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.
Nvi1 O stay your teares yow who complaine
Notes. On 18 January 1623, Joseph Mead’s newsletter to his kinsman Sir Martin Stuteveille reported that, “There is also a great paper of verses, in way of answer to these libels and State meddlers, vulgarly said to be the King’s; but a gentleman told me that he will not own it” (Birch 2.355). A week later, John Chamberlain informed Dudley Carleton: “And now touching libells the report goes there be many abrode, and it shold seeme the Kings verses I herewith send you were made in aunswer to one of them”. Two weeks later, however, Chamberlain reported in his following letter that the king now disclaimed authorship (Chamberlain 2.473, 478). Four days later still, Mead sent Stuteville a copy of the same poem—written “in answer, as it seems, to some libel”—and of a second verse also attributed to James. “This latter”, Mead noted, “some say, the king hath disclaimed expressly; but what he saith to the other, I know not. But if it be not his, it is worse than a libel, and not to be read. But till that appears, I suppose, there is no danger” (Birch 2.364-365). Mead and Chamberlain, uncertain as they were about royal authorship, allow us to date with some precision the moment that “O stay your teares yow who complaine” began to circulate among the well-informed collectors of news. One copy of the poem (BL MS Harley 367) states that the libel James was responding to was “called the Comons teares”. Unfortunately, no libel with that title has yet been found, though one might note a partial similarity to the title of the verse “If Saints in heaven cann either see or heare”, a petition to the late Queen Elizabeth that couched itself in the voice of “her now most wretched and most Contemptible, the Commons of poore distressed England”. Both copyists’ notes and internal evidence, however, suggest that “If Saints in heaven” was written after March 1623, thus at least two months after James’s poem began to circulate. We can reconstruct something of the content of the lost “Comons teares” by collating James’s more specific allusions to the libel’s charges—James makes about about a dozen such allusions in all, which we have annotated below. The charges thus deduced do not, as a group, match the charges of any one poem, but, taken individually, can be found in a range of other extant verses from the period of the Spanish Match crisis. James’s poem has frequently been noted by scholars of verse libel for its memorable attack on “railing rymes and vaunting verse”, and is explored in some detail by Perry (“Late Manuscript Poetry of James I” 212-17).
“King James his verses made upon a Libell lett fall in Court and entituled
‘The wiper of the Peoples teares
The dryer upp of doubts & feares’”
O stay your teares yow who complaine
Cry not as Babes doe all in vaine
Purblinde1 people why doe yow prate
Too shallowe for the deepe of state
You cannot judge what’s truely myne
5Who see noe further then the Ryne2
Kings walke the heavenly milky way
But yow by bypathes gadd astray
God and Kings doe pace together
But Vulgar wander light as feather
10I should be sorie you should see
My actions before they bee
Brought to the full of my desires
God above all men kings enspires
Hold you the publique beaten way
15Wounder at kings, and them obey
For under God they are to chuse
What right to take, and what refuse
Whereto if yow will not consent
Yet hold your peace least you repent
20And be corrected for your pride
That Kings designes darr thus decyde3
By railing rymes and vaunting verse
Which your kings brest shall never peirce
Religion4 is the right of kings
25As they best knowe what good it brings
Whereto you must submitt your deeds
Or be pull’d upp like stubborne5 weeds
Kings ever use their instruments6
Of whome they judge by their events
30The good they cherish, and advance
And many things may come by chance
Content your selfe with such as I
Shall take neere,7 and place on highe
The men you nam’d8 serv’d in their tyme
35And soe may myne as cleere of cryme
And seasons have their proper intents
And bring forth severall events
Whereof the choyse doe rest in kings
Who punish, and reward them brings
40O what a calling weere a King
If hee might give, or take no thing
But such as yow should to him bring
Such were a king but in a play
If he might beare no better sway
45And then weere you in worser case
If soe to keepe you9 auntient face
Your face would soone outface his might
If soe you would abridge his right
Alas fond men play not with kings
50With lyons clawes, or serpents stings
They kill even by theire sharpe aspect
The proudest mynde they cann deject
Make wretched the most mightiest man
Though hee doth mutter what hee cann
55Your censures are in hurrying sound
That rise as vapours from the ground
I knowe when I shalbee most fitt
With whome to fill, and emptie it
The parliament10 I will appoint
60When I see thyngs more out of joynt
Then will I sett all wry things straight
And not upon your pleasure waite
Where if yow speake as wise men should
If not, by mee you shall be school’d
65Was ever king call’d to accompt
Or ever mynd soe high durst mount
As for to knowe the cause and reason
As to appoint the meanes, and season
When kings should aske their subjects ayd11
70Kings cannot soe be made affraid
Kings will Comand and beare the sway
Kings will inquire and find the way
How all of yow may easiely pay
Which theyle lay out as the thinke best12
75In earnest sometimes and in jeast.
What counsells would be overthrowne
If all weere to the people knowne?
Then to noe use were councell tables13
If state affaires were publique bables.
80I make noe doubt all wise men knowe
This weere the way to all our woe
For Ignorance of causes makes
Soe many grosse and fowle mistakes
The moddell of our princely match14
85You cannot make but marr or patch
Alas how weake would prove your care
Wishe you onely his best welfaire
Your reasons cannot weigh the ends
So mixt they are twixt foes, and frends.
90Wherefore againe meere seeing people
Strive not to see soe high a steeple
Like to the ground whereon you goe
Hige15 aspects will bring yow woe
Take heed your paces bee all true
95And doe not discontents renewe
Meddle not with your princes cares
For who soe doth too much: hee darrs.
I doe desire noe more of yow
But to knowe mee as I knowe yow
100So shall I love, and yow obey
And yow love me in a right way
O make me not unwilling still
Whome I would save unwilling kill16
Examples in Extremitie
105Are never the best remedie
Thus have I pleased my selfe not yow
And what I say yow shall finde true
Keepe every man his ranke, and place
And feare to fall in my disgrace
110You call your children chicks of state
You claime a right unto your fate17
But know yow must be pleas’d with what
Shall please us best in spight of that
Kings doe make Lawes to bridle yow
115Which they may pardon, or embrue
Their hands in the best blood you have
And send the greatest to the grave.
The Charter which yow great doe call18
Came first from Kings to stay your fall
120From an unjust rebellion moved
By such as Kingdomes little Loved
Embrace not more then you can hold
As often doe the overbold
As they did which the Charter sought
125For their owne greatnes who soe wrought
With Kings and you; that all prov’d nought
The Love that Kings to yow have borne
Mov’d them therto for to be sworne
For, where small goods are to be gott
130We are knowne to thee, that knowes us not,
But yow that knowe mee all soe well
Why doe you push me downe to hell
By making me an Infidell19
Tis true I am a craddle King20
135Yet doe remember every thinge
That I have heeretofore putt out
And yet beginn not for to doubt
But oh how grosse is your devise
Change to impute to kings for vice21
140The wise may change yet free from fault
Though change to worse is ever nought
Kings ever overreach you all
And must stay yow thoe that you fall,
Kings cannot comprehended bee
145In comon circles. Conjure yee
All what you cann by teares or termes
Deny not what your king affirmes
Hee doth disdaine to cast an eye
Of anger on you least you die
150Even at the shadowe of his face
It gives to all that sues for grace
I knowe (my frends) need noe teaching
Prowd is your foolish overreaching.
Come counsell me when I shall call
155Before bewarr what may befall
Kings will hardly take advice
Of counsell they are wondrous nice
Love and wisdome leads them still
Their counsell tables upp to fill
160They need noe helpers in their choice
Their best advice is their owne voyce,
And be assured such are kings
As they unto their counsell brings
Which allwaies soe compounded are
165As some would make and some would marr.
If I once bend my angrie browe
Your ruyne comes though not as nowe;
For slowe I am revenge to take;
And your amendments, wroth will slake
170Then hold your pratling spare your penn
Be honest, and obedient men
Urge not my Justice, I am sloe
To give yow your deserved woe.
If proclamations22 will not serve
175I must do more, Peace to preserve
To keepe all in obedience
And drive such busie bodies hence.
Source. Bodleian MS Malone 23, pp. 49-56
Other known sources. James VI and I 2.182; Bodleian MS Ashmole 36-37, fol. 58r; Bodleian MS Eng. Poet. c.11, fol. 15r; Bodleian MS Rawl. D.152, fol. 11r; Bodleian MS Rawl. D.398, fol. 183r; Bodleian MS Tanner 265, fol. 14r; Bodleian MS Tanner 306, fol. 242r; BL Add. MS 25707, fol. 74r; BL Add. MS 28640, fol. 123v; BL Add. MS 29303, fol. 5r; BL Add. MS 52585, fol. 4r; BL Add. MS 61481, fol. 97r; BL MS Egerton 923, fol. 37r; BL MS Harley 367, fol. 151r; BL MS Lans. 498, fol. 32r; St. John’s MS K.56, no. 68; Folger MS V.b.303, p. 264
Nvi1
1 Purblinde: totally blind. <back>
2 Ryne: the scribe includes “Lyne”, above the line, as an alternate reading. The exact meaning of “Ryne” is unclear, though it probably means “rain”, or perhaps is a misuse of the verb “rine” (to touch; lay the fingres of the hand upon). One might, with a little stretching, take it to mean “Rhine”, in which case it would function as a mockery of James’s subjects’ fascination with events in Germany. <back>
3 decyde: probable scribal error; read “deryde”. <back>
4 Religion: probable allusion to an attack, in the lost libel “the Comons teares”, on James’s religious policies. <back>
5 stubborne: the scribe includes “stinking”, above the line, as an alternate reading. <back>
6 their instruments: in this and the next few lines (and again towards the end of the poem), James counters the critique in the lost libel “the Comons teares” of his choice of ministers, presumably with his favour towards Buckingham being the most significant of the libel’s targets. <back>
7 neere: probable scribal error; read “neere me”. <back>
8 The men you nam’d: this allusion suggests that the lost libel “the Comons teares” invoked the names of past, and probably Elizabethan, counsellors and favourites. Both Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and Sir Walter Ralegh enjoyed a posthumous revival in the 1620s as icons of militaristic Protestantism. <back>
9 you: probable scribal error; read “your”. <back>
10 The parliament: in the following lines James reasserts his prerogative over the calling of parliament and alludes to some of the problems of the last session of parliament in 1621. Presumably the lost libel “the Comons Teares” either lamented the dissolution of the 1621 Parliament or urged the calling of another one, presumably to raise money for a more militaristic foreign policy. <back>
11 When kings should...ayd: i.e. by calling a parliament. <back>
12 How all of you...thinke best: probable allusion to the royal right to raise revenue and spend it as the King sees fit. This might be rebutting charges in the lost libel “the Comons teares” concerning extra-parliamentary taxation or the usage of money granted to the King by parliament. James’s comments might, however, be directed at members of parliament rather than at the libel. (The phrase “as the thinke best” is a probable scribal error; read “as they thinke best”.) <back>
13 councell tables: allusion to the King’s Privy Council. <back>
14 our princely match: probable allusion to James’s plan to secure a Spanish Match for his son Charles. One could deduce that the lost libel “the Comons teares”—like the House of Commons in 1621—had argued against the Match. <back>
15 Hige: scribal error; read “Highe”. <back>
16 O make me...unwilling kill: the meaning of these lines is not entirely clear. In general terms, James seems to be attacking attempts—perhaps articulated in the lost libel “the Comons teares”—to contest his prerogative of mercy. Possibly the lost libel included lines criticizing James’s release of the convicted murderers, the Earl and Countess of Somerset, early in 1622. <back>
17 You call...unto your fate: a variant has “you call our children, chidds of State / you claime a right unto there fate” (BL MS Harley 367). This reading suggests James is alluding to the lost libel’s comments on—and support for—the displaced Elector and Electress Palatine, James’s daughter Elizabeth and her husband Frederick; however, such an interpretation does not really accord with James’s continued interest in his prerogative of justice and mercy in the lines that follow. <back>
18 The Charter...great doe call: Magna Carta, the grant of liberties, extracted by rebellious nobles from King John in 1215, and a shibboleth of parliamentary constitutionalist rhetoric in the early Stuart period. James’s specific evocation of “you” suggests the lost libel “the Comons teares” might have referred to the Magna Carta (as did the later libel “If Saints in heaven cann either see or heare”). James goes on to provide an interesting gloss on the origins of the Magna Carta. <back>
19 making me an Infidell: the lost libel “the Comons teares” may have charged James with popery or irreligion. <back>
20 craddle King: cradle king. James ascended the throne of Scotland as a one-year-old. <back>
21 Change to impute...for vice: James is presumably again rebutting a charge, most likely of (religious) “innovation”, made in the lost libel “the Comons teares”. <back>
22 proclamations: James issued two proclamations intended to suppress “Lavish and Licentious Speech of matters of State” in December 1620 and July 1621 (Stuart Royal Proclamations 1.495-96, 1.519-520). <back>
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