In my disgrace (deare Queene) rest thy Content,
And Margarets health from Suffolks Banishment:
Five yeres exile were not an houre to me,
But that so soone I must depart from thee;
Where thou not present, it is ever Night,
All be exil'd, that live not in thy sight.
Those Savages which worship the Sunnes rise,
Would hate their God, if they beheld thine Eyes;
The Worlds great Light, might'st thou be seene abroad,
Would at our Noone-stead ever make aboad,
And force the poore Antipodes to mourne,
Fearing lest he would never more returne.
Wer't not for thee, it were my great'st Exile,
To live within this Sea-inviron'd Ile.
Pooles Courage brookes not limiting in Bands,
But that (great Queene) thy Sov'raigntie commands:
He alludes, in these Verses, to the Faulcon, which was the
ancient Device of the Pooles, comparing the greatnesse
and haughtinesse of his spirit to the nature of this Bird.
Our Faulcons kind cannot the Cage indure,
Nor Buzzard-like doth stoope to ev'ry Lure;
Their mounting Brood in open Ayre doth rove,
Nor will with Crowes be coup'd within a Grove.
We all doe breathe upon this Earthly Ball,
Likewise one Heav'n incompasseth us all,
“No Banishment can be to him assign'd,
“Who doth retaine a true-resolved Mind.
“Man in himselfe a little World doth beare,
“His Soule the Monarch, ever ruling there:
“Where-ever then his Body doth remaine,
“He is a King, that in himselfe doth raigne;
“And never feareth Fortunes hot'st Alarmes,
“That beares against her Patience for his Armes.
The Commons, at this Parliament, through Warwickes
meanes, accused Suffolke of Treason, and urged the Accusation
so vehemently, that the King was forced to exile him for
five yeeres.
This was the meane proud Warwicke did invent,
To my disgrace, at Leister Parlement,
The Duke of Suffolke being sent into France, to conclude a
Peace, chose Duke Rayners daughter, the Ladie Margaret,
whom he espoused for Henry the sixt; delivering for her, to
her Father, the Countries of Anjou and Main, and the Citie
of Mauns. Whereupon the Earle of Arminach (whose
Daughter was before promised to the King) seeing himselfe
to be deluded, caused all the Englishmen to be expulsed
Aquitaine, Gascoyne, and Guyne.
That onely I, by yeelding up of Maine,
Should cause the losse of fertile Aquitaine,
This Richard, that was called the great Earle of Warwicke,
when Duke Humphrey was dead, grew into exceeding
great favour with the Commons.
With the base vulgar sort to winne him fame,
To be the Heire of good Duke Humphreyes Name;
And so by Treason spotting my pure Blood,
Make this a meane to rayse the Nevils Brood.
Richard Plantaginet, Duke of Yorke, in the time of Henry
the sixt, claymed the Crowne (being assisted by this Richard
Nevill, Earle of Salisburie, and Father to the great Earle of
Warwicke, who favoured exceedingly the House of Yorke)
in open Parliament, as Heire to Lionel, Duke of Clarence,
the third sonne of Edward the third, making his Title by
Anne his Mother, Wife to Richard, Earle of Cambridge,
sonne to Edmund of Langley, Duke of Yorke: Which Anne
was Daughter to Roger Mortimer, Earle of March; which
Roger was Sonne and Heire to Edmund Mortimer, that
married the Ladie Philip, Daughter and Heire to Lionel,
Duke of Clarence, the third sonne of King Edward: to whom
the Crowne, after King Richard the Seconds Death, lineally
descended, he dying without Issue; and not to the Heires of the
Duke of Lancaster, that was younger Brother to the Duke of Clarence.
Hall. cap. 1. Tit. Yor. & Lanc.
With Salsbury, his vile ambitious Sire,
In Yorkes sterne Brest kindling long hidden fire;
By Clarence Title working to supplant
The Eagle Ayrie of great John of Gaunt:
And to this end did my Exile conclude,
Thereby to please the rascall Multitude;
Humphrey, Duke of Glocester, and Lord Protector, in
the five and twentieth yeere of Henry the sixt, by the meanes
of the Queene, and the Duke of Suffolke, was arrested by the
Lord Beaumont, at the Parliament holden at Berry, and the
same Night after murthered in his Bed.
Urg'd by these envious Lords to spend their breath,
Crying revenge for the Protectors death;
That since the old decrepit Duke is dead,
By me, of force, he must be murthered.
In these Verses he jests at the Protectors Wife, who (being
accused and convicted of Treason, because with John Hun, a
Priest, Roger Bullenbrooke, a Necromancer, and Margerie
Jordan, called the Witch of Eye, shee had consulted
by Sorcerie to kill the King) was adjudged to perpetuall Prison
in the Ile of Man, and to doe Penance openly, in three
publique places in London.
If they would know who rob'd him of his Life,
Let him call home Dame Elinor, his Wife,
Who with a Taper walked in a Sheet,
To light her shame at Noone through London Street;
And let her bring her Necromanticke Booke,
That foule Hag Jordan, Hun, & Bullenbrooke,
And let them call the Spirits from Hell againe,
To know how Humphrey dy'd, and who shall raigne.
In the sixt yeere of Henry the sixt, the Duke of Bedford
being deceased, then Lieutenant Generall, and Regent of
France; this Duke of Suffolke was promoted to that Dignitie,
having the Lord Talbot, Lord Scales, and the Lord
Mountacute, to assist him.
For twentie yeeres, and have I serv'd in France,
This was Charles the seventh, who after the death of Henry
the fifth, obtained the Crowne of France, and recovered againe
much of that his Father had lost. Bastard Orleance was sonne
to the Duke of Orleance, begotten of the Lord Cawnies Wife,
preferred highly to many notable Offices, because he being a
most valiant Captaine, was a continuall Enemie to the Englishmen, dayly infesting them with divers Incursions.
Against great Charles, and Bastard Orleance,
And seene the slaughter of a World of Men,
Victorious now, as hardly conquer'd then?
Vernoyle is that noted place in France, where the great
Battell was fought in the beginning of Henry the sixt his
raigne, where the most of the French Chivalrie were overcome
by the Duke of Bedford.
And have I seene Vernoyla's batfull Fields,
Strew'd with ten thousand Helmes, ten thousand Shields,
Where famous Bedford did our fortune trie,
Or France, or England, for the Victorie?
The sad investing of so many Townes,
Scor'd on my Brest in honourable Wounds;
When Mountacute, and Talbot of much Name,
Under my Ensigne both first wonne their Fame:
In Heat and Cold all these have I indur'd,
To rowze the French, within their Walls immur'd;
Through all my Life, these Perils have I past,
And now to feare a Banishment at last?
Thou know'st how I (thy Beautie to advance)
For thee, refus'd the Infanta of France,
Brake the Contract Duke Humphrey first did make
'Twixt Henry and the Princesse Arminacke:
Onely that here thy presence I might gaine,
I gave Duke Rayner, Anjou, Mauns, and Maine;
Thy peerelesse Beautie for a Dower to bring,
As of it selfe sufficient for a King:
Aumerle is that strong defenced Towne in France, which
the Duke of Suffolke got, after foure and twentie great Assaults
given unto it.
And from Aumerle withdrew my Warlike Pow'rs,
Tours is a Citie in France, built by Brutus, as he came
into Britaine: where, in the one and twentieth yeere of the
raigne of Henry the sixt, was appointed a great Diet to be
kept; whither came Embassadours of the Empire, Spaine,
Hungarie, and Denmarke, to intreat for a perpetuall Peace
to be made betweene the two Kings of England and France.
And came my selfe in person first to Tours,
Th'Embassadours for Truce to entertaine,
From Belgia, Denmarke, Hungarie, and Spaine:
And to the King relating of thy storie,
My Tongue flow'd with such plenteous Oratorie,
As the report by speaking did indite,
Begetting still more ravishing delight.
And when my Speech did cease (as telling all)
My Looke shew'd more, that was Angelicall;
And when I breath'd againe, and pawsed next,
I left mine Eyes dilating on the Text:
Then comming of thy Modestie to tell,
In Musickes Numbers my Voyce rose and fell;
And when I came to paint thy glorious stile,
My speech in greater Cadences to file,
Rayner, Duke of Anjou, Father to Queene Margaret,
called himselfe King of Naples, Cicily, and Jerusalem, having
the Title alone of the King of those Countries.
By true descent to weare the Diadem
Of Naples, Cicill, and Jerusalem,
As from the Gods thou didst derive thy Birth,
If those of Heaven could mix with these of Earth;
Gracing each Title that I did recite,
With some mellifluous pleasing Epithite:
Nor left him not, till he for love was sicke,
Beholding thee in my sweet Rhetoricke.
The Duke of Suffolke, after the Marriage concluded betweene
King Henry and Margaret, Daughter to Duke Rayner,
asked in open Parliament a whole Fifteenth, to fetch her
into England.
A Fifteenes Taxe in France I freely spent,
In Triumphs, at thy Nuptiall Tournament;
And solemniz'd thy Marriage in a Gowne,
Valu'd at more then was thy Fathers Crowne;
And onely striving how to honour thee,
Gave to my King what thy love gave to mee.
Judge if his kindnesse have not power to move,
Who for his loves sake gave away his love.
Had he, which once the Prize to Greece did bring,
(Of whom, th'old Poets long agoe did sing)
Deepe is a Towne in France, bordering upon the Sea,
where the Duke of Suffolke, with Queene Margaret, tooke
ship for England.
Seene thee for England but imbark'd at Deepe,
Would over-boord have cast his golden Sheepe,
As too unworthy Ballast to be thought,
To pester roome, with such perfection fraught.
The brinie Seas, which saw the Ship infold thee,
Would vault up to the Hatches, to behold thee,
And falling backe, themselves in thronging smother,
Breaking for griefe, envying one another:
When the proud Barke, for joy thy steps to feele,
Scorn'd that the Brack should kisse her furrowing Keele,
And trick'd in all her Flags, her selfe she braves,
Cap'ring for joy upon the silver Waves;
When like a Bull from the Phenician Strand,
Jove with Europa rushing from the Land,
Upon the Bosome of the Maine doth scud,
And with his Swannish Brest cleaving the Floud,
Tow'rd the faire Fields, upon the other side,
Beareth Agenors joy, Phenicia's pride:
All heavenly Beauties joyne themselves in one,
To shew their glorie in thine Eye alone;
Which, when it turneth that celestiall Ball,
A thousand sweet starres rise, a thousand fall.
Who justly saith, mine, Banishment to bee,
When onely France for my recourse is free?
To view the Plaines, where I have seene so oft
Englands victorious Engines rays'd aloft;
When this shall be a comfort in my way,
To see the place, where I may boldly say,
Here mightie Bedford forth the Vaward led,
Here Talbot charg'd, and here the Frenchmen fled,
Here with our Archers valiant Scales did lye,
Here stood the Tents of famous Willoughby,
Here Mountacute rang'd his unconquer'd Band,
Here march'd we out, and here we made a stand.
What should we sit to mourne and grieve all day,
For that which Time doth eas'ly take away?
What Fortune hurts, let Suff'rance onely heale,
“No wisedome with Extremities to deale.
To know our selves to come of humane Birth,
These sad Afflictions crosse us here on Earth.
A punishment from the eternall Law,
To make us still of Heav'n to stand in awe.
“In vaine we prize that at so deare a rate,
“Whose long'st assurance beare's a Minutes date.
“Why should we idly talke of our Intent,
“When Heav'ns Decree no Counsell can prevent?
“When our fore-sight not possibly can shunne
“That which the Fates determine shall be done.
Henry hath Power, and may my Life depose,
Mine Honour's mine, that none hath power to lose.
Then be as cheerefull (beautious Royall Queene)
As in the Court of France we oft have beene;
Porchester, a Haven Towne in the South-West part of
England, where the King tarried, expecting the Queenes arrivall;
whom from thence he conveyed to South-hampton.
As when arriv'd in Porchesters faire Road,
(Where, for our comming, Henry made aboad)
When in mine Armes I brought thee safe to Land,
And gave my Love to Henries Royall Hand:
The happie Houres we passed with the King
At faire South-hampton, long in banqueting;
With such content as lodg'd in Henries Brest,
When he to London brought thee from the West,
Through golden Cheape, when he in Pompe did ride
To Westminster, to entertaine his Bride.
