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Elizabeth I: A Study of Seven Poems

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Contents

Introduction……………………………………………... 1

The Poems and Their Contexts………………………… 9

Manuscript Rationale …………………………………. 27

Editorial Policy…………………………………………. 33

Conclusion……………………………………………… 37

Elizabeth I: Seven Selected Poems……………………..42

Bibliography……………………………………………. 56

Manuscripts Considered and Consulted……………… 64

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Introduction

In a letter to Katherine Parr, the eleven year old princess Elizabeth writes that

she has translated “the book…named The Mirror or Glass of the Sinful Soul” into

English prose, “joining the sentences together as well as the capacity of my simple wit

and small learning could extend themselves.”1 Queen Elizabeth’s academic abilities

were far from ‘simple’ or ‘small,’ and this early translation shows her precocious

talents for literary work in both her own language and others.2 Elizabeth evidently

started writing at a young age, and continued to do so throughout her life, producing

copious letters, speeches, prayers and some poems. Informed by her humanist

education, the body of work that Elizabeth created is extensive, with some of her

works marking significant points in history such as her “Golden Speech” during her

last parliament, and the famously rousing “Speech at Tilbury.”3

Each category of Elizabeth’s writing (prayers, poems, speeches, letters) was

created and disseminated differently. Elizabeth and her contemporaries were writing

at a time when, despite the prevalent effects of the Gutenberg press, literature was still

being written in manuscript form.4 They were writing when two transmission systems

existed and it is in the older manuscript system, wherein “the modern boundary

between the literary and the non-literary had not yet solidified, and texts were

immersed in social worlds whose conditions enabled them to be produced and

consumed” that will be the main concern of this paper.5 This is because it is through

this system that Elizabeth’s poems would primarily be circulated.

1 Marcus, Leah, Janel Mueller and Mary Beth Rose, Elizabeth I Collected Works (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2000), Letter 2, p72 Shell, Marc, Elizabeth’s Glass (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993) esp Introduction3 Marcus et al, Collected Works, p325; pp335-3424 Marotti, Arthur F., Manuscript, Print, and the English Renaissance Lyric (Ithaca: Cornell University press, 1995) xii5 Ibid.

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Before looking at the manuscript circulation of Elizabeth’s poems it is useful

to briefly look at the publication and dissemination history of her other works in order

to be able to place her poetry amongst her work as whole. Her prayers are preserved

in a range of sources, some in manuscript miscellanies such as British Library

Manuscript Lansdowne 115, art.45, fol.108r, and many published in Precationes

privatae, a print volume produced in 1563 by Elizabeth containing Latin scriptural

verses and her own prayers.6 Leah Marcus, Janel Mueller and Mary Beth Rose, the

editors of Elizabeth I Collected Works (hereafter Collected Works) propose that this

publication “may well have been motivated by Elizabeth’s desire to make a public

demonstration of gratitude to God for her recovery from a near-fatal case of small-pox

in October 1562.” Whatever prompted its creation, this volume offers a rare

publicized collection of writing that we can certainly attribute to Elizabeth.7

A large volume of the queen’s letters survive primarily in the State Papers

Domestic, but have also been found in sources such as the Cecil Papers from Hatfield

House. Particular epistolary relationships are also collected together, such as in BL

MS Additional 23240, a manuscript volume entitled “Autograph Correspondence of

Q. Elizabeth with James VI of Scotland, 1582-1596.” While Elizabeth’s letters were

theoretically intended for a specific recipient, they were by no means assumedly

private. The extant letters, copies and drafts of letters indicate a complex creative

process evidencing an involvement in the letter writing process by Elizabeth’s

advisors, and it is clear even from those letters Elizabeth wrote in her own hand, with

little or no input from her advisors, that they were written with the awareness that the

recipient would not be the only reader.8 There is copious manuscript evidence for

6Marcus et al, Collected Works, p135, n1; hereafter “British Library” will be abbreviated to “BL,” while “Manuscript” will be abbreviated to “MS.” 7 Ibid.8 This can be seen particularly in Elizabeth’s correspondences with James I Scotland. In their letters concerning the declaration of James as Elizabeth’s heir, Elizabeth is especially careful with what she

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Elizabeth’s letters, from those to her close friends to those to ambassadors, from the

initial drafting stages to the final meticulously constructed epistles,

The performative nature of speeches offers yet another mode of creation and

dissemination. Elizabeth’s speeches were often recorded, printed and published after

their original oration, allowing great scope for change and alteration. Not only are the

records of speeches heavily reliant upon the listener, but the content is also

susceptible to the individual reaction of the listener. Having delivered a speech, those

aspects of it that prove popular may have been exaggerated in consequent

documentations of that speech, while aspects that were unsuccessful may be omitted

when circulated in the public domain. Additionally, while Elizabeth and her advisors

may have prepared speeches using notes and drafts, Elizabeth’s comfort and skill with

language and the immediacy of the circumstances of delivery may have meant that

what she apparently planned to say and what she did say were very different.

Of the four broader categories of Elizabeth’s writing it is poetry that had the

most complicated reputation in Elizabethan England. As J.W Saunders and Ted-

Larry Pebworth point out, it was through the writing and circulation of verse that

those with political and social aspirations caught the attention of those with the power

and influence to help them advance themselves.9 These amateur poets “shared the

short literary careers and the gentlemanly disdain for literature,” that characterized the

type of writers that they were; writers who wrote verse to evidence their education,

social standing and cultural understanding and yet simultaneously recognised its

fundamentally crude purpose as a social tool. The conflict between the cultural

says, never blatantly announcing her intention to name him as such. See Marcus et al, Collected Works, Letters 74-6, 78-9, pp293-7, pp355-79 Pebworth, Ted-Larry. "John Donne, Coterie Poetry, and the Text as Performance." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 29.1 (1989): 61-75.quote p63, W. Saunders, "The Stigma of Print: A Note on the Social Bases of Tudor Poetry," EIC 1 (1951):139-64, incorporated, with revisions, into his The Profession of English Letters (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964), chapter 3.

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function of poetry and any genuine desires to write for professional or personal

purposes is discussed by Richard Helgerson in Self-Crowned Laureates: Spenser,

Jonson, Milton and the Literary System. His recognition of the differences between

amateur, professional and laureate poets at this time are found through his study of

both poetic content and contemporary attitudes towards the act of writing, in addition

to the modes of transmission and dissemination that these poets employed.10

How Elizabeth’s courtiers viewed their monarch’s writings can be partly

explored by looking at the circulation trends of her poems. Except for one poem

published in a print volume in 1589, the poems that have been attributed to Elizabeth

only circulated in the manuscript system, much as the poems of the coterie poets did.11

More than the other pieces of writing that Elizabeth produced, her poems invite

speculation as to what they may reveal about the personal feelings of their author. If

they were written for her eyes only, or for one other, what could they suggest about

Elizabeth’s thoughts? If a poem refers to political or social events, what attitude could

courtiers glean from them? These types of questions are continually asked of

Elizabeth’s poems, and the intrigue surrounding them remains due to their somewhat

elusive nature; contemporary sources mention her many and varied verse writing, and

yet only a small number of her poems written in English survive today.12

There has been much scholarship on Elizabeth’s biography and within the last

quarter century, as fields of criticism such as feminism and queer studies have hugely

expanded, the focus of scholarship on women’s writing too has increased.13 The

production of editions of Elizabeth’s writing has reflected this growing interest,

10 Helgerson, Richard, Self-Crowned Laureates: Spenser, Jonson, Milton, and the Literary System (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1983), pp. 108-109.11Puttenham, George, The Arte of English Poesie (London, 1589), sig. 2E2v (p. 208) ESTC S123166; Pebworth, p6312 Heywood, Thomas, Gynaikeion, sig Mm2v. The full title is Gynaikeion: or, Nine bookes of various history, Concerninge women inscribed by ye names of ye nine Muses. 13 See Marcus et al, Collected Works, ‘Preface’

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however it is arguably Elizabeth’s letters that have received the most editorial

attention . Leicester Bradner’s 1964 collection of Elizabeth’s poetry and translations

remains the smallest collection of her work, while scholars such as Marcus, Mueller

and Rose and Steven May have chosen select prayers, letters, speeches and poems,

assembling volumes that have greatly contributed to the publicizing of Elizabeth’s

writing.14 May has also produced an informative survey of Elizabeth’s poetry, arguing

that she produced much more than had previously been thought, proposing that there

are fifteen originals in English as well as in French and Latin.15 There is also

increasing work that uses her writing in other languages to elaborate on the study of

international relations at the time, as well as the call for original spelling editions of

previously published modern spelling editions of Elizabeth’s work; Marcus and

Mueller’s follow up edition to the Collected Works, Elizabeth I: Autograph

Composition and Foreign Language Originals seeks to provide material for those

wanting to access Elizabeth’s works in their original spelling.16

Peter Herman and Jennifer Summit have individually taken Elizabeth’s

poetry and used it in order to attempt to establish how Elizabeth could have been

regarded as a poet alongside her status as monarch. Summit notes Louis Montrose’s

argument that the Elizabethan subject in Spensarian poetry contends that “the male

subject/poet puts into question the female monarch’s claim to shape herself and her

subjects”, by making her the “’subject’ of his verse and thereby subjecting her to a

violent debasement that is both textual and sexual;” if Spenser is defined as a poet due

to his masculine aggression, this must disqualify Elizabeth herself from being called a

14 Bradner, Leicester ed. The Poems of Queen Elizabeth I (Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 1963; May, Steven ed. Queen Elizabeth I: Selected Works (London: Simon and Schuster UK Ltd, 2005); Marcus et al.15 May, Steven The Elizabethan Courtier Poets: The Poems and Their Contexts (Columbia:University of Missouri Press, 1991)16 Janel Mueller and Leah S. Marcus eds. Elizabeth I: Autograph Compositions and Foreign Language Originals, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003)

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poet as she is a woman.17 Summit attempts to reconcile this disjuncture through the

analysis of “The doubt of future foes.” Herman, on the other hand, regards Elizabeth

as unquestionably as much a poet as she was a monarch, looking at Elizabeth’s

writing as work produced by a monarch in comparison to other royal writers. He

focuses on a small group of her poems and their content in relation to current events,

using this to suggest what Elizabeth’s own attitudes might have been in particular

circumstances, as well as the reactions to her work from those around her.18

It appears, however, that there is little scholarship that presents the writings of

Elizabeth while simultaneously giving the reader an insight into the textual and

bibliographic decisions and difficulties that contribute to editing her work at all. It is

neglectful to consider Elizabethan texts without addressing their material existence as

this can often tell us so much about the circumstances of creation, dissemination and

reception, which in turn can greatly inform the reading of a text. In the case of

Elizabeth’s poems, the evidence that extant manuscripts give of the conditions in

which and for which they were written allow for us to consider how Elizabeth was

regarded as a poet, what her writing tells us about contemporary poetic practices, as

well as inviting us to use these poems as a means for interpreting what Elizabeth

might have intended through her writing. The transmission and dissemination history

of her texts should not be disregarded as mere evidence that she wrote at all. There are

many sources that point towards Elizabeth’s extensive literary career, and while it

17 Montrose, Louis, “The Elizabethan Subject and the Spensarian Text,” in Patricia Parker and David Quint eds. Literary Theory/ Renaissance Text (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986) p303, 324; Summit, Jennifer, ""The Arte of a Ladies Penne": Elizabeth I and the Poetics of Queenship." English Literary Renaissance 26.3 (1996): 395-422, quote 39718 Herman, Peter, Royal Poetrie, Monarchic Verse and the Political Imaginary of Early Modern England (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010), esp. chapter 3. This is a unique volume that considers Elizabeth amongst other historical figures that have shared her status as both monarch and poet. She is not the only woman as the volume also examines the writing of her ‘cousin’ Mary Queen of Scots. The correspondences between these two women are fascinating, and it has been argued by some scholars, such as Jennifer Summit, that the motifs they used in their poetry often reflected those they used in their letters. A thorough comparison of their poetry and letters would be incredible informative.

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would be fascinating to be able to discern exactly which texts she authored herself,

those she wrote with others, and those it has been claimed she wrote but did not, it is

perhaps not quite as important a discrimination as initially it would seem. For whether

she wrote the poems attributed to her or not, it is clear that during her lifetime certain

poems were thought to be authored by her. Elizabeth was undeniably a writer, and

through looking at her poems, how they circulated, how popular they seemed to be,

we can begin to postulate how the Elizabethans viewed the poetry their monarch

wrote, and how Elizabeth herself used writing.

This study collects and edits seven poems attributed to Elizabeth. That

Elizabeth wrote poetry at all is a little known fact to the modern reader and the

primary reason for this edition is to try and increase the availability of accessible

editions of Elizabeth’s poetry. There are myriad benefits to reading texts such as

Elizabeth’s poetry in their old-spelling versions, as will be discussed in the Editorial

Note to this paper, however as Leah Marcus argues, the availability of modern

spelling editions makes a text more canonical, removing it from appearing as “quaint

and embedded in his or her own original period” and consequently at risk of being

considered irrelevant to and by modern readers.19 Accessibility, therefore, is the

ultimate aim of this edition, in terms of both availability and readability. Queen

Elizabeth’s poems are surely relevant to any student of scholar who wishes to

thoroughly examine this most historic monarch.

19 Marcus, Leah, “Editing Queen Eilzabeth” , in Sarah C E Ross and Paul Salzman eds. Editing early Modern Women, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), p143: “Modern spelling, or at least the availability of modern-spelling editions, means an author appears more like Shakespeare, which is to say more canonical, while the use of original spelling makes an author appear more quaint and embedded in his or her own original period. Authors who are not routinely offered in modern-spelling editions may suffer in consequence, even though there are also obvious advantages in terms of subtlety and multiplicity of meaning to preserving original spellings.”

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The Poems and their Contexts

The poems that I have selected to include in this collection are a small number

from an already limited group. As has been noted by all those who have studied

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Elizabeth’s poetry, there are very few poems attributed to Elizabeth despite the

implication by contemporary sources that she wrote a large and varied number. I have

chosen to edit seven poems, all written in English and all attributed to Elizabeth by at

least one contemporary source, if not more. These poems are able to stand by

themselves; they are not, for example, part of witty verse exchanges that rely on an

interchange between Elizabeth and another, exemplified by her interaction with

figures such as Sir Thomas Heneage and Paul Melissus.20 The poems presented here

were all, to our knowledge, originally written in English, and although Elizabeth did

write verses in other languages, notably French, it is those that circulated in English

that are prioritized here. I have also not included the one poem that remains in

Elizabeth’s own handwriting. This poem, “No crooked leg, no bleared eye,” was first

published in 1958 in Poetry Book Society Bulletin, and it certainly remains a key

artifact in the studies of Elizabeth’s poetry, given its existence as an autograph copy. I

have not included this poem for one primary reason. It is written on the inside cover

of a French Psalter, that is, it was not copied in a manuscript miscellany that would

have circulated amongst Elizabeth’s courtiers. One aim of this paper is to look at

which of Elizabeth’s poems circulated in her court and the absence of this poem in

any extant manuscript miscellanies prevented its inclusion. Had it existed in her own

hand as in the Psalter as well as in copied version in manuscript miscellanies, this

would provide incredibly informative material; to be able to compare Elizabeth’s

original writing to other versions may shed light on methods of copying, knowledge

of and access to the Queen’s verse. Unfortunately this is not the case. It is also notable

to consider that simply because it is an autograph copy that does not mean that

Elizabeth is its unquestionable author.21 There are two further texts that have been 20 Marcus et al. Collected Works pp299, 301.21There is a line of thought that Elizabeth composed this piece when she was “much offended by the Earl of Leicester,” and wrote this “obscure sentence” in “a book at Windsor;” these are from the notes

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produced as Elizabeth’s English poems by previous editors. “Four Knights of

Nottinghamshire” was included in Bradner’s section, “Poems of Doubtful

Authorship,” however as he himself recognises, the absence of manuscript evidence,

either contemporary or later, makes this a highly unlikely attribution.22 Elizabeth’s

composition, “Song on the Armada Victory,” was, as the title suggests, written to be

sung once the Spanish had been defeated. It’s attribution to Elizabeth is highly likely,

however the circumstances of composition and its intention to be publicly sung

renders it of less concern to a selection of poems that circulated as verse written of a

less public nature.23 The poems I have selected all indicate that the poems that make

up their contents were circulated amongst coterie groups, amongst the educated

circles of court for whom the writing and creation of verse was an integral part of

courtly life. Elizabeth’s verses sit amongst those by key poetic figures of the period,

implying her participation in the poetic cultural practices of her time.

By looking at the extant manuscript copies of Elizabeth’s verses, we

can attempt to understand the creation, reception and preliminary public life of her

work. There are a limited number of pre-1603 manuscript miscellanies that include

English poems attributed to Elizabeth. It is from these manuscripts that we can see

which poems circulated while Elizabeth was alive, while she was on the throne, and

which poems circulated in manuscript form only after her death. The seven poems

edited here are:

1. “Now leave and let me rest”

of Lord Burghly found in a collection of State Papers. Marcus et al have taken this into account and used it to date the poem to 1565, when Burghly’s notes were made. William Murdin, ed., A Collection of State Papers Relating to Affairs in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth from the Year 1571 to 1596, vol.2 (London: Wiliam Bowyer, 1759), p760; Marcus et al. p132.22 See Bradner, notes p74 for further details.23 Marcus et al. Collected Works, p410

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2. “When I was fair and young”

3. “The doubt of future foes”

4. “I grieve and dare not show my discontent”

5. “O Fortune!”

6. “Twas Christ the Word”

7. “Much suspected by me”

In his Gynaikeion Thomas Heywood writes that he had witnessed some of

Elizabeth’s “pleasant Fancies, and ingenious Ditties,” but had “heard of many”

more.24 Evidently Elizabeth had a reputation as a poet and yet to have access to any of

her work was a rare occurrence. The limited number of poem we can attribute to her

found in manuscript misclelanies that survive today, suggest that these poems were

only accessed by a small number of people, mostly individuals or coterie circles at

court. Indeed, Peter Herman goes as far as to say that Elizabeth “wrote for two

distinct audiences, the public and the private”, categorizing “When I was fair and

young” and “ The doubt of future foes” as two poems that were intended for private

viewing, “intended for her eyes alone or for one other person”.25 Carlo Bajetta also

shares this line of thought, concluding that limited circulation of Elizabeth’s poetry is

no cause for surprise, given Elizabeth’s concern regarding “indiscriminate

dissemination”.26 Sir John Harington, Elizabeth’s godson, famously recorded the

event involving Lady Willoughby, who copied down “The doubt of future foes” from:

“her Majesties tablet, and had much hazard in so doing; for the Queen did find

out the thief, and chid for spreading evil bruit of her writing such toyes, when 24 Heywood, Gynaikeion, sig Mm2v; see also Herman, p10025 Herman, Royal Poetrie, p10126 Bajetta, ‘Most peerless Poëtresse,’ p106

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others matter did so occupy her employment at this time; and was fearful of

being though too lightly of for so doing.”27

If we take this account to be true, it reveals something of Elizabeth’s attitude to her

own poetry writing; that, as Bajetta concludes, Elizabeth was wary of making it too

well known that she wrote poetry at all. But her language also suggests that it seems

to have occurred to Elizabeth that her critics might view poetry writing as a frivolous,

“light” activity, in comparison to the many “other matters” to be dealt with as queen

of England. This presents a paradox for Elizabeth to face. On the one hand she is at

the head of a court that has cultivated a culture of courtier poetry that is both

frequently presented to her and written about her.28 To demonstrate that she too is

capable of such linguistic skill would indicate her ability to engage in the cultural

capital of those around her. On the other hand, as Elizabeth’s reaction to the Lady

Wiloughby’s actions indicates, Elizabeth was aware of her reputation. She already

had to continually convince her subjects of her ability to rule despite her sex, and

therefore any evidence that she was not giving her full attention to state matters could

give her critics cause for further complaint.29

Of the three poems circulating in manuscript miscellanies during Elizabeth’s

lifetime, “The doubt of future foes” could be said to have the clearest political focus. 27 Harington, John, Nugae Antiquae: Being a Miscellaneous Collection of Original Papers in Prise and verse. By Sir John Harington, 2 vols. (Bath and London, 1769-75) I, p58-59. Bajetta notes that the identity of Lady Willoughby is of “extreme relevance” here. He proposes that she “was quite probably Lady Anne Neville Greville (d.1583), wife of Fulke Greville, Lord Willoughby, and mother of the poet Sir Fulke Greville, Harington’s good friend;” Bajetta proceeds to further detail her lineage. His other contender for the identity of “Lady Willoughby” is Katherine Willoughby, duchess of Suffolk, a woman of famous “protestant zeal.” Bajetta concludes that she is a less likely option; Bajetta, Most peerless Poëtresse, p113.28 Bell, Ilona, Elizabeth I The Voice of a Monarch (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) esp pp 1-2429 Contemporary assumptions associated with femininity that indicated a woman was, in general, unfit to rule due to her tendency to be irrational and emotional were assumptions widely made. See Benson, Pamela Joseph, Invention of the Renaissance Woman: The Challenge of Female Independence in the literature and thought of Italy and England, (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992) esp Chapter 9

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Marcus, Mueller and Rose, Herman and May all recognise that this poem was almost

certainly written in “response to the threat posed by the Catholic queen’s flight into

Protestant England in 1568, and its aftermath;”30 despite the large number of

Elizabethan subjects who called for Mary to be beheaded at this point, it wasn’t until

1587 that Elizabeth finally signed Mary’s death warrant. The poem, then, is highly

relevant from its composition through to Mary’s death, at which point it takes on new

life as it can be read as referring to Elizabeth’s relationship to Mary at the time of her

execution.31 The popularity of this poem is reflected in the eleven manuscript copies

that have survived from the 16th and 17th centuries, nine of which circulated while

Elizabeth was alive.32 There are also two manuscript copies extant from the early 18th

century, as well as the printed version that George Puttenham published in The Arte

of English Poesie in 1589. While it is possible that manuscripts postdating

Puttenham’s book used his version as their copy-text, and comparing these texts

certainly would suggest some have done this, the significantly larger number of

copies of this poem in the manuscript circulation system suggests that this poem was

of enduring interest to many of Elizabeth’s court.33

And yet, because of its subject matter, it was also incorporated into

miscellanies that included documents relating to political and anti-Catholic matters,

such as British Library Egerton MS.2642. This miscellany is titled “The Booke of

Heraldrye and other thinges together with the Order of Coronacions.” Notably, it is

placed amongst morality verse, flanked by Sir Walter Ralegh’s versions of ‘The state

of Fraunce as nowe it standes’ (f.323v; f.f324v-5) and anti-Catholic poetry.34 When

looked at within this context, Elizabeth’s verses take on a significance that extends 30 Marcus et al. Collected Works, p133 n131 Ibid.32 The online Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts is an invaluable resource.33 34 See Bajetta, ‘Most peerless Poëtresse’ p109 for further detail.

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beyond her literary prowess. This poem, as placed within BL Egerton 2642, becomes

part of contemporary discourse concerning that state of England as threatened by

Mary Queen of Scots and the foreign powers that she represents that would support

her claim to the throne.

If this poem is part of a mass of articles evidencing interest in contemporary

national and sovereign relations, it also appears to have been viewed as a poem in its

own right, separate from the context in which it was written. Its inclusion in

manuscripts such as BL Add 82370 and Harley MS 7392, for example, would suggest

that this poem was viewed as much as a documentation of a historical relationship and

political circumstance as it was an example of “the most bewtifull and gorgious”

English poetry.35 Although Puttenham’s praise must be considered at least in part as

flattery, that Elizabeth’s poem is given such a prized position in Puttenham’s volume

corroborates the notion that she was considered amongst the more talented poets of

her time, placed as her poems were amongst those of Philip Sidney, Walter Ralegh

and Edmund Spenser in manuscripts such as BL Harley 7392.

Could contemporary interest in this poem be as a result of its potential for

revealing the inner workings of Elizabeth’s mind? Herman argues that this poem does

in fact reveal “an Elizabeth whose private sentiments significantly differ from her

public persona and diplomacy.”36 Herman is referring to an “intense frustration” that

he suggests Elizabeth feels for Mary, a sentiment that she would otherwise not display

so readily in her public life.37 Due to the fact that, according to Harrington, the poem

was copied from Elizabeth’s tablet, Herman views this as evidence that Elizabeth

never intended for this poem to enter any sort of circulation. The very nature of

Elizabethan writing tablets meant that what was written upon them could always, and 35 Puttenham, The Arte of Enlgihsh Poesie, p7736 Herman, Royal Poetrie, p10137 Ibid, p111

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would often, be erased. Their permanence could only come from their being copied

down onto paper and this seems to be what Lady Willoughby had done, but what

Elizabeth herself had not. Due to this action, “The Doubt of Future Foes” enters into a

“sphere of restricted circulation that was endowed with cultural prestige” and, as the

extant manuscript versions indicate, was copied many times by those who came

across it.38

If we accept Herman’s theory that his poem was never meant to enter

circulation, rather than suspect as May and Summit do that Elizabeth used the

exclusivity of coterie manuscript circulation to condemn Mary while publicly

maintaining negotiations with her, why then would Elizabeth have allowed for its

publication in The Arte of English Poesie?39 While manuscript circulation may have

been more exclusive, the private nature of the creation of miscellanies meant that they

are significantly less easy to monitor and censor. The publication of a print book that

included a poem attributed to the queen cannot have escaped the notice of Elizabeth

or her advisors; she must have given her permission for its print or at least withheld

any call for it to be stopped. That Puttenham was able to do this suggests one of two

things: either Elizabeth wrote this poem with the intention of ultimately making it

public in some way; or it was initially written as a private text but, once it had entered

the realm of manuscript circulation and had already travelled beyond the bounds of

certain privacy, she saw its inclusion in Puttenham’s book as a potentially

advantageous manoeuvre. It’s inclusion in the book makes it a text that contributed to

the already established “cult” of Elizabeth, and the content of the poem demonstrates

a queen who was prepared to be ruthless if her warnings to Mary to desist were not

acted upon.40 38 The Arte of a Ladies Pen, p8339 See Summit, The Arte of a Ladies Pen; May, Courtier Poets.40 See Summit for a fuller analysis of ‘The Doubt of Future Foes.’

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Unfortunately, many of the manuscripts that contain this poem can only be

dated to the late 16th century, and therefore it is impossible to definitively assert which

manuscripts contain the poem as a result of it being passed around in manuscript

sharing coteries rather than as a result of it having been copied from Puttenham’s

work. This information would be monumentally helpful in assessing the

public/private nature of Elizabeth’s writings and more generally the attitude towards

texts if published in manuscript or in print. If the majority of manuscripts containing

the poem predated Puttenham’s work, then this could be an indicator that much of the

value of and interest in the poem was derived from it having been written by a

monarch but only circulated exclusively among the educated elite. Once becoming

more readily available via print, could this have taken away much of its prestige? On

the other hand, if there are more copies of this poem in manuscripts post-dating

Puttenham’s publication then perhaps it increased the interest in such a work, that

would perhaps also coincide with renewed interest in it due to the recent execution of

Mary Queen of Scots. The third option, then, is that the presence of the poem in print

had no effect on its appearance in the manuscript circulatory system, a fact that would

still be useful when considering the often discussed and refuted ‘stigma’ of print.41

The second poem that Herman considers to have been written for private and

personal reasons is, “When I was fair and young”. Unlike “The doubt of future foes”,

the question of authorship with this poem has divided scholars. Bradner, for example,

doubts Elizabeth wrote this poem due to his opinion that she could not “[turn] out

such a facile piece of ironical wit. Her way of writing, as seen in her genuine poems,

is more old-fashioned and heavy-handed.”42 Further, Bradner notes that this poem was

attributed to the Earl of Oxford in Folger MS V.a.89, making him a more likely

41 See Saunders. 42 Bradner, The Poems of Queen Elizabeth I, Notes, p75-6

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candidate for genuine authorship. Bradner’s conclusions drawn from the stylistic

quality of this poem are questionable. As Marcus, Mueller and Rose point out, one

has to only look at Elizabeths’s poetic replies to Walter Ralegh that Bradner was

unaware of at the time of editing his collection to witness her linguistic skills and

ability to adopt varying styles, while Puttenham’s praise of Elizabeth as a lyric poet

must surely be some evidence of her abilities, even if slightly exaggerated.43 However,

Arthur Marotti recalls the normal practice of male writers writing with a female voice,

suggesting that in the case of “When I Was Fair and Young,” an anonymous poet

writes from Elizabeth’s perspective, warning her courtiers against pressing their suits

towards her.44 This could certainly have been the case and is a conclusion that derives

from the practice of adding subscriptions to verse that indicate not the author but the

subject.45

In addition to queries concerning the authorship of this poem, who it was

addressed to and its purpose are both under debate. Marcus, Mueller and Rose note

that in a manuscript version of this poem found in Bodleian Rawlinson Poetical 85,

this poem is headed: “Verses made by the queen when she was supposed to be in love

with Monsieur.”46 Although this heading is struck through, the editors propose that

rather than the compiler John Finet questioning the attribution of the poem, it is more

likely that, “he thought better of reporting its occasion so directly.”47 While the editors

do not discuss the grounds for Finet’s perhaps belated discretion, this version of the

43 Marcus et al, Collected Works, p30344 Marotti, Manuscript, Print, and the English Renaissance Lyric, p6145 See Marttoi, Arthur F, “Humphrey Conningsby and the Personal Anthologising of Verse in Elizabethan England,” Michael Denbo ed. New Ways of Looking at Old Texts, IV: Papers of the Renaissance English Text Society, 2002–2006, (Tempe: Arizona Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, in conjunction with Renaissance English Text Society, 2008), and Woudhuysen, H. R., Sir Philip Sidney and the Circulation of Manuscripts 1558-1640 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996) esp p278-86 for further discussion.46 ‘Monsieur’ is widely accepted to refer to the Duke of Anjou.47 Marcus et al. Collected Works, p303-4

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origin of the poem differs from that proposed by scholars such as Susan Frye.

Through a primary focus on the use of allegory in the representations of Elizabeth,

Frye succinctly comes to look at this poem as a way for Elizabeth to tell her suitors to

“leave her alone.”48

Unlike “The doubt of future foes” which was circulated amongst other

materials that can help indicate at least the contexts in which it was received and read,

if not an indication of the intention of the author, “When I was fair and young” does

not exist in any of the many and varied documents associated with the negotiations

made between Elizabeth and the Duke of Anjou. For such a politically current subject

matter, this is somewhat surprising, especially considering that this poem is one that

crops up in multiple 16th and 17th century manuscript collections. L G Black includes

it in his list of the most popular verses in manuscript miscellanies of this period,

although like Marotti he does not ascribe it to Elizabeth, rather an anonymous

author.49 Yet I would argue that this lack of inclusion in manuscripts collating

evidence of current public affairs should not be a contributing factor to the case

against Elizabeth’s original authorship. We know that writing poetry, at least in the

first half of Elizabeth’s reign, was considered a “questionable practice” for courtiers

and therefore the implications of this on Elizabeth as a monarch writing poetry had

the potential to be even greater if her poetry was misconstrued by the wrong people.50

Elizabeth’s reaction to the copying down of “The doubt of future foes” indicates, as

has been discussed, an awareness of the complexities of admitting both writing poetry

and claiming authorship and, given the likelihood that it was written before “When I

48 Frye, Susan, Elizabeth I: The Competition for Representation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), p101 49 Marotti, Manuscript, Print and the English Renaissance Lyric,pp126-135; see also Black ., “Studies in Some Related Manuscript Poetic Miscellanies of the 1580s.”50 May, The Elizabethan Courtier Poets: The Poems and Their Contexts, p2

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was fair and young,” might indicate that Elizabeth was unwilling to openly claim

authorship for a second time.

The questionable regard for poetry writing is considered again when looking

at the third and final poem ascribed to Elizabeth that circulated in manuscript

miscellanies while she was alive, “Now leave and let me rest”. 80% of the surviving

manuscript copies have been dated to during Elizabeth’s reign, with only one

surviving from the 17th century. This poem is attributed to Elizabeth due to the

subscription “Regina” in BL Harley MS 7392, however this is not enough to convince

Bradner of Elizabeth’s authorship. His reasoning is based on the fact that it is not

ascribed to Elizabeth in the Arundel Harington manuscript which contains a copy of

this poem. Bradner concludes that if Elizabeth had written this poem then given the

strong link the Harington’s had to the throne, they would have known to ascribe it to

her.51 But, as Marcus, Mueller and Rose point out, it is perhaps for this very reason

that Harington did not mark the poem as Elizabeth’s, stating that “given the private,

even secret, nature of Elizabeth’s poetic production at court, manuscript attribution

was not to be expected from her intimates.”52May concurs that this poem should be

attributed to her on the basis of the extant manuscript evidence.53 “Now leave and let

me rest” is thought to have been written in the 1580s, as was “When I was fair and

young” and “I grieve and dare not show my discontent.” This latter poem is unique as

it does not exist in any known manuscript copy that dates to the lifetime of Elizabeth,

and yet scholars agree that it is “almost certainly hers.”54 This certainty is a result of

bibliographic and historical evidence: bibliographically, every surviving manuscript

copy of this poem attributes it somehow to Elizabeth, whether it is subscribed by

51 Bradner, The Poems of Queen Elizabeth I, Notes p7752 Marcus et al, Collected Works, p305 Note 153 May 31754 Marcus et al, Collected Works p302, n1

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“Eliz.Regina” as in the case of Bodleian MS Tanner 76, or headed “Sonnet by Queene

Elizabeth,” as in BL Egerton MS 923. The context for this poem also strongly

indicates Elizabeth’s authorship as it appears to have been written around the time

that “Monsieur”, the Duke of Anjou, left England having had a somewhat confusing

visit with the queen. Both the editors of the Collected Works and biographers such as

J E Neale comment on the perplexing agendas of both Elizabeth and the Duke, given

that he left England with the promise of a loan from Elizabeth, but no marriage

proposal.55 The letters the two exchanged during this period also add to the evidence

that a marital negotiation would never quite come to pass, as while Elizabeth

repeatedly addressed him “my dearest”, her emphasis on her inability to commit her

body to him, only her soul, suggests Elizabeth’s continuous attempts to maintain good

relations with the Duke while abstaining from marriage.56

“I grieve and dare not show my discontent” reflects Elizabeth’s apparent

conflict between feeling emotion and being able to display it, between wanting to

accept love but also not allowing herself to feel it. While the language makes this

poem a love lament in the Petrarchan tradition, Elizabeth’s letters that are useful to

read alongside this poem remind us of her ability to use language to continually

portray her in the best light possible, to recognise what needs to be said or intimated

with a clear view of what she would like the outcome to be. While this poem does

seem to address the hardship that inevitably accompanies monarchical relationships

and the prioritization of diplomacy over displays of true emotion, it is my opinion that

this poem was written to indicate a genuine sadness that the marriage could not be

55 Ibid.; see also pp251-253 Note 1; Neal, J E, Queen Elizabeth I, A Biography, (Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1992), esp. 260-27056 Marcus et al, Collected Works, Letters 51 and 52; the discussion of Elizabeth’s body and soul comes at the end of letter 51, p253.

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negotiated.57 The manuscript circulation system provides the ideal means of

transmission for such a text: it manages to be seen by a select group of courtiers, some

who will inevitably have links to the French court and the means to convey

Elizabeth’s emotional reaction to the Duke’s departure. As the final, realistic proposal

of marriage Elizabeth was going to receive, it was perhaps more important than ever

that she did not appear to be disingenuous in her intentions. 58

The four poems discussed thus far coincide with a period of Elizabethan

history when the cult of the living Elizabeth was particularly prevalent; Scholars such

as Phillipa Berry, Roy Strong and Frances Yates have noted the changing modes of

courtly expression through the latter half of the 16th century, with Susan Frye

commenting that, “[i]n the 1570s and 1580s, Queen Elizabeth I’s power was at its

height, and she retained as much control of her iconography as she ever had at the

same time that she helped shape her public image as increasingly divine and

magical.”59 It is within this period of time that it also appears that Elizabeth’s poetic

output was at its height; not only were “The doubt of future foes”, “Now leave and let

me rest”, “When I was fair and young” and “I grieve and dare not show my

discontent” written during these two decades, but Elizabeth also wrote twenty-seven

stanzas in French towards the end of the 1580s to the early 1590s, and multiple

57 It is undeniable that had Elizabeth come to terms with the idea of marrying the Duke, it would have eased a great amount of pressure being placed upon her by her advisors, courtiers and even the general population of England.58 Whether it was genuine distress or otherwise, it was important that Elizabeth did not appear to be merely toying with her suitors with no actual intent of marriage as this could have been construed as an insult to the French; in 1578, Sir Francis Walsingham wrote to Sir Christopher Hatton, “I would to God her Majesty would forbear the entertaining any longer the marriage matter. No one thing hath procured her so much hatred abroad as these wooing matters, for that it is conceived she dallieth therein:” Letter dated 9th October 1578 in British Library Add. MS 15891.59 Frye, Elizabeth I: The Competition for Representation, p96; Strong, Roy, The Cult of Elizabeth: Elizabethan Portraiture and Pageantry (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977) esp 84-114; Berry, Phillipa, Of Chastity and Power: Elizabethan Literature and the Unmarried Queen (London: Routledge, 1989) esp Chapter 3; Yates, Frances A, “Queen Elizabeth as Astraea”. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 10 (1947): 27–82

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eloquent verse exchanges with Sir Thomas Heneage (c.1572), Sir Walter Ralegh

(c.1587) and King Phillip of Spain (c.1588).

This body of work shows Elizabeth’s use of verse in varied circumstances, and

both the English and foreign language examples evidence a poetic production that

significantly differs to that of the years before she became queen. The two Woodstock

poems, “Much suspected by me” and “O Fortune!” are epigrams written whilst

Elizabeth was a prisoner in Woodstock. Modern biographers conclude that both

poems were written between 1554 and 1555, when Mary placed Elizabeth under

house arrest. They have slightly different circulatory histories. “Much suspected by

me”, the shorter of the two, was recorded with identical wording in both John Foxe’s

Acts and Monuments of These Latter and Perilous Days (1563) and Raphael

Holinshed’s The Third Volume of Chronicles (1587), both printed volumes.60 The only

surviving record of this epigram in a contemporaneous manuscript copy is in BL Add

18920 f.322r, a translation of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, thought to have been

written by Sir John Harington in around 1590 with the intention of printing it.61 This

version of the poem is worded exactly as found in the two copies in Foxe and

Holinshed. This epigram was thought to have been written by Elizabeth originally

using a diamond, engraving the words on the glass of her window. The Elizabethan

trend for writing verses, quotes or sayings on surfaces-doors, walls, window frames-

has been discussed by scholars as a usual act practiced amongst households at the

time, and it appears that Elizabeth was no different.62

60 Foxe, John Acts and Monuments of These Latter and Perilous Days, London: John Day, 1563; Raphael Holinshed The Third Volume of Chronicles, London: Henry Denham et al., 158761 This was printed and published in 1607; Harington, John. trans, Ludovico Ariosto Orlando Furioso: in English heroical verse (London: Richard Field, 1607)62 Fumerton, Patricia and Simon Hunt eds. Renaissance Culture and the Everyday, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), Chapter 15

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It is notable that this early poem, and the other verse found engraved at

Woodstock, “O Fortune!,” were not recorded frequently in manuscript miscellanies.

This is likely due to their existence as written on stable material; unlike a poem

written on parchment or even a tablet that could be transferred easily, these verses

could not be passed round to read, memorize and replicate. Indeed, only those visiting

Woodstock with a piece of parchment and writing implement to hand would be able

to record the queen’s verses in a form that enabled her words to travel beyond the

geographical isolation of Woodstock. Marcus, Mueller and Rose suggest that at the

turn of the century the two poems “may have been reproduced seriatim (and with

some variations in wording) on a wall of her prison chamber for the edification of the

many visitors to Woodstock.”63 The potential for these two poems becoming points of

intrigue for visitors of Woodstock would have certainly been apparent; to be able to

see what their sovereign wrote at a tumultuous time when she was imprisoned with a

distinctly uncertain future would surely have made an attractive viewing point for

anyone visiting Woodstock. Bajetta proposes that perhaps it was well known, from

stories such as that which Sir John Harington reported, that Elizabeth would not look

favorably on those who copied and passed around her poetry and therefore this acted

as enough of a warning for any courtiers to do so with these two short poems.64

Maybe it was because they had been printed and therefore widely circulated in public

volumes that meant they lost their sense of exclusivity, as was possibly the case with

“The doubt of future foes”. Or perhaps because they were relatively short poems

written when Elizabeth was not a sovereign, they carry less interest than those she

wrote while on the throne.

63 Marcus et al, Collected Works, p45-6 note 164 Bajetta, “‘Most peerless Poëtresse’: The Manuscript Circualtion of Elizabeth’s Poems,” p107

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Whatever the reason, it was three foreign travellers who copied down “O

Fortune!,” in late 16th century diaries, and these are the only contemporaneous

manuscript copies of this poem that survive today. Perhaps, as visitors, their incentive

to record everything they saw was greater than that of English courtiers. Paul

Hentzner in 1598 and Thomas Platter in 1599 both visited England and copied down

what they could see of this poem. However, as the editors of Collected Works state,

these “versions are so garbled that they can only be restored conjecturally, and

modern versions of these texts derive from eighteenth century attempts at

reconstruction.”65 It was also copied down into a diary by Zdeněk Brtnický, better

known as Baron Waldstein, in 1600, as part of his own documentation of his travels.

There is just one copy of this poem found in a manuscript miscellany, and this is

found in BL Add MS 4457 f.6r., a manuscript dating to the early 18th century. While

this is unfortunately a later copy, this was the preferred copy text as the alternatives

would have been secondary print reproductions.

The final poem attributed to Elizabeth discussed here is, “Twas Christ the

Word”, a religious poem that was first recorded in print, in Sir Richard Baker’s A

Chronicle of the Kings of England (1643), and in multiple manuscript copies.66 Unlike

the other six poems discussed here, this poem does not survive in any

contemporaneous print or manuscript copies. The earliest dated manuscript copy is

dated to1614, found in Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MS Rawlinson D.947,

fol 86 v. While this poem in manuscript only has a subscription, “Q. Eliz”, in Baker’s

Chronicle he describes how Elizabeth used these words in response to questioning

from Catholic priests during Mary’s reign who were examining her over matters of

her faith.67 While this story is an intriguing one, the attribution to Elizabeth for this 65 Marcus et al, Collected Works p45 note 166 Baker, Richard, A Chronicle of the Kings of England (London: for Daniel Frere, 1643),67 Ibid. p97-8

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poem remains heavily debated. Sir John Neale doubts Elizabeth’s authorship as

shown in his 1959 essay “The Sayings of Queen Elizabeth,” but it must be noted that

he was unaware of the aforementioned earlier manuscript copy with its subscription.68

Bradner also doubts Elizabeth’s authorship, despite his claim that it is “the most

famous of all those attributed to Elizabeth.”69 Bradner recognises its absence in both

Foxe and Holinshed as significant, as well as its first appearance in print in the second

edition of John Donne’s poems (1635, before Baker’s), as evidence that Elizabeth did

not compose this.

It is often questioned whether Puttenham’s praise in The Arte of English

Poesie is genuine or mere flattery, and I would strongly suggest that while there must

be an element of flattery, his words indicate an authentic praise for Elizabeth that

truly reflected contemporary attitudes. The prevalence of Elizabeth’s later poems in

manuscript miscellanies, those that are significantly longer and stylistically

categorized as lyric verse rather than either epigrams or her short religious writings,

indicate a regard for Elizabeth as a poet whose work should and was read amongst

other poets of the time. There is a noticeable difference between the types of verse

attributed to Elizabeth before she and after her coronation, with an apparent flurry of

writing occurring in the 1570s and 1580s. The shorter epigrams written in the 1550s

appear not as poems written for mere recreation, but methods of communication that

signaled a woman under enormous pressure, dealing with a phenomenal sense of

insecurity and uncertainty that reflected her social and existential condition. The

longer, lyrical verse she produced once she was established on the throne reflects her

change in circumstance; her political verse such as “The doubt of future foes,” for

example, evidences a confidence and threat that she would perhaps not have been able 68 Neale, J E, “The Sayings of Queen Elizabeth”, Essays in Elizabethan History (London: Jonathan Cape, 1958), pp85-112.69 Bradner, The Poems of Queen Elizabeth I, p74, Notes

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to re-create in her earlier work, while her love laments indicate a participation in

courtly poetic traditions that show her comprehension of the modes of communication

and sociability amongst her courtiers. By compiling this small range of verse

attributed to Elizabeth we can add to the ever increasing evidence that Elizabeth was

an intelligent woman, an engaged monarch and importantly a, “female poet who is

neither silenced and maginalised nor oppositional in her writing, but rather one who

occupies the central position within Elizabethan culture.”70

Manuscript Rationale

The starting point for editing this small collection of poetry was finding three

poems attributed to Queen Elizabeth in BL Harley MS 7392. These poems are, “Now

leave and let me rest,” “The doubt of future foes” and “When I was fair and young,”

and here I have used the versions found in this manuscript as my copy texts. This

manuscript is, according to scholars such as Arthur Marotti, “one of the few rich

manuscripts of late Elizabethan verse.”71 It is also one of the important Elizabethan

70 Summit,""The Arte of a Ladies Penne": Elizabeth I and the Poetics of Queenship."p40071 Marotti, Humphrey Coningsby, p76

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anthologies that remain either unedited or unpublished.72 This manuscript contributes

to historical, bibliographical and textual studies as it contains copies of some poems

that would otherwise be lost, it provides an example of early anthologizing practices,

and it also registers a change from the mid- to late- Elizabethan poetic styles.73

However it is also unique in that it contains the most poems attributed to Elizabeth I

in one surviving manuscript. Marotti concludes that this manuscript was compiled for

the most part by Humphrey Coningsby, “a man who moved from Oxford to London

and whose family was connected with the Sidney’s.”74 Coningsby’s status as compiler

is by no means conclusive. There is also evidence to suggest St Loe Knyveton was the

primary compiler, with scholars finding evidence of his initials throughout the

miscellany as well as an inscription on the verso of the first folio apparently written

by Knyveton. However, while Steven May, Peter Beal, Laurence Cummings and

Bernard Wagner propose Knyveton as the compiler, Marotti’s analysis of the

manuscript provides a convincing argument for Coningsby’s compilation,

corroborated by H R Woudhysen.75 The latter’s examination of Knyveton’s writing in

other manuscripts promptts him to conclude that Knyveton was not, in fact, the main

hand present in BL Harley MS 7392.

Woodhuysen’s argument is convincing, recognizing that many scholars have

denied this manuscript the importance it should be given due to their questioning of

the compiler’s attributions.76 Woodhuysen correctly counters that simply because the

72 May, Steven W, “Manuscript Ciculation at the Elizabethan Court,” in W Speed Hill ed. New Ways of Looking at Old Texts: Papers of the Renaissance English Text Society 1985-1991 (Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies) p273-80 73 Marotti, “Humphrey Coningsby”, p7474 Ibid.75 Ibid, Notes p74; May, Steven, Henry Stanford’s Anthology: An Edition of Cambridge University Library Manuscript Dd. 5.75 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968) xlv; Cummings, Laurence. ‘John Finet’s Miscellany’.( Ph.D. diss.,Washington University,1960); Bernard M. Wagner, ‘New Poems by Sir Edward Dyer’, Review of English Studies, 11 (1935) pp 466-71.76 Woudhuysen, H R. Sir Philip Sidney and the circulation of manuscripts, 1558-1640, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996)

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compiler, “did not know or guessed wrongly who wrote a particular poem, this does

not mean that his text of it was by definition corrupt.”77 Indeed, he further states how

the ability to accurately identify who authored a piece of work is a “peculiarly modern

concern,” and a concern which this study both addresses and extends beyond. For

while it must be an important consideration of a compilation of poems attributed to

Elizabeth I in order to give it that very title, the purpose in collecting the poems

together also attempts to create a corpus of poetry that would have been, at the time,

recognised as authored by the queen. This in turn will prompt readers to think about

how courtiers viewed their queen if they circulated poetry attributed to her, what

attitudes they may have had to her practicing this activity, whilst seeing how

Elizabeth’s poetry apparently changed from her early life to the latter half of her rule.

That BL Harley MS 7392 contains such a range of poetry from the Elizabethan era

provides an interesting basis from which to assess those verses attributed to Elizabeth.

Evidently, the compiler held Elizabeth’s works in high enough esteem to include them

among verses by those such as Dyer, Ralegh, Gorges and the Earl of Oxford. Indeed,

that the verses attributed to Elizabeth are only marked as so by a subscription- void of

any words of praise such as we find accompanying “The doubt of future foes” in The

Arte of English Poesie- could suggest that to her contemporaries Elizabeth may have

been regarded as a poet, just as she was regarded as a queen. Unlike many early

modern women writers who have been both neglected by modern editors and were

disregarded at the time of writing due to gender bias, for Elizabeth, it seems that the

overriding status as ‘monarch’ has disabled her from being considered purely as poet

by “traditionally minded” editors.78 The closest we can come to her contemporary

editors, those compiling her work such as Coningsby, evidently were able to regard

77 Ibid. p 27878Marcus, “Editing Queen Elizabeth”, p150

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Elizabeth simultaneously as a poet contributing to the array of courtly verse being

produced at the time, and as their queen.

May states that the attribution of “Now leave and let me rest” relies purely on the

subscription in BL Harley MS 7392, while the two attributions to Elizabeth under

copies of “When I Was Fair and Young” in texts of “two lines of textual descent tip

the scale in her favour” (in comparison to another contending author, the Earl of

Oxford).79 Indeed, Bradner uses BL Harley MS 7392 as his copy text for “When I was

fair and young,” claiming it is the “best” version of the text, however given his

professed doubt of Elizabeth’s authorship, I would like to present a version given in

the context of her assumed authorship. 80 It is curious that, if the ascription to

Elizabeth in this manuscript under “Now leave and let me rest” carries the

significance that May indicates that it does, that no modern editor has used this

version as a copy text. For while there may be other more legible versions in

manuscripts whose compilers are perhaps deemed more reliable, that surely should

not allow for the dismissal of the version present here. Indeed, Marcus, Mueller and

Rose recognise that this version contains some spellings that are “idiosyncratically

characteristic of Elizabeth,” despite their use of Cambridge University Library MS

Dd. V.75. FOL.44v as their copy text.81 This is the version of the poem that Steven

May also uses, on the grounds that it is not a “corrupt” text, an adjective he applied to

BL Harley MS 7392 without further explanation. No modern edition of these three

poems as reproduced in this manuscript exists. While the facsimiles will provide

visual evidence for the copy texts, that these poems all exist in one location may

encourage readers to seek out the manuscript in the British Library in order to quickly

79 May, ed. Queen Elizabeth I: Selected Works, p2780 Bradner, ed. The Poems of Queen Elizabeth I p76 81 Marcus et al, Collected Works, p305, note 1

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and easily read the poems as they were originally written, placed amongst works

written by recognised poets of the time. 82

The fourth lengthy poem written in English and attributed to Elizabeth is “I grieve

and dare not show my discontent.” As we have seen with the three poems present in

BL Harley MS 7392 and other manuscripts, it appears that the poetry Elizabeth wrote

from the late 1560s to the late 1580s became popular in manuscript miscellanies, both

verse miscellanies and miscellanies containing documents with a certain theme or

subject.83 This fourth poem, then, supposedly written in the early 1580s evidences an

exception, for while scholars, such as Marcus, Mueller and Rose find considerable

evidence to suggest Elizabeth did write it based on its subject matter and the frequent

attributions to her, this poem does not exist in any surviving manuscript from

Elizabeth’s lifetime. It is ascribed to Elizabeth in five out of six manuscript versions

that survive from the 17th century however we can not know if it did circulate

contemporaneously. The version found in BL Egerton MS 923 f.18v has been used as

my copy text as, like Harley 7392, it situates Elizabeth’s poetry amongst those more

established poets, such as Sir Walter Ralegh, Ben Jonson and Thomas Carew. This

version has not been used in any modern editions as a copy text for this poem,

perhaps because it appears as a rougher copy than the neater versions that appear in

miscellanies such as BL MS Stowe 962, which has been cited by May and the editors

of Collected Works, as well as having been collated by Bradner. However, it is for this

reason that it makes for an intriguing copy text; it illustrates how the manuscript lyric

poetry system was “textually more malleable than…in a developed print culture, more

open to revision, reader-emendation, competitive answers, parodies, and paraphrase

82See Marotti, “Humphrey Coningsby”, pp76-78 for details of the poems from these poets and others; and Woudhuysen, Sir Philip Sidney, p27883 See Bajetta, “Most peerless Poëtresse,” pp105-8

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or imitation,” something that resulted in the author-function being less clearly defined

and more detached.84

These poems significantly differ from the three earlier poems written by

Elizabeth, supposedly before she ascended the throne. The extant sources for the two

poems written at Woodstock are minimal, and dissimilar to the sources that remain for

the four longer poems edited here. For Elizabeth’s shortest poem, the epigram “Much

suspected by me,” I have used BL Add MS 18920 f.322r. This manuscript is, in fact,

mainly taken up with Sir John Harington’s translation of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso.

This seems to be the only surviving manuscript copy from Elizabeth’s lifetime and

therefore my preferred choice. The other Woodstock poem has a different manuscript

history. It remains today in two diaries written by visitors to England, and in an early

18th century manuscript. In lieu of contemporary, legible and accessible manuscript

copies, I have used the version found in the early 18th century BL Add. MS 4457 f.6r.

My copy text for “Twas Christ the Word” also comes from a source that post dates

Elizabeth’s death. The version found in the miscellany Bodleian Library, University

of Oxford, MS Rawlinson D.947. fol. 86v is dated to around 1614. This early

manuscript and the attribution to Elizabeth in the subscription to this poem contributes

to the evidence that Elizabeth may have composed this short verse. Its print copy as

part of John Donne’s work in 1635 with the subsequent attribution in 1643 to

Elizabeth in Baker’s Chronicle initially compelled scholars such as Bradner to

conclude that Donne was a far more likely candidate for authorship. The discovery of

the existence of this poem with an attribution to Elizabeth in a significantly earlier

manuscript copy questions this certainty, and makes it an important version to use as a

copy-text.

84 Marotti, “Humphrey Coningsby”, p72

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Editorial Policy

All of the poems in this collection are reproduced with modernized spelling

but with the original punctuation. The unregimented use of punctuation in the 16th and

17th centuries does not, I think, hinder the ability to read and interpret these poems,

rather it reminds readers of the historicity of the texts and invites a method of

readership and interpretation that recalls the malleability of manuscript texts. All

abbreviations and contractions have been expanded and corrections that appear in the

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manuscripts, such as words crossed out or added to the side of the text, have been

prioritized. The form of each poem has been reproduced in order to resemble the

manuscript original as closely as modern technology allows for.

This makes for significantly smoother reading, however these aspects of early

modern texts are integral to the understanding of how these often irregular, rough

verses were created. This is why a facsimile of the copy text used accompanies each

poem. By having this visual element to consult readers are able to experience the

copies of the poems in all their rough, compositional entirety. The facsimiles evidence

the mistakes, changes and alterations that a modern transcription has smoothed out

and therefore attempts to give readers the tools to easily access, read and interpret the

text while retaining the essence of early modern manuscript culture as represented

through these verse miscellanies. Additionally, they aim to recreate the excitement

felt when accessing a manuscript that will hopefully encourage readers to want to

explore the textual and material aspects of manuscript culture further.

Unlike editors who have combined interpretations of variant copies of each

poem to produce a single “best” composite version, I have transcribed and created a

modern version of each poem using one single manuscript as copy text with the aim

of promoting the integrity of just some of the many manuscript copies of Elizabeth’s

poems that there are. It would be unwise, however, not to consult other copies of the

poems which are endlessly resourceful and in many cases provide equally reliable

source for the poems. Therefore, any variations from other manuscript sources that

either may change the meaning of a word, sentence or phrase have been included in

the textual notes; the word or words that differ between variants are indicated in the

notes in bold, followed by the variation. Further, in some cases, entire verses have

been recorded in the textual notes if they are from other manuscript copies which

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present the poem in a notably different form. The textual notes have been placed on

the same page as each poem so that readers can quickly find those notes relevant to

what they are immediately reading. In some collections, such as that by Bradner, the

textual notes are located at the end of the volume, requiring readers to have to

continually alter their focus between text and textual notes if they wish to read one

alongside the other. It is important with such texts as these to be informed by the

variants that are available, and a visually accessible set of textual notes will encourage

readers to become aware of this information. Indeed, with these poems that do exist

in multiple versions and come from a culture of fluid verse creation and circulation, it

is vital to be reminded of the possibilities that other texts may suggest. The variability

of these texts is part of what makes them such interesting articles to study both

stylistically and in terms of what they can offer in the fields of bibliographic and

historical studies due to what they reveal about modes of verse creation,

dissemination and transmission.

Throughout this study the poems have been titled using the first line or phrase

of each poem and therefore the words have not been capitalized unless done so in the

text, which is how they will also appear in the edited copies. A date has been given in

brackets next to the title of each poem. In most cases this date can be considered fairly

accurate and evidence for these dates can be found in the textual notes. The only

poem that is not given a date is “Twas Christ the Word.” This poem is exceedingly

hard to date given its appearance in manuscript and print sources throughout the mid-

to late- 16th century and early 17th century. Further, Baker’s story that Elizabeth

produced it while being questioned under Mary’s reign only gives a very broad time

frame to consider. Without more specific information, I have decided to leave this

poem undated.

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The source and copy text information is found below each poem, preceding

the textual notes. The title of the poem appears in bold above each poem and its

corresponding facsimile. However, in two cases the poems are given headings in the

copy texts, as can be seen in the facsimiles, and in these cases the headings are also

presented in the modern transcriptions, indicated by the word “Headed” in square

brackets. These poems have been ordered chronologically; broadly, her three earlier

poems are poems 1-3, the one poem surviving from the 1570s, “The doubt of future

foes” is number 4, and the three poems thought to have been written in the 1580s are

numbers 5-7. Poem number 5, “I grieve and dare not show my discontent,” can be

somewhat more accurately dated to 1582 and therefore has been placed before “When

I was fair and young” and “Now leave and let me rest,” which have both been

generally dated as written in the 1580s.

These latter three poems are love laments, and when grouped together provide

interesting comparison points in their discussion of love as human emotion and poetic

subject. It is my hope that by putting together this small collection in this way, readers

will be alerted to the evidence that Elizabeth wrote poetry throughout her life, with a

small but significant amount of extant manuscripts that evidence this. Further, due to

the small size of the collection the difference in the verse potentially written by

Elizabeth in the latter half of the 16th century is noticeable and will hopefully inspire

readers to extend their studies into Elizabeth’s poetry and written work more

generally having had this introduction.

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Conclusion

Steven May includes Elizabeth in his exclusive list of courtier poets.85 May’s

study of courtier poets and the poetry they produced highlights the complexities

behind writing verse within the Elizabethan court; far from being a matter of being

called a “courtier poet” simply because an individual writes poetry while amongst

courtly society, May recognises that the style of verse, subject matter and technical

85 May, Steven, “Introduction” in The Elizabethan Courtier Poets: The Poems and Their Contexts (Columbia:University of Missouri Press, 1991)

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skill are all factors that must be assessed in order to define those as “courtier poets”.

That Elizabeth, the focus of so much poetry written by such poets, is also deemed one

herself is indicative of the multifaceted terms of existence of both Elizabethan

courtiers, and the work that they produced.

For Elizabeth, then, writing poetry would always be a paradoxical genre of

writing. On the one hand it signified Elizabeth’s engagement with her courtiers within

a system that was crucial for them in terms of social and political mobility. To be able

to write effective and popular verse was a skill that carried a cultural capital with it,

and by proving that she too could write, Elizabeth helped feed and maintain the

exclusive nature of this form of writing. Additionally, considering that the ultimate

goal for courtiers was to rise high enough to be favored by the queen and reap the

benefits that this would provide, that Elizabeth herself was known to write meant that

while she would always remain unobtainable on a personal level, through the

exchange or interaction of their writing both courtiers and queen could build

relationships that unified the court surrounding the monarch, while creating a

consistent competition for the queen’s favour that courtiers could take part in. The

verse exchanges with Walter Ralegh, for example, show that traditional modes of

separation and politeness could be breached through the medium of poetry.86 On the

other hand, unlike her courtiers and those coterie poets who flocked around her,

Elizabeth did not need to use poetry for any political or social advancement, and

therefore writing poetry could invite the disdain that Helgerson discusses.87 Indeed,

the language Elizabeth reportedly used to convey her anger that one of her ladies had

86 Marcus et al. p307; See also Magnusson, Lynn, Shakespeare and Social Dialogue: Dramatic Language and Elizabethan Letters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) for application of politeness models as derived from the original study: Brown, Penelope and Stephen Levinson, Politeness, Some Universals in Language Usage, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) esp pp.1-50, and Chapter 3-3.3 87 See Pebworth, esp. 61-63

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copied and circulated one of her poems indicates an awareness that being seen to

spend her time writing poetry may provide a source of criticism for her adversaries.88

Unlike speeches, letters and prayers, poetry seemed to repeatedly cross over from the

private realm to the public and back again, sometimes being used to gain favour in a

very public manner, and at other times being used to communicate private emotion

and sentiment. The gift of a self-composed, handwritten poem could simultaneously

be a public gesture of devotion, but its contents could be the most intimate or banal.

What remains of the verse attributed to Elizabeth largely exists in manuscript

verse miscellanies. That their queen was known as a poet and a monarch seemed not

to discredit one occupation or the other; contemporary sources seem to only praise her

poetic abilities, and whether this was pure flattery or somewhat truthful does not

matter. Whatever they thought of the quality of her verse, the Elizabethans accepted

Elizabeth as a poet and it is my hope that with the increasing amount of scholarship

on Elizabeth’s poetry will come a modern recognition of this aspect of her.

Elizabeth’s poetry remains amongst the work of great poets of the period and

therefore her work is part of the bibliographic discourse that arises from studying the

material remains of Elizabethan manuscript verse miscellanies. While the Index of

English Literary Manuscripts 1450-1700 and its online companion the Catalogue of

English Literary Manuscripts (hereafter CELM) provides incomparable help in

attempting to put together a selection of poetry such as this one, as Peter Beal himself

recognises, this kind of resource is put together with the view that it should be ever

expanding; as more and more manuscripts are thoroughly examined and recorded

from repositories around the world, the importance of this archival material will only

88 For Elizabeth’s response to her poem being circulated as recorded by John Harington, see, Bajetta, Carlo M. “’Most peerless Poëtresse: the manuscript Circulation of Elizabeth’s Poems,” in A Petrina and L Tosi eds. Representations of Elizabeth I in Early Modern Culture, (New York: Springer, 2011) pp106-7

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become more pronounced. Indeed, the flexibility that an online catalogue such as

CELM allows for means that the addition of new authors and their material can be a

constant, consistent process. As we move into an ever-increasing digital world, further

and further away from the manuscript culture of the 16th and 17th centuries, it seems as

important as ever to maintain and promote interest in manuscript studies so that the

incredible wealth of information that can be gleaned from them will not be lost.

The question of authorship is a recurrent one: how can we know Elizabeth

wrote these poems? This question should be considered in two respects. The first is

that the concept of authorship should perhaps not be considered as quite so important

as we would conventionally assume; the writing, dissemination and discussion of

verse was a casual and everyday act for the Elizabethans, that meant ultimate

authorship was not such a distinguished ideal. To be seen to write and have

knowledge of poetic forms and traditions was of far greater importance and served a

function amongst courtiers similar to the exchange of money or other valuable

objects. It served as proof of education and social standing, two things that could be

constantly amended and improved. Therefore the content of the verse that was used as

this cultural capital was almost less important than the act of creating or compiling it:

whether you were composing verse or compiling it, both actions indicated an

awareness of what was popular, or considered worth reading. Secondly, from a purely

technical front, there is simply insufficient poetry certainly attributed to Elizabeth that

survives today that would enable us to recognise or define her style. And therefore it

is difficult to dismiss poetry attributed to her on the grounds that is it not her style of

writing. Until more of her poetry is found, or more poetry attributed to her is found,

this can not be used as a significant argument against consigning work to her. If there

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is more work to be found in the thousands of manuscripts that remain today, they will

only be found as more people become interested in manuscript studies.

The poems produced here in their modern spelling first and foremost aim to

encourage interest in and awareness of Elizabeth’s poetry. The addition of having a

facsimile version of each poem aims to encourage the consideration of bibliographic

and material aspects of reading early modern literature. This collection is informed by

each field to which it aims to contribute, with the ultimate hope that further work on

Elizabeth’s poems will establish her as a poet as well as a monarch in the minds of

modern readers. W.W Greg notes that:

The idea of treating some one text, usually of course a manuscript, as

possessing over-riding authority originated amongst classical scholars,

though something similar may no doubt be traced in the work of

biblical critics. So long as purely eclectic methods prevailed, any

preference for one manuscript over another…was of course arbitrary.89

Greg discusses the notion of an ideal copy text but the collection of poems

produced here originates from the understanding that, at least in the case of poems

attributed to Elizabeth, there can not be one ideal text for each poem. This collection

presents just a selection of the multiple manuscript copies of Elizabeth’s verse that

remains today with the awareness that other versions in extant manuscripts may have

equally valid, if not more valid, claims to the concept of the “original,” earliest

version of each text. Considering the fluid and malleable nature of the manuscript

circulatory system, this idea claims less attention than a study that strongly focuses on

the concept of authorship. Produced here is a collection of poems that may have been

written by Elizabeth I. It is also possible that she authored very few of the poems 89 Greg, “The Rationale of Copy Text,” p19

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attributed to her by modern editors. What is of primary interest here is to put together

a collection that reflects what Elizabeth’s subjects thought their Queen was capable of

writing. Deflecting attention from the eternally arguable proof of authorship allows

for modern readers to imagine the poetic scope that Elizabeth may have been capable

of, and the range of poems attributed to her that have still to be discovered.

Elizabeth I: Seven Selected Poems

“O Fortune!”British Library Add MS 4457. f6r

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“O Fortune!” (c.1554/5)

[Headed: Sonnet by Q. Elizabeth. 1555]

O Fortune! how thy restless wavering state 1

Hath fraught with cares my troubled wit!Witness this present prison whither late

Hath borne me, and the joys I quit.Thou caused the guilty to be loosed 5

From lands, wherewith are innocents enclosed;Causing the guiltless to be strait reserved,And freeing those that death had well deserved.

But by his envy can be nothing wrought,So God send to my foes all I have thought. 10

Source: British Library Add MS 4457 f6r. Significant variations between this manuscript copy, and the version found in the diary of Baron Waldstein who copied this poem in 1600, are shown in the notes.90 This poem is thought to have been written in 1554/5, when Elizabeth was under house arrest at Woodstock.

1 how thy restless: Waldstein reads “thy wresting.” There are no exclamation marks throughout Waldstein’s copy. Given the material existence of the poem- supposedly on a window frame- it is perhaps more likely that there were no exclamation marks in the original engraving. 3-4: Waldstein’s version of these lines reads “Whose witness this present prison late/ Could bear, where once was joy quite flown.”6 wherewith are innocents: Waldstein reads “where innocents were.”9-10: Waldstein’s version of these lines reads, “But all herein can be naught wrought,/So God grant to my foes as they have thought.”

NB. Waldstein adds the superscription: Finis. Elizabetha a prisoner, 1555Much suspected by me, but nothing proved can be

This final line has been considered by editors as a separate epigram, rather than attached to the end of its longer companion. It could have been that, as Marcus, Mueller and Rose propose, that by the time Baron Waldstein copied down these lines the originals may have faded, and the two poems reproduces “on a wall of her prison chamber for the edification of the many visitors to Woodstock,” such as Baron Waldstein.91 These editors also suggest that the two line epigram was originally composed and presented separately.92

90 Groos,, G W trans. The Diary of Baron Waldstein: A Traveller in Elizabethan England (London: Thames and Hudson, 1981) p11791 Marcus et al, Collected Works, p46, Note 1 continued92 Ibid, p45

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“Much Suspected By Me”British Library Add. MS 18920. f322r

“‘Twas Christ the Word”Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MS Rawlinson D.947

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“Much Suspected By Me” (c1554/5)

Much suspected by me, 1

Nothing proved can be.Quoth* Elizabeth prisoner

Source: British Library Add. MS 18920. f322r. This is a copy in the hand of Sir John Harington, amongst a translation by him of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. The poem as worded here is also worded identically in editions by John Foxe and Raphael Holinshed. Modern historians and biographers have dated these verses to the time when Elizabeth was imprisoned in Woodstock under the reign of her sister Mary, between 1554 and 1555. However, Foxe and Holinshed give 1558 as the date of composition; this would indicate they were written during Mary’s final year, the year of Elizabeth’s accession. Dating it as such would add an element of drama to the lines given Elizabeth’s status as a Protestant martyr, imprisoned for the risk she posed to the throne.

*Quoth: said

“‘Twas Christ the Word”

[Headed: Hoc est corpus meum]*

‘Twas Christ the Word that spake it. 1

The same took bread and brake it, And as the Word did make it, So I believe and take it.

Queen Elizabeth

Source: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MS Rawlinson D.947, fol. 86v. This poem survives with many minor variations, in a large amount of copies. There is a strong possibility that this poem could have been written by John Donne, or it is at least attributed to him multiple times, however this early manuscript version attributing it to Elizabeth, strengthens her claim over its authorship. In Baker’s Chronicle, he asserts that this is a response that Elizabeth gave to Queen Mary’s Catholic inquisitors when questioning Elizabeth’s faith.93

*”This is my body”; cf. Matthew 26:26, Mark 14:22, and Luke 22:19. In reference to the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation when the sacramental bread is consecrated and elevated.

93 Baker, Richard, A Chronicle of the Kings of England (London: for Daniel Frere, 1643), p97-8

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“The doubt of future foes”British Library Harley MS 7392 f27v

“The doubt of future foes” (c.1571)

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The doubt of future foes, exiles my present joy, 1

And wit me warns to shun such snares, as threaten mine annoy.For falsehood now doth flow, and subjects faith doth ebb

Which should not be if reason ruled or wisdom weaved the web.But clouds of joys untried, do cloak aspiring minds, 5

Which turns to reign of late repent by changed course of winds.The top of hope supposed, the root of truth shall be

And fruitless all their grafted guile, as shortly you shall see.Their dazzled eyes with pride which great ambition blinds,

Shall be unsealed of worthy wits whose foresight falsehood finds. 10

The daughter of debate, that discord ere doth sow.Shall reap no gain, where former rule, still peace hath taught to know.

No foreign banish wight, shall anchor in this port,Our realm brooks no seditious sects let them elsewhere resort.

Our Rusty sword throw rest, shall first his Edge employ: 15

To poll their tops, and seek such change, or gape for future joy.

F I N I S. EL

Source: British Library Harley MS 7392 f27v. Variations between this version, the Arundel Harington manuscript, Folger Library, MS V.b.317,fol 20v and Puttenham’s printed version are detailed in the notes. This poem has been dated to the early 1570s, with Marcus, Mueller and Rose pinpointing 1571 as its composition date due to the version in Bodelian MS Rawlinson Poetical 108, fol 44v.

1 doubt: Arundel reads “dread.”5 joys: Puttenham reads “toys;” the editors of Collected Works recognise that later manuscripts also read “toys”, suggesting they have been copied from Puttenham’s version. 6 reign: Folger reads “rage”; Arundel reads “Which turn to rage of late report, by changèd course of minds”; Puttenham has “Which turn to reign of late repent, by course of changèd winds.”7: this line varies significantly: Arundel reads “The tops of hope suppose, the root of rue shall be.” Folger reads “The top of hope supposed/The root of rue shall be.” Puttenham reads “The top of hope supposed, the root of truth will be.”10 of: Folger reads “by”.12 still peace hath taught to know: Puttenham reads “Hath taught still peace to grow.”14 Our realm brooks no seditious sects: Puttenham reads “Our realm it brooks no stranger’s force.”15: I have retained the capitalization of “Rusty” and “Edge” as written in the manuscript. The image of the “rusty sword” is one that recurs in rhetoric related to Elizabeth, in which the sword is personified, often indicated by capitalization.16 poll: Folger reads “pull.

“I grieve and dare not show my discontent”

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British Library Egerton MS 923. f18v

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“I grieve and dare not show my discontent” (c.1582)

[Headed: Sonnet by Queen Elizabeth]

I grieve and dare not show my discontent 1

I love and yet force to seem to hateI do yet I dare not say I ever meantI seem stark mute yet inwardly do prate

I am, and not, I freeze and yet do burn 5

Since from myself another self I turnMy care is like my shadow in the sunfollows me flying flies when I pursueStays and flies by me doth what I have donehis too familiar care doth make me rue it 10

no means I find to rid him from my breasttill by the end of things it be suppressed

Some gentle passion slide into my mindfor I am soft and made of melting snowor be more cruel love or be more kind 15

let me or float or sink, be high or lowor let me live with some more sweet contentor die and so forget what love ere meant

Source: British Library Egerton MS 923 f18v., a duodecimo verse miscellany. Variations between this manuscript copy, and the versions found in Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MS Tanner 76, fol.94r and Bodleian, MS Ashmole 781, and early 17th century manuscript which is now illegible due to water damage but was transcribed and presented in The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth.94 This poem can be fairly reliably dated to 1582, when Monsieur left England after his final visit to England supposedly to court Elizabeth.

2 force: Oxford reads “am forced”6 another self: Nichols reads “my other self”13 passion: Nichols reads “passions”15 or be more kind: Oxford reads “and so be kind”

“When I Was Fair and Young”British Library Harley MS 7392 f21v.

94 John Nichols, ed. The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth, 3 vols. 1823. Reprint, New York: AMS Press, n,d. vol 2, p346.

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“When I Was Fair and Young” (c.1580s)

When I was fair and young, then favour graced me, 1

Of many was I sought, their mistress for to beBut I did scorn them all and answered them therefore, Go, go, go seek some otherwhere, importune me no more.How many weeping eyes, I made to pine in woe, 5

How many sighing hears I have not skill to showBut I the prouder grew, and still this spake thereforeGo, go, go seek some other where importune me no more.Then spake fair Venus’ son, that brave victorious boy.Saying, you dainty Dame, for that you be so coy, 10

I will so pull your plumes, as you shall say no more, Go, go, go seek some other where importune me no more.As soon as he had said such change grew in my breastThat neither night nor day, I could take any rest.Wherefore I did repent, that I had said before, 16

Go, go, go seek some other where, importune me no more.

F I N I S. ELY.

Source: British Library Harley MS 7392 f21v. Significant variations between this manuscript copy, and the versions found in the Syndics of Cambridge University Library, MS Dd. V75, fol.38v and Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MS Rawlinson Poetical 85, fol. 1r are detailed in the notes. The copy found in the latter manuscript is headed “Verses made by the queen when she was supposed to be in love with Monsieur.” This heading is struck through however it would corroborate the manuscript evidence that this poem was written some time in the 1580s, the decade when Monsieur eventually left England and his courtship towards Elizabeth for the last time.

1 then: Cambridge and Oxford both read “and”5 in: Oxford reads “with”. The Cambridge version significantly differs from the two others discussed here. It has one less verse, with the second and final verses reading as follows:

But there fair Venus’ son, that brave, victorious boy, Said, “What thou scornful dame, sith that thou art so coy,I will so wound thy heart, that though shalt learn therefore:Go, go, go see some otherwhere; importune me no more.”

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But then I felt straightway a change within my breast:The day unquiet was; the night I could not rest,For I did sore repent that I had said before,“Go, go, go seek some otherwhere; importune me no more.”95

6 not: Oxford reads “no”7: the Oxford version of this line is, “Yet I the prouder grew, and answered them therefore”9 brave: Oxford reads “proud”10 Saying you dainty Dame: the Oxford version of this line is, “And said: ‘Fine dame, since’”11 pull your plumes, as: the Oxford version reads “pluck your plumes that”13 As soon as he had said: the Oxford version reads “When he had spake these words”15: Oxford reads “…night nor day since that”16 wherefore: Oxford reads “Then lo”.

“Now Leave and Let Me Rest”British Library Harley MS 7392. fol.49v

95 These verses appear here as transcribed and modernized by Marcus, Mueller and Rose. Collected Works, p304. See n1 p303 for details of this manuscript, including discussion on the likelihood of Elizabeth’s authorship as in contention with that of the Early of Oxford.

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“Now Leave and Let Me Rest” ( c.1580s)

Now leave and let me rest, 1

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Dame pleasure be content,Go choose among the best,

My doting days are spent.By sundry signs I see, 5

Thy proffers are but vainAnd wisdom warneth me,

That pleasure asketh pain.And nature that doth know,

How time her steps doth try, 10

Gives place to painful woe,And bids me learn to die

Since all fair youthful things,Soon ripe will soon be rotten,

And all the pleasant Spring 15

Soon withered soon forgotten.And youth that yields all joys,

That wanton youth requiresIn Age repents the toys,

That reckless youth requires. 20

All such Desire I leave,To such as follow trains,

By pleasures to deceive,Till they do feel the pains.

And from vain pleasures past, 25

I flye, and faine would know,The happy place at last,

Whereto I hope to go.

Source: British Library Harley MS 7392. fol.49v., a verse miscellany thought to be compiled by Humphrey Coningsby. Significant variations between this manuscript, the Arundel, and Cambridge manuscript versions are detailed in the notes. The Arundel text organizes the poem in six eight-line stanzas instead of four six-line stanzas as Marcus et al do.96 Formally then, this edition is most similar to May’s version in his Selected Works.97 Both Arundel and 7392 versions of the text present the poem’s rhyming couplets as trimester quatrains, as does May, who uses the Cambridge text as his copy-text.

10 how: Arundel reads “her” 13 youthful: Cambridge reads “earthly” followed by “rot” and “forgot” as the rhyme words for this line and the next.17 all: Cambridge reads “men”; Arundel reads “new.”18 youth requires: Cambridge reads “lust desires”21-22: these two lines in Cambridge read, “All which delights I leave to such as folly trains.”27: this line in Cambridge reads “The happy life at last”28 whereto: Arundel reads “wherein”

British Library Harley MS 7392. fol.50r

96 Marcus et al, Collected Works, p305, n197 May, Steven ed. Queen Elizabeth I: Selected Works (London: Simon and Schuster UK Ltd, 2005)

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For words nor wise reports,Nor all examples gone, 30

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Can bridle willful sportsTill age come creeping on.

Those pleasant courtly games,That I delighted in,

My older age now shames 35

Such follies to begin.And all those fancies strange

That vain delight brought forth,I do intend to change,

And count them nothing worth. 40

For I by proofs am worn,And taught to know the skill,

What ought to be forborne, In my young wreckless will.

Which my good words I fleet, 45

From will to wit again,In hope to set my feet,

In surety to remain.

f I N I S. I M. Regina*

29 nor: Cambridge reads “or”.30 nor all: Cambridge reads “ne yet”31 willful: Cambridge reads “youthful”32; this line in Cambridge reads “till age came stealing on”; Arundel reads “Can bridle youthful sports, till age comes stealing on.”34 delighted in: Cambridge reads “do pleasure”; Arundel reads “did pleasure.”35 older age: originally as “older years” but corrected; Cambridge reads “elder years”37-8 those fancies strange that vain: Cambridge reads “the fancies strange that fond”41-2 For I…the skill: Cambridge reads, “For I by proffers vain am taught to know the skill”; Arundel reads, “For I by process worn,/Am taught to know the skill.”43 ought to be: Cambridge reads “might have been.”45 Which my good words: Cambridge reads, “By which good proof”; Arundel reads “good will”

* I M. Regina: Steven May suggests the initials “IM” under the lines that sought to strike it out (see Collected Works, p30)

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Manuscripts Considered and Consulted

The British Library, London

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BL Add. MS 18920

BL Add. MS 4457

BL Harley MS 7392

BL Add. MS 15227

BL Add. MS 18044

BL Harley MS 6933

BL Add. MS 82370

BL, Stowe MS 962

BL Add. MS 70516

The Bodleian Library, Oxford

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Bodleian, MS Rawlinson. D.947

Bodleian, MS Rawlinson Poetical 108

Bodleian, MS Ashmole 781

The Folger Shakespeare Library

Folger, MS V.b.317

Folger MS V.a.89

63