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.

Piii2 Heere lyes the best and worst of Fate


Notes. This equivocal epitaph on Buckingham is accepted as the work of James Shirley. G. Hammond (64) briefly discusses the verse, arguing that “Shirley’s little poem is probably the best thing written about Buckingham”.


Heere lyes the best and worst of Fate

Two Princes love,1 the Peoples hate

Great Envies feare, the Kingdomes eye

A Man to shape an Angell by

His owne lives wonder, pale deathes glorie,

5

The great Mans volume, all tymes storie.



Source. Bodleian MS Malone 23, p. 195

Other known sources. Shirley 62; Bodleian MS Rawl. Poet. 88, p. 59; BL Add. MS 30982, fol. 45v; Beinecke MS Osborn Bagott Papers Chest 1, no. 16

Piii2






1   Two Princes love: Buckingham was the favourite of two kings, James I and Charles I. <back>