CHARLES BRANDON, DUKE OF SUFFOLKE, TO MARY THE FRENCH QUEENE.
But that my Faith commands me to forbeare,
The fault's your owne, if I impatient were;
Were my dispatch such as should be my speed,
I should want time your loving Lines to reede.
Here, in the Court, Camelion-like I fare,
And as that Creature, onely feed on Ayre;
All Day I wait, and all the Night I watch,
And starve mine Eares, to heare of my dispatch.
If Dover were th'Abydos of my Rest,
Or pleasant Calice were my Maries
Cest,
You should not need, bright Queene, to blame me so,
Did not the Distance, to Desire say no:
No tedious Night from Travell should be free,
Till through the Seas, with swimming still to thee,
A Snowie Path I made unto thy Bay,
So bright as is that Nectar-stayned Way.
The restlesse Sunne by travelling doth weare,
Passing his Course, to finish up the Yeare;
But Paris lockes my Love within the Maine,
And London yet thy Brandon doth detaine.
Of thy firme love thou put'st me still in mind,
But of my Faith, not one word can I find.
The Duke of Longavile, which was Prisoner in England,
upon the Peace to be concluded betweene England
and France, was delivered, and married the Princesse Mary,
for Lewes the French King, his Master.
When Longavile to Mary was affy'd,
And thou by him wast made King Lewes Bride,
How oft I wish'd, that thou a Prize might'st bee,
That I in Armes might combate him for thee!
And in the madnesse of my love distraught,
A thousand times his Murther have fore-thought:
“But that th'all-seeing Pow'rs, which sit above,
“Regard not Mad-mens Oathes, nor faults in Love,
“And have confirm'd it, by the Grant of Heaven,
“That Lovers sinnes on Earth should be forgiven;
“For never Man is halfe so much distress'd,
“As he that loves to see his Love possess'd.
Comming to Richmond after thy depart,
(Richmond, where first thou stol'st away my Heart)
Me thought it look'd not as it did of late,
But wanting thee, forlorne and desolate,
In whose faire walkes thou often hast beene seene,
To sport with Kath'rine, Henries beautious Queene,
Astonishing sad Winter with thy sight,
So that for thee the day hath put backe night;
And the small Birds, as in the pleasant Spring,
Forgot themselves, and have begun to sing.
So oft as I by Thames goe and returne,
Me thinkes for thee the River yet doth mourne,
Whom I have seene to let his streame at large,
Which like a hand-maide waited on thy Barge;
And if thou hap'st against the floud to row,
Which way it eb'd, it presently would flow,
Weeping in drops upon the labouring Oares,
For joy that it had got thee from the shoares.
The Swans with musicke that the Roothers make,
Ruffing their plumes, came gliding on the lake,
As the swift Dolphins by Arions strings,
Were brought to Land with Syren ravishings;
The flockes and heards that pasture neere the Flood,
To gaze upon thee, have forborne their food,
And sat downe sadly mourning by the brim,
That they by Nature were not made to swim.
When as the Post to Englands Royall Court,
Of thy hard passage brought the true report,
As the Queene sayled for France, a mightie storme arose
at Sea, so that the Navie was in great danger, and was severed,
some driven upon the Coast of Flanders, some on Britaine:
the Ship wherein the Queene was, was driven into the
Haven at Bullen, with very great danger.
How in a storme thy well-rigg'd Ships were tost,
And thou thy selfe in danger to be lost,
I knew 'twas Venus loath'd that aged Bed,
Where Beautie so should be dishonoured;
Or fear'd the Sea-Nymphs haunting of the Lake,
If thou but seene, their Goddesse should forsake.
And whirling round her Dove-drawne Coach about,
To view the Navie then in lanching out,
Her ayrie Mantle loosely doth unbinde.
Which fanning forth a rougher gale of winde,
Wafted thy Sayles with speed unto the land,
And ran thy Ships on Bullins harboring strand.
How should I joy of thy arrive to heare?
But as a poore Sea-faring passenger,
After long travaile, tempest-torne and wrack'd,
By some unpitty'ng Pyrat that is sack'd;
Heares the false robber that hath stolne his wealth,
Landed in some safe harbour, and in health,
Inrich'd with the invaluable store,
For which he long had travailed before.
King Lewes met her by Abvile, neere to the Forrest of Arders,
and brought her into Abvile with great Solemnitie.
When thou to Abvile held'st th'appointed day,
We heard how Lewes met thee on the way;
Where thou, in glitt'ring Tissue strangely dight,
Expressing the sumptuous Attyre of the Queene and her
Traine, attended by the chiefe of the Nobilitie of England,
with sixe and thirtie Ladies, all in Cloth of Silver, their
Horses trapped with Crimson Velvet.
Appear'dst unto him like the Queene of Light;
In Cloth of Silver, all thy Virgin Trayne,
In Beautie sumptuous, as the Northerne Wayne;
And thou alone the formost glorious Starre,
Which led'st the Teame of that great Waggoner.
What could thy Thought be, but as I did thinke,
When thine Eyes tasted what mine Eares did drinke?
King Lewes was a Man of great yeeres, troubled much
with the Gowt, so that he had long time before little use of his
Legges.
A cripple King, layd Bedred long before,
Yet at thy comming, crept out of the dore:
'Twas well he rid, he had no Legges to goe,
But this thy Beautie forc'd his Body to;
For whom a Cullice had more fitter beene,
Then in a golden Bed, a gallant Queene.
To use thy Beautie, as the Miser Gold,
Which hoards it up but onely to behold;
Still looking on it with a jealous Eye,
Fearing to lend, yet loving Usurie:
O Sacriledge (if Beautie be divine)
The prophane Hand to touch the hallow'd Shrine!
To surfet Sicknesse on the sound Mans Diet,
To rob Content, yet still to live unquiet;
And having all, to be of all beguil'd,
And yet still longing like a little Child.
The Duke of Suffolke, when the Proclamation came into
England, of Justs to be holden in France, at Paris; he, for
the Queenes sake, his Mistres, obtained of the King to goe
thither: With whom, went the Marques Dorset, and his foure
Brothers, the Lord Clinton, Sir Edward Nevill, Sir Giles
Capell, Thomas Cheyney, which went all over with the
Duke, as his Assistants.
When Marques Dorset, and the valiant Grayes,
To purchase Fame, first crost the narrow Seas,
With all the Knights that my Associates went,
In honour of thy Nuptiall Tournament;
Think'st thou I joy'd not in thy Beauties pride,
A true description of the Queenes entring into Paris, after
her Coronation performed at S. Denis.
When thou in Triumph didst through Paris ride?
Where all the Streets, as thou didst pace along,
With Arras, Bisse, and Tapistrie were hung;
Ten thousand gallant Citizens prepar'd,
In rich Attyre thy Princely selfe to guard:
The Dukes of Alanson, Burbon, Vandome, Longavile,
Suffolke, with five Cardinals.
Next them, three thousand choise Religious Men,
In golden Vestments follow'd on agen;
And in Procession as they came along,
With Hymeneus sang thy Marriage Song.
Next these, five Dukes, as did their places fall,
With each of them, a Princely Cardinall;
Then thou, on thy Imperiall Chariot set,
Crown'd with a rich impearled Coronet;
Whilst the Parisian Dames, as thy Trayne past,
Their precious Incense in abundance cast.
As Cynthia, from her Wave-embattel'd Shrowds,
Op'ning the West, comes streaming through the Clouds,
With shining Troupes of Silver-tressed Starres,
Attending on her, as her Torch-bearers;
And all the lesser Lights about her Throne,
With admiration stand as lookers on;
Whilst she alone, in height of all her pride,
The Queene of Light along her Sphere doth glide.
When on the Tilt my Horse like Thunder came,
No other Signall had I, but thy Name;
Thy Voyce my Trumpet, and my Guide thine Eyes,
And but thy Beautie, I esteem'd no Prize.
Francis Valoys, the Dolphin of France, envying the glorie
that the English Men had obtained at the Tilt, brought in an
Almaine secretly, a Man thought almost of incomparable
strength, which incountred Charles Brandon at the Barriers:
but the Duke grappling with him, so beat him about the Head
with the Pummell of his Sword, that the Bloud came out of
the sight of his Caske.
That large-lim'd Almaine, of the Giants Race,
Which bare strength on his Brest, feare in his Face,
Whose sinew'd Armes, with his steele-temper'd Blade,
Through Plate and Male such open passage made,
Upon whose Might the Frenchmens glorie lay,
And all the hope of that victorious day;
Thou saw'st thy Brandon beat him on his Knee,
Off'ring his Shield a conquer'd Spoyle to thee.
But thou wilt say, perhaps, I vainely boast,
And tell thee that which thou alreadie know'st.
No, sacred Queene, my Valour I denie,
It was thy Beautie, not my Chivalrie:
One of thy tressed Curles there falling downe,
As loth to be imprisoned in thy Crowne,
I saw the soft Ayre sportively to take it,
And into strange and sundry formes to make it;
Now parting it to foure, to three, to twaine,
Now twisting it, then it untwist againe;
Then make the threds to dally with thine Eye,
A Sunnie Candle for a golden Flye.
At length from thence one little teare it got,
Which falling downe as though a Starre had shot,
My up-turn'd Eye pursu'd it with my Sight,
The which againe redoubled all my Might.
'Tis but in vaine, of my Descent to boast;
When Heav'ns Lampe shines, all other Lights be lost;
Faulcons seeme poore, the Eagle sitting by,
Whose Brood surveyes the Sunne with open Eye:
Sir William Brandon, Standard-bearer to the Earle of
Richmond, (after, Henry the seventh) at Bosworth Field,
a brave and gallant Gentleman, who was slaine by Richard
there; this was Father to this Charles Brandon, Duke of
Suffolke.
Else might my Bloud find issue from his force,
Who beat the Tyrant Richard from his Horse
On Bosworth Plaine, whom Richmond chose to wield
His glorious Ensigne in that conqu'ring Field;
And with his Sword, in his deare Sov'raignes fight,
To his last breath stood fast in Henries Right.
Then, beautious Empresse, thinke this safe delay,
Shall be the Even to a joyfull Day:
“Fore-sight doth still on all advantage lye,
“Wise-men must give place to necessitie;
“To put backe ill, our good we must forbeare.
“Better first feare, then after still to feare.
'Twere over-sight in that, at which we ayme,
To put the Hazzard on an after-Game;
With patience then let us our Hopes attend,
And till I come, receive these Lines I send.
FINIS.
