie calls that place Chastities Shipwrack for though Shores Wife wantonly pleads for Liberty which is the true humor of a Citizen yet much more is the praise of Modesty than of such Liberty Howbeit the Vestal Nuns had Seats assigned them in the Roman Theatre Whereby it should appear it was counted no impeachment
Senses whilst the small Birds sing Lulled asleep with gentle murmuring Where light-foot Fairies sport at Prison-Base No doubt there is some Pow'r frequents the place There the soft Poplar and smooth Beech do bear Our Names together carved ev'ry where And Gordian Knots do curiously entwine The Names of Henry and Geraldine Oh let this Grove in happy times to come Be call'd The Lovers bless'd Elizium Whither my Mistress wonted to resort In Summers heat in those sweet shades to sport A thousand sundry names I have it given And call'd it Wonder-hider Cover-Heaven The Roof where Beauty her rich Court doth keep Under whose compass all the Stars do sleep There is one Tree which now I call to mind Doth bear these Verses carved in his Rinde When Geraldine shall sit in thy fair shade Fan her sweet Tresses with perfumed Air Let thy large Boughs a Canopy be made To keep the Sun from gazing on my Fair And when thy spreading branched Arms be sunk And thou no Sap nor Pith shalt more retain Ev'n from the dust of thy unwieldy Trunk I will renew thee Phoenix-like again And from thy dry decayed Root will bring A new-born Stem another Aesons Spring I find no cause nor judge I reason why My Country should give place to Lumbardy * As goodly Flow'rs on Thame's rich Banck do grow As beautifie the Banks of wanton Po As many Nymphs as haunt rich Arnus strand By silver Severn tripping hand in hand Our shad's as sweet though not to us so dear Because the Sun hath greater power there This distant place doth give me greater Woe Far off my Sighs the farther have to go Ah absence why thus should'st thou seem so long Or wherefore should'st thou offer Time such wrong Summer so soon to steal on Winters Cold Or Winters Blasts so soon make Summer old Love did us both with one-self Arrow strike Our Wound 's both one our Cure should be the like Except thou hast found out some mean by Art Some pow'rfull Med'cine to withdraw the dart But mine is fixt and absence being proved It sticks too fast it cannot be removed Adieu Adieu from Florence when I go By my next Letters Geraldine shall know Which if good fortune shall by course direct From Venice by some messenger expect Till when I leave thee to thy hearts desire By him that lives thy vertues to admire ANNOTATIONS of the Chronicle History From learned Florence long time rich in Fame FLorence a City of Tuscan standing upon the River Arnus celebrated by Dante Petrarch and other the most Noble Wits of Italy was the original of the Family out of which this Geraldine did spring as Ireland the place of her Birth which is intimated by these Verses of the Earl of Surrey From Tuscan came my Ladies worthy race Fair Florence was sometimes her ancient seat The Western Isle whose pleasant shore doth face Wild Cambers Cliffs did give her lively heat Great learn'd Agrippa so profound in Art Cornelius Agrippa a man in his time so famous for Magick which the Books published by him concerning that argument do partly prove as in this place needs no further remembrance Howbeit as those abstruse and gloomy Arts are but illusions so in the honour of so rare a Gentleman as this Earl and therewithal so Noble a Poet a quality by which his other Titles receive their greatest lustre Invention may make somewhat more bold with Agrippa above the barren truth That Lyon set in our bright silver Bend. The blazon of the Howards honourable Armour was Gules between six crosselets Fitchy a bend Argent to which afterwards was added by atchievement In the Canton point of the Bend an Escutcheon or within the Scotish tressure a Demi-lion-rampant Gules c. as Master Camden now Clerenceaux from authority noteth Never shall Time or bitter Envy be able to obscure the brightness of so great a Victory as that for which this addition was obtained The Historian of Scotland George Buchanan reporteth That the Earl of Surrey gave for his Badge a Silver Lion which from Antiquity belonged to that name tearing in pieces A Lion prostrate Gules and withall that this which he terms insolence was punished in him and his Posterity as if it were fatal to the Conquerour to do his Soveraign such Loyal service as a thousand such severe Censurers were never able to perform Since Scotish Blood discolour'd Floden Field The Battel was fought at Bramston near Floden Hill being a part of the Cheviot a Mountain that exceedeth all the Mountaines in the North of England for bigness in which the wilful Perjury of James the Fifth was punished from Heaven by the Earl of Surrey being left by King Henry the Eighth then in France before Turwin for the defence of this Realm Nor beautious Stanhope whom all Tongues report To be the glory c. Of the Beauty of that Lady he himself testifies in an Elegie which he writ of her refusing to dance with him which he seemeth to allegorize under a Lion and a Wolf And of himself he saith A Lion saw I late as white as any Snow And of her I might perceive a Wolf as white as a Whales Bone A fairer Beast of fresher hue beheld I never none But that her Looks were coy and froward was her Grace And famous Wyat who in Numbers sings Sir Thomas Wyat the Elder a most excellent Poet as his Poems extant do witness besides certain Encomions written by the Earl of Surrey upon some of Davids Psalms by him translated What holy Grave what worthy Sepulchre To Wyats Psalms shall Christians purchase then And afterward upon his Death the said Earl writeth thus What vertues rare were temp'red in thy Breast Honour that England such a Jewel bred And kiss the Ground whereas thy Corps did rest Of Hunsdon where those sweet celestial Eyne It is manifest by a Sonnet written by this Noble Earl that the first time he beheld his Lady was at Hunsdon Hunsdon did first present her to mine Eyne Which Sonnet being altogether a description of his Love I do alledge in divers places of this Gloss as proof of what I write Of Hampton Court and Windsor where abound All Pleasures c. That be enjoyed the presence of his fair and vertous Mistress in those two places by reason of Queen Katherines usual aboad there on whom this Lady Geraldine was attending I prove by these Verses of his Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine Windsor alas doth chase me from her sight And in another Sonnet following When Windsor Walls sustain'd my wearied Arm My Hand my Chin to ease my restless Head And that his delight might draw him to compare Windsor to Paradise an Elegie may prove where he remembreth his passed Pleasures in that place With a Kings Son my Childish years I pass'd In greater Feasts than Priams Son of Troy And again in the same Elegie Those large green Courts where we were wont to rove With Eyes cast up unto the