On earthly signes let not such Sages looke,
Nor on the cleere aspects of hopefull starres;
But learne the worlds continuance from thy booke,
which frames past natures force eternall warres;
wherein the Mases shewing perfect glory,
Adorne it so with gracefull harmonie,
That all the acts of this lamented story,
Seeme not perform’d for peoples libertie:
Nor through the awe of an imperious King,
But that thy verses their deepe wounds might sing.
Iohn Beaumont.
THE FIRST BOOKE OF THE BARRONS WARRES.
The Argument.
The grieuous plagues and the prodigious signes
That this great warre and slaughter doe foreshow,
Th’especiall cause the Baronage combines,
The Queenes strong griefe, whence many troubles grow,
The time by course vnto our fallinclines,
And how each country doth to battell goe;
What cause to yeeld, the Mortimers pretend,
And their commitment perfecting the end.
1
THE bloodiefactions, and rebellious pride
Of a strong nation, whose vnmanag’d might
Them from their naturall Soueraigne did diuide,
Their due subiection, and his lawfull right,
Whom their light error loosely doth misguide,
Vrg’d by lewd Minions tyrannous despight;
Me from soft layes, and tender loues doth bring,
Of dreadfull fights, and horred warres to sing.
2
What hellish furie poysned your hie blood,
Or should bewitch you with accursed charmes,
That by pretending of the generall good,
Rashly extrudes you to tumultuous armes,
And from the safetie wherein late you stood,
Re•t of all taste, and feeling of your harmes,
That France and Belgia with affrighted eyes,
Were sad beholders of your miseries.
3
Tueterate ranckor in their bosoms bred,
Who for their charter wag’d a former war,
Or through your veines, this raging venom spred,
Whose next-succeeding Nephewes now you are,
Or that hote gore your bowes in conquest shed,
Hauing enlarg’d your Countries bounds so far,
Ensigne to ensigne furiously oppose,
With blades of Bilbo dealing English blowes.
4
O thou the great director of my Muse,
On whose free bountie all my powers depend,
Into my breast a sacred fire infuse,
Rauish my spirit this great worke to attend;
Let the still night my laboured lines peruse,
That when my Poems gaine their wished end,
They whose sad eyes shall reade this tragique story,
In my weake hand shall see thy might and glory.
5
What Care would plot, Dissentions quickely crosse,
Which like an earthquake rends the tottering state,
By which abroade we beare a publique losse,
Betrayd at home by meanes of priuate hate;
Whilst vs those strange calamities doe tosse,
(The daily nurse of mutinous debate)
Confusion still our countries peace confounds,
No helpe at hand, and mortall all our wounds.
6
Thou Church then swelling in thy mightinesse,
Tending the care and safetie of the soule;
O nurse not factions flowing in excesse,
That with thy members shouldst their griefe condole,
In thee rests power this outrage to represse,
Which might thy zeale and sanctitie enrole,
Come thou in purenesse meekely with the word,
Lay not thy hand to the vnhalowed sword.
7
Blood-thirsting warre arising first from hell,
And in progression seizing on this Ile,
Where it before neere forty yeeres did dwell,
And with pollution horribly defile,
By which so many a woorthy English fell,
By our first Edward banished awhile,
Transferd by Fortune to the Scottish meare,
To ransacke that, as it had rauinde heere.
8
Where hovering still with inauspicious wings
About the verge of these distempered climes,
Returning now, new errour hether brings,
To stirre vs vp to these disastrous crimes,
Weakeneth our power by oft diminishings;
And taking holde on these vnsetled times,
Forcing our frailty sensually at length,
Crackt the stiffe nerves that knit our antient strength.
9
Whose frightfull vision, at the first approach,
With violent madnes strooke that desperate age,
So many sundry miseries abroach,
Giuing full speed to their vnbrideled rage
That did our antient libertie encroach,
And in these strong conspiracies ingage,
The worthiest blood the subiects losse to bring,
By innaturall wrongs vnto their naturall king.
10
When in the North whilst horror yet was yoong,
These dangerous seasons swiftly comming on,
Whilst o’re our heads portentious meteors hung,
And in the skies sterne Comets brightly shone,
Prodigious births oft intermixt among,
Such as before to times had beene vnknowne,
In bloody issues forth the earth doth breake,
Weeping for vs, whose woes it could not speake.
11
When by the rankenes of contagious aire,
A mortall plague inuadeth man and beast,
Which soone disperst, and raging every where,
In doubt the same too quickely should have ceast,
More to confirme the certaintie of feare
By cruell famine haplesly enereast;
As though the heauens in their remisfull doome,
Tooke those best lou’d from wor•er daies to come.
12
The leuell course that we propose to goe
Now to th’intent you may more plainely see,
And that we euery circumstance may show
The state of things, and truely what they be,
And with what skill, or proiect we bestow,
As our accurrents happen in degree.
From these portents we now diuert our view,
To bring to birth the horrors that ensue.
13
The calling backe of banisht Gaueston,
Gainst which the Barrons were to Longshanks sworne,
That insolent lascivious Minion,
A Soueraignes blemish, and a countries scorne,
The signiories, and great promotion,
Him in his lawlesse courses to suborne,
Stirres vp that hatefull and outragious strife,
That cost ere long so many an English life,
14
O worthy La•y, hadst thou sparde that breath
Which shortly after Nature thee denide,
To Lancaster deliuered at thy death,
To whom thy onely daughter was affide,
That this sterne warre too quickely publisheth,
To ayde the Barrons gainst that Minions pride,
Thy Earledomes, lands, and titles of renowne,
Had not so soone returnd vnto the Crowne.
15
The Lordships Bruse vnto the Spensers past,
Crossing the Barrons vehement desire,
As from Ioues hand that fearefull lightning cast,
When fifty townes lay spent in enuious fire,
Alas too vaine and prodigall a waste;
The strong
effect of their conceived ire,
Vrging the weake King with a violent hand,
T’abiure those false Lordes from the troubled land.
16
When the faire Queene that progressing in Kent,
Lastly denide her entrance into Leedes,
Whom Badlesmere vnkindly dooth preuent;
Who gainst his Soueraigne in this course proceedes,
As adding further to this discontent,
One of the springs which this great mischiefe feedes,
Heaping on rage and horror more and more,
To thrust on that which went too fast before.
17
Which more and more, a kingly rage increast,
Moou’d with the wrongs of Gaueston disgraded,
Which had so long beene setled in his breast,
That all his powers it wholy had inuaded,
Giuing the Spensers an assured rest,
By whom his reasons chiefly are perswaded,
By whose lewd counsells he is onely led,
To leaue his true Queene, and his lawfull bed,
18
That now herselfe who while she stood in grace,
Applied her powers these discords to appease
When yet confusion had not fully place,
Nor former times so dangerous as these,
A party now in theyr afflicted case,
A willing hand to his destruction layes,
That time whose soft palme heals the wound of war,
May cure the soare, but neuer close the scar.
19
In all this heate his greatnes first began,
The serious subiect of our sadder vaine,
Braue Mortimer, that euer-matchlesse man,
Of the old Heroes great and God-like straine,
For whom invention dooing best it can,
His weight of honour hardly can sustaine,
Bearing his name immortaliz’d and hie,
When he in earth vnnumbred times shall lie.
20
That vncle now (whose name this Nephew bare,
The onely comfort of the wofull Queene)
Who from his cradle held him as his care,
In whom the hope of that great name was seene,
For this young Lord now wisely doth prepare,
Whilst yet this deepe hart-goaring wound is greene,
And on this faire aduantage firmely wrought,
To place him highly in her princely thought.
21
At whose deliberate and vnusuall byrth,
The heauens were said to counsell to retire,
And in aspects of happinesse and mirth,
Breath’d him a spirit insatiatly t’aspire,
That tooke no mixture of the ponderous earth,
But all comprest of cleere ascending fire,
So well made vp, that such an one as he,
Ioue in a man like Mortimer would be.
22
The temper of that nobler moouing part,
With such rare purenesse rectified his blood,
Raising the powers of his resolued hart,
Too prowd to be lockt vp within a flood,
That no misfortune possibly could thwart;
Which from the natiue greatnesse where it stood,
Euen by the vertue of a piercing eye,
Shew’d that his pitch was boundlesse as the sky.
23
Worthy the grand-child of so great a Lord,
Who whilst first Edward fortunately raign’d,
Reedified great Arthurs auncient boord,
The seate at goodly Kennelworth ordain’d,
The order of old Knighthood there restor’d,
To which a hundreth duely appertain’d
With all the grace, and beauties of a Court,
As best became that braue and martiall sport.
24
The hart-swolne Lords with furie set on fire,
Whom Edwards wrongs to vengeance still prouoke,
With Lancaster and Hartfoord now conspire
No more to beare the Spensers seruile yoke.
And thus whilst all a mutuall change desire,
The ancient bonds of their allegeance broke,
Resolu’d with blood their libertie to buy,
And in this quarrell vow’d to liue and dye.
25
What priuiledge hath our free birth? (say they)
Or in our blood what vertue doth remaine,
To each lasciuious Minion made a pray,
That vs, and our nobilitie disdaine,
Whilst they tryumphing boast of our decay?
Either those spirits we do not now retaine
That were our fathers, or by fate we fall
Both from their greatnes, liberty and all.
26
Honour deiected from that soueraigne state,
From whence at first it challenged a being,
Now prostitute to infamy and hate,
As with it selfe in all things disagreeing,
So out of order, disproportionate,
From her faire course preposterously flying,
Whilst others as themselues, and onely wee
Are not held those we would but seeme to bee.
27
Then to what end hath our great conquest seru’d,
Those acts achiued by the Norman sword,
Our Charters, patents, or our deeds reseru’d,
Our offices, and tytles to record,
The crests that on our monuments are caru’d,
If they to vs no greater good affoord?
Thus doe they murmure euery one apart,
With many a vext soule, many a grieued hart.
28
Whilst this sad Queene to depth of sorrow throwne,
Wherein she wastes her flower of youth away,
Beyond beliefe to all but heauen vnknowne,
This quickning sparke, where yet it buried lay,
By the sharpe breath of desperate faction blowne,
Conuerts her long night to the wished day,
The wofull winter of misfortune cheering,
As the darke world at the bright sunnes appearing.
29
Yet ill perplex’d amid these hard extreames,
All mean•s deprest her safety to preferre,
Depriu’d of those late comfortable beames,
Whose want might make her the more easly erre,
Her hopes relinquisht like deceiptfull dreames,
Which in her breast such sundry passions stirre,
Where strugling which ech other should controule
Worke strange confusion in her troubled soule.
30
That now disabled of all soveraigne state,
That to her graces rightly did belong,
To be reiected, and repudiate,
So true a Lady, goodly, faire and yoong,
Which with more feruor still dooth intimate
Her too-deepe-setled and inveterate wrong,
What wisedome would, a womans will denies,
With arguments of her indignities.
31
When to effect the angry Fates pursue
In heauens high Court that long time did depend,
When these full mischiefes to a ripenesse grew,
And now the haruest hastning in the end,
And all these lines into one centre drew,
Which way soe’re they seemingly extend;
All these together in proportion laide,
Each breath of hope, a gale of certaine aide.
32
Now is the time when Mortimer doth enter,
Of great imployment in this tragicke act,
His youth and courage boldly bid him venter,
And tell him still how strongly he was backt;
And at this instant in due season sent her,
When the streight course to her desire is tract,
(And but vpon more certaintie doth sta
y)
By a direct, what though a dangerous way?
33
This dreadfull Commet drew her wondring eie,
Which now beganne his golden head to reare,
Whose glorious fixure in so faire a skie,
Strikes the beholder with a chilly feare,
And in a Region eleuate and hie,
And by the forme wherein it did appeare,
As the most skilfull seriously divine,
Foreshew’d a kingdome shortly to decline.
34
Yet still recoyling at the Spencers power,
As often checkt with their intemperate pride,
Th’vnconstant Barrons wauering euery howre,
The fierce incounter of this boysterous tide,
That easily might their liuelihoode deuoure,
Had she not those that skilfully could guide,
She from suspition craftily retires,
Carelesse in shew, of what she most desires.
35
Dissembling griefe, as one that knew not ill;
So can she rule the greatnes of her mind,
As a most perfect Rectoresse of her will,
Aboue the vsuall weakenes of her kind;
For all this storme immooueable and still,
Her secret drift the wisest misse to find;
Nor will she know what (yet) these factions meant,
With a pleasd eie to sooth sad Discontent.
36
The least suspition cunningly to heale,
Still in her lookes humilitie she beares,
The safest way with mightinesse to deale,
So Policie Religions habite weares;
Tis now no time her greeuance to reueale,
Hee’s mad which takes a Lyon by the eares,
This knew the Queene, exampled by the wise,
This must they learne that rightly temporize.
37
The learnedst Bishop Torleton in the land,
Vpon a text of Politickes to preach,
Which he long studying, well did vnderstand,
And by a methode could as aptly teach,
That was a Prelate of a potent hand,
Wise were the man could goe beyond his reach:
This subtile Tutor Isabell had taught,
In nicer poynts than euer Edward sought.
38
Rage which no limits longer can containe,
Lastly breakes foorth into a publique flame,
Then slipp’d occasion better to regaine,
When to their purpose things sofitly frame,
And now discerned visibly and plaine,
When treason boldly dare it selfe proclaime,
Casting aside all secular disguise,
Leading prowd legions furiously to rise.
39
As Severne lately in her ebbes that sanke,
Vast and forsaken leaues th’vncouered sands,
Fetching full tides, luxurious, hie, and ranke,
Seemes in her pride t’inuade the neighbouring lands,
Michael Drayton- Collected Poetical Works Page 60