Notes. A variant of this Spanish Match epigram has a different first-line (“The starre that sitts in Charles his wayne”), but is otherwise effectively identical (Beinecke MS Osborn b.197). The poem draws an analogy between the south-north movement of a star in the constellation Virgo and the anticipated movement of the Spanish Infanta from Spain to England.

“1623”

The starre that rose in Virgo’s trayne,

From South to North did post amayne.

If Southene be the coast of Spayne,

Then Northerne Charles looke to thy wayne.1

Source. Bodleian MS Rawl. Poet. 26, fol. 3v

Other known sources. Bodleian MS Rawl. Poet. 26, fol. 25r; Beinecke MS Osborn b.197, p. 219

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¹   thy wayne: Charles’s Wain was a group of seven stars in the Great Bear constellation. <back>