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.

B5 Wilye watt, wilie watt


Notes. This poem dates from Ralegh’s dramatic fall from office and arrest for treason in the summer of 1603.


Wilye watt,1 wilie watt

Wats2 thou not & know thou what

Looke to thy forme and quat3

in towne & Citie


Freshe Houndes4 are on thy taile

5

that will pull downe thy saile

and make thy hart & quaile

Lord for the pittie


Lordshipp is flagg’d and fled

Captainshipp newly sped

10

Dried is the Hogsheads hed5

wily watt wilie


Make the best of thy plea

least the rest goe awaie

and thou brought for to saie

15

wily beguilie


For thy skaunce6 and pride

thy bloudy minde beside

and thy mouth gaping wide

mischievous machiavell7

20

Essex for vengeance cries8

his bloud upon thee lies

mountinge above the skies

damnable fiend of hell

mischievous matchivell

25


Source. BL Add. MS 22601, fol. 63r

Other known sources. Ralegh, Poems 186

B5




1   watt: Wat; abbreviated form of Walter. <back>

2   Wats: pun on Wat/Walter, and “wot”, know. <back>

3   quat: squat or crouch; cower. <back>

4   Fresh Houndes: i.e. Ralegh’s prosecutors. <back>

5   Lordshipp...Hogsheads hed: reference to Ralegh’s dramatic losses at the beginning of James I’s reign. Before his implication in the Bye and Main Plots, Ralegh had lost his office as Captain of the Guard (the “Captainshipp”) and his lucrative monopoly to license wine-sellers and wine imports (“Dried is the Hogsheads [i.e. the wine cask’s] hed”). The flight of “Lordshipp” may refer to Ralegh’s loss of lands as a result of his treason conviction. <back>

6   skaunce: skance; a sidelong glance. <back>

7   machiavell: follower of the supposedly amoral and atheistic creeds of the Italian Niccolò Machiavelli. <back>

8   Essex for vengeance cries: Ralegh was alleged to have engineered the fall and 1601 execution of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. Ralegh’s plotting against Essex is the main subject of the contemporary poem on Ralegh’s fall, “To whome shall cursed I my Case complaine”. <back>