Go, lytell quayre, quickly; Shew them that shall you rede, How that ye are lykely 510 Ouer all the worlde[268] to sprede. The fals Scottes for dred, With the Duke of Albany, Beside the water of Twede They fledde full cowardly. Though your Englishe be rude, Barreyne of eloquence, Yet, breuely to conclude, Grounded is your sentence On trouthe, vnder defence 520 Of all trewe Englyshemen, This mater to credence That I wrate with my pen.
SKELTON LAUREAT, OBSEQUIOUS ET LOYALL.[269]
TO MY LORDE CARDYNALS RIGHT NOBLE GRACE, &c.
Go, lytell quayre, apace, In moost humble wyse, Before his noble grace, That caused you to deuise This lytel enterprise; And hym moost lowly pray, In his mynde to comprise Those wordes his grace dyd saye Of an ammas gray.
[257] _Howe the douty Duke of Albany, &c._] From Marshe’s ed. of Skelton’s _Workes_, 1568.
[260] _thy dogge_] Qy. “thé, dogge?” but see notes.
[261] _Nor no batayle, &c._] The Editor of 1736 chose to give this passage thus;
“Nor _a_ batayle mayntayne _With our_ stronge captayne _For you_ ran,” &c.
[267] _And to spende, &c._] This line and the next transposed in ed.
[269] _Skelton Laureat, obsequious et loyall_] Perhaps these words are a portion of the superscription to the _Lenuoy_ which follows. The _Lenuoy_ itself does not, I apprehend, belong to the poem on the Duke of Albany. See _Account of Skelton, &c._
OF THE DEATH OF THE NOBLE PRINCE, KYNGE EDWARDE THE FORTH.
Page 1. “Indeed if he well weighed that Epitaph of King Edward the fourth, made by Skelton, which I find inserted amongst the vnprinted Workes of Lydgate, he would be more modest in this kinde.” _Qvaternio_, 1633, p. 239, by Nash, who cites a considerable portion of this poem from a MS.—Lydgate could not have been alive at the period of Edward’s decease: see Warton’s _Hist. of E.P._ ii. 51. ed. 4to. (note), Ritson’s _Bibl. Poet., &c._
Edward the Fourth died April 9th, 1483, in the 41st year of his age and the 23d of his reign: see Sir H. Nicolas’s _Chron. of Hist._ pp. 325, 349, sec. ed. These lines were probably composed soon after the king’s death—_per Skeltonidem laureatum_ having been subsequently added to the title.
Page 2. v. 22. _a chery fayre_] If this is to be understood as _cherry-fair_ (which I think doubtful), the line ought to be pointed,