Scottish Text Society publications > Old series > Satirical poems of the time of the reformation > Volume 2, 1893

44 notes to testament and tragedie, etc. (100-117).
C Thus hath this noble King, alas !
His life lost, as you heare ;
Therefore, I say, and will doe still,
He did buy Gold to deare.
God graunt, good Lord, with hart I pray,
Our noble Queene to guide,
And graunt that neuer traytours false
About her highnesse bide.
Wo worth, wo worth, wo worth the all,
Vvo worth to them, I say !
Wo worth, wo worth, wo worth the all,
Vvo worth to them alway !
Finis. H. C.
Imprinted at London by Thomas Gosson, Paternoster Rowe, next
to the signe of the Castell.
Of similar purport is a ballad in Percy’s ‘Reliques of Ancient
English Poetry’ (Series II. Bk. ii. No. 14), entitled “The Murder of
the King of Scots,” written, as appears from the concluding stanza,
after Mary’s flight into England in 1568.
100. plunged. “They soused me into the Thames with as
little remorse as they drown blind puppies.”—Shakespeare, “The
Merry Wives of Windsor,” Act iii. sc. 5.
“ Much like, as when the beaten marinere,
That long hath wandered in the Ocean wide,
Ofte soust in swelling Tethys saltish teare.”
—Spenser, ‘The Faerie Queene,’ Bk. i. c. iii. st. 31.
105. Hangit. See note to 1. 76, supra.
108. Than Burrio, now Brydegrome. Bothwell’s marriage with
Mary took place 15th May 1567.—MS. Letter, S.P.O., Border Cor¬
respondence, Drury to Cecill, 16th May 1567. On the following morn¬
ing a placard of evil omen was attached to the palace-gate, bearing
the legend from Ovid (‘Fast.,’ Lib. v. 1. 490)—
“ Mense malas Maio nubere vulgus ait.”
“ Folk say that wicked women wed in May.”
109 et seq. O wickit wemen, &c. Cf. ‘ Philotus’—
“ O sex uncertaine, frayle and fals,
Dissimulate and dissaitfull als,
With honie lips to hald in hals,
Bot with ane wickit mynde ;
Quhome will dois mair nor reason mufe,
Mair lecherie nor honest lufe,
Mair harlotrie nor gude behufe,
Unconstant and unkynde.”
—Sibbald’s ‘Chronicle,’ vol. iii. pp. 419, 420.
117. Medeais heliers — tht lures of the sorceress. Medea, a famous
witch in Greek story, was the daughter of ^Esetes, King of Colchis,