Elizabethan actor and comedian Richard Tarleton is remembered most for his quick-witted and clever quips, his physical comedy, and for the image of him playing pipe and tabor. Despite the fact that this famous representation shows him as a musician, Tarleton the musician has remained a neglected subject in both historical and modern accounts.
This article aims to put that right, with a description of Tarleton’s taboring; an investigation into the meaning of the surviving tune that bears his name, called both Tarletons jigg and Tarletons Willy; an understanding of his theatrical role as the creator of extempore comedy songs; and a survey of the evidence for Tarleton as a composer of ballads, particularly the comedic genre known as the medley.
This is the third of four articles about the life and music of Elizabethan clown, Richard Tarleton. The final article will examine posthumous tributes, including the performance of a 16th century ballad about him, its words and music newly reunited after 400 years.
In these essays I use both spellings of Richard’s surname – Tarleton and Tarlton – according to the historical source.
The story so far
In the first article, we began with John Dowland’s musical tribute, tarletones riserrectione, and placed Dick Tarleton in the context of the history of three types of medieval and renaissance fools – natural, ungodly, and artificial. Richard started life as a labourer, became an actor, and was picked to become a royally appointed performer as the artificial fool in The Queen’s Players, who staged plays at court and on tour. As the company’s jester, his stage costume was not the now stereotypical hood with ass ears and bells, but a country clown with pipe and tabor, russet coat, slops and startups (rural breeches and shoes).
The second article focussed on Tarleton the comedic player, serious actor, and playwright. His quick-wittedness was legendary, a comedian of both verbal and physical dexterity; and his straight role as the rejected prodigal son impressed Henry Peacham so greatly as a boy that 53 years later he wrote about the affecting power of Tarleton’s stage presence. As a playwright, Richard Tarleton wrote in the tradition of the morality play, still popular in the Tudor era. This second article gives an evidenced reconstruction of Tarleton’s drama, The Secound parte of the Seven Deadlie Sinns, from a surviving plot outline.
Tarleton the taborer: Tarletons jigg
As we saw in the first article, the popular visual representation of Richard Tarleton was a woodcut used for broadside ballads and for the cover of Tarltons Iests [Jests], and it shows him playing pipe and tabor. A drawn version of this image in John Scottowe’s alphabet book, produced in or after 1588, is shown at the top of this article.
As the fool or jester in The Queen’s Players, Tarleton’s role was not only to appear in the play, but also to perform the jig (jigg, jigge, gigg). The definition of a jig as music in 6/8 time was to come later: at this point, a jig was the light-hearted and humorous after-play show which included stories, dances and songs, so if a piece of music was called a jig, it was from a theatrical jig, and could be in any metre.
It is logical to suggest from his famous image that Tarleton played pipe and tabor in the after-play show, and we have apparent confirmation of this from two sources. The first is The commendation of cockes, and cock-fighting Wherein is shewed, that cocke-fighting was before the comming of Christ, 1607, in which George Wilson describes “a cocke called Tarleton, who was so intituled because he alwayes came to the fight like a drummer, making a thundering noyse with his winges”. This implies that Tarleton’s typical stage entry in the jig was to walk on playing pipe and tabor. The second confirmation of Tarleton’s taboring in the jig is the title of a piece of music, Tarletons jigg, in the Cambridge consort books. These books were written out between c. 1588 and c. 1597 by Mathew Holmes, precentor (worship facilitator) at Christ Church, Oxford. As a scribe, he was responsible for a series of manuscripts which make up the largest collection of surviving solo lute, bandora and cittern music in England, as well as pieces for the English consort of six (treble viol or violin, flute or recorder, bass viol, lute, cittern, and bandora). The consort music does not appear in one discrete book, but is distributed among Holmes’ manuscripts now in Cambridge University Library (Dd.3.18 for lute, Dd.14.24 for cittern, Dd.5.20 for bass consort parts, Dd.5.21 for recorder with two pages for treble violin – all the bandora parts and some music for other instruments are missing). Tarletons jigg can be heard played by The Consort of Musicke, directed by Anthony Rooley, by clicking on the picture below.
The same principle, that the title Tarletons jigg suggests it was a melody played by him in the jig, applies to Kemps Jigge, a lute solo named after William Kemp or Kempe, the fool in William Shakespeare’s acting troupe, Lord Chamberlain’s Men. Both pieces appear for solo lute in Mathew Holmes’ lute manuscript, Dd.2.11, c. 1585–95, and both of the jigs named after these theatrical fools appear in other sources under different titles. In the renaissance it was common for the same music to be repurposed as a solo on different instruments, as a ballad tune or as a dance tune, and the various titles for the same piece indicate these diverse uses. For example, when a tune was used for a ballad, it would often take on the name of the new song when used again for a further ballad, the same melody accumulating different titles for each new set of verses. Such a scenario of different uses may explain why Kemps Jigge for solo lute in Dd.2.11 appears among Holmes’ consort pieces as Nutmigs and ginger, and for lute as The Parlement in the Folger Dowland manuscript, England, c. 1590; Quyns Almand in the Thysius lute book, Netherlands, c. 1595-1620; Engels Liedlein in Kraków 40143 (Berlin Mus. Ms. 40143), Poland, 1600-1603; and as The Parliament of Engellant in Danzig 4022, Poland, early 17th century. Similarly, Tarletons jigg for consort reappears in Holmes’ cittern manuscript, Dd.4.23, as Tarletons Willy (the meaning of which will be examined in the fourth article), and for solo lute in Dd.2.11 without title.
In her biography of John Dowland, 20th century lute pioneer Diana Poulton (1903–95) credits the composition of the nameless lute version in Dd.2.11 to the English lutenist. Published in 1972, Poulton’s book John Dowland is a standard reference work for modern lute players, cataloguing his pieces into title, genre, and source(s), so the claim of Dowland’s authorship is now generally accepted. However, in this case Poulton’s attribution is wholly on the basis of assertions without evidence. She reasons that since Dowland composed tarletones riserrectione he must also have composed Tarletons jigg, which is not logically valid nor based on any historical source, and she suggests that Dowland therefore probably had a personal connection with the clown, which cannot be substantiated. She claims that Tarletons jigg is reminiscent of other Dowland pieces in a similar rhythm but she doesn’t quantify or justify the statement, and it seems quite a stretch to find tell-tale signs of Dowland in its only 12 bars of music. Furthermore, none of the 16th century sources name a composer, so there is no evidence to link the piece to Dowland. The untitled and unattributed lute version of Tarletons jigg / Tarletons Willy can be heard by clicking on the picture below.
Since the evident meaning of the title Tarletons jigg is that Tarleton played the tune in the jig on his pipe and tabor, it is obvious to wonder how this would have sounded. The pitch range of a tabor pipe is an octave and a half, enough for the ambit of this melody. Taken from the lute part, the tune played on pipe and tabor may have sounded like this, transposed from lute pitch to that of a tabor pipe in D:
In his Foure letters, and certaine sonnets, 1592, English scholar Gabriel Harvey describes Tarleton’s “piperly Extemporizing”. The chief way of adding extempore or composed variations to a melody in the 16th and 17th century was called divisions or diminutions, the tune divided into shorter values with extra notes added between the melody. Typically, each section of a piece of renaissance instrumental music repeats, the first time played straight, the second time with divisions, before moving onto the second section, played straight then with divisions, and so on if there are more than two sections. When the whole melody is played through again from the beginning, increasingly inventive divisions are added.
To imagine what it may have sounded like with Tarleton’s “piperly Extemporizing”, below are my own divisions on Tarletons jigg. The first time through the first section we have gentle diminutions, followed by more rapid divisions on the section repeat, and the same principle applies to the second section.
Tune titles connected with Tarleton’s clown clothes
A list of 80 tune titles, without music, survives in a composite manuscript which otherwise consists of strict-metre cywyddau, Welsh poetry, from the 15th and 16th century. The leaves were found in Lleweni Hall, near Denbigh in north Wales, and are now collectively classified as MS Gwyneddon 4 in the library archive of the University of Wales. The list of titles on folio 71 verso was written in a rough hand, circa 1595. It may have been the repertoire of the 7 harpists and 3 crwth players named in a much more careful hand on folio 73 verso, together with 3 poets, all Welsh names.
Left: Folio 71 verso has a list of 80 tune titles in a rough hand.
Right: Folio 73 verso lists the names of 7 harpists, 3 crwth players and 3 poets in more careful writing.
(Click the picture to see it larger in a new window; click in the new window to enlarge again.)
The tune list includes familiar titles from the period, such as nutmckes and ginger (which, in the Mathew Holmes manuscripts, appears by this name for consort and as Kemps Jigge for solo lute, as described above), the beginninge of the warld (the alternative title for Sellinger’s Round), grine slifes, fourtune [my foe], halfe haniking, hartes ease, light of love, listi gallant, loth to depart, woodes so wilde, mistres wite his [sic] choyse (by John Dowland), pegi ramsdale (Peg a Ramsey or Peggy Ramsey), and staynes moris. Some titles are those of now lost pieces, such as blacke krooe fether, clif his rounde, the countese of lester dunp, hamlinton his health, the Juge his danse, the marchent doghter, mistres shandoes good night, over the brode water, and gouldilockes. Among those titles of lost music are two tunes bearing Tarlton’s name, tarlton is buten cape and tarlton trunke hose, both referring to his appearance as a stage clown: Tarlton’s buttoned cap and his trunk hose or slops, meaning his loose breeches, were both part of the look of the country fool he adopted. (There is a traditional morris tune and dance called Trunk Hose, still played in various forms, the title now attenuated to Trunkles. As Gwilym Davies has suggested to me, there is a potential but unproven link between Trunk Hose / Trunkles and tarlton trunke hose. In their 1907 book on morris dance, Cecil Sharp and Herbert MacIlwaine list the 16th century Green Sleeves, still played, among their collected morris material, so it is not impossible that Trunk Hose is of the same antiquity and possibly the tune we are seeking. However, Sharp and MacIlwaine state, “We append some notes on the tunes which we are publishing in connection with this volume, with the exception of Bean Setting, Trunkles, and Laudnum Bunches, about which we know nothing.” Unless further information can be uncovered, any connection between the current Trunk Hose / Trunkles and the historical tarlton trunke hose remains conjectural.)
Tarlton’s clown apparel was described in the first article, and in that connection we return to the words of a drama cited in that first essay. Act 2, Scene 4 of the anonymous play, The Partiall Law, c. 1615–30, mentions seven dance tunes played on pipe and tabor. A woman declines a suggestion to dance to The souldier’s delight by reference to the tunes, the beginning of the world and Tarlton’s Trunk-hose, both in the MS Gwyneddon 4 list (as is Peggy Ramsey, also mentioned).
1. Man. … she hath promis’d me to meete me much about this houre in this very place, and to bring two of her neighbours along with her, and a Tabor and Pipe, to give me and any two I shall bring with me a meeting where we may trip it for an hour or two …
2. Wom. I can daunce with them too ; are you they, I pray you ? if you be, we have brought a very feat Tabourer along with us.
2. Man. That you may know, pretty mayde, that we be the men you looke for, command your Tabourer to strike up, and we two to any two of them.
3. Wom. Nay, we’ll all daunce, that’s sure, we’ll none sit by for looker’s on …
1. Man. What daunce shall’s have? An old man’s a bagge full of bones?
1. Wom. I never lov’d to have to doe with old men’s bones. Play me The souldier’s delight.
1. Man. Why then, you must play your selfe pretty one, for to my knowledge who have beene a souldier, their delight lyes most in such as you are.
2. Wom. Nay, that’s as old as the beginning of the world, or Tarlton’s Trunk-hose. Let’s have Rose is red, and rose is white, and rose is wonderous bonny.
2. Man. For a wager your name is Rose, is it not?
2. Wom. It is indeede Sir.
2. Man. Why then, let us have it.
3. Wom. Nay, by your leave Sir, why rather that than Peggy Ramsey for my sake, or Joane’s ale is new, for my other neighbour heere, whose name is Joane.
2. Wom. Then to end the strife, least we fall out before we fall in, let’s have the new Daunce made at our last wake.
All. A match, a match.
A double meaning is clearly intended, a comedic play on words, characteristic of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama: “that’s as old as the beginning of the world” uses the tune title to mean The souldier’s delight is too old to be interesting; and “that’s as old as … Tarlton’s Trunk-hose” uses the tune title to mean The souldier’s delight is old and worn out, like the breeches of Tarlton’s country clown costume. Such a use of these tune titles on the stage in c. 1615–30 is a clear indication that they were well-known and instantly recognisable by the audience.
Information is lacking, alas, to ascertain whether tarlton trunke hose listed in MS Gwyneddon 4 and mentioned in The Partiall Law, and tarlton is buten cape in MS Gwyneddon 4, were tunes the clown himself played on pipe and tabor in the jig, or the names of songs or tunes written about him during or after his lifetime, or tunes composed and named posthumously in his honour.
Tarleton the musical comic extemporiser
For an understanding of Tarleton’s skill as a musical comedian, we return to Gabriel Harvey’s Foure letters, and certaine sonnets, 1592, for a fuller quote: “who in London hath not heard of his dissolute, and licentious living … his vaineglorious and Thrasonicall bravinge : his piperly Extemporizing, and Tarletonizing … I report me to the favourablest opinion of those that know his Prefaces, Rimes, and the very Timpanye of his Tarltonizing wit, his Supplication to the Divell.”
Harvey plainly recognised Tarleton’s talent, though he was not a fan of his lifestyle, manner, or personality. Tarleton’s “dissolute, and licentious living”, which Harvey claims was well-known, is referred to in the second article: that, in Harvey’s words, when he was “merrily demaunding [of Tarleton], which of the seaven, was his owne deadlie sinne, [Tarleton] bluntly aunswered after this manner; By God, the sinne of other Gentlemen, Lechery”; and Tarleton’s friend, Robert Adams, said he died in Shoreditch at the house of “one Em. Ball, a woman of a very bad reputacion”.
Thraso was a character in the comedy, Eunuchus, by Publius Terentius Afer (often abbreviated to Terence), a Roman African playwright of the 2nd century BCE. Thraso was a conceited, arrogant, boastful, vainglorious soldier. Braving means making a display of oneself. Thus Harvey describes Tarleton’s “vaineglorious and Thrasonicall bravinge”.
His “piperly Extemporizing” is creating new music or adding variations to existing music on the spot on his pipe and tabor, as we have seen above. His “Prefaces” means introductory remarks to his act, or to a piece of music, probably to the extempore musical “Rimes” he was famous for (described below); and “Timpanye” is bombast. Such was the uniqueness and originality of Tarleton’s act that Harvey uses his surname as a verb: “his piperly Extemporizing, and Tarletonizing … and the very Timpanye of his Tarltonizing wit”.
the earliest to survive. This jest book was
originally printed in 1600.
The popular posthumous accounts of Dick’s wit, Tarltons Iests, was published in three parts, the first part in 1600, and it describes further what Gabriel Harvey called “Extemporizing, and Tarletonizing”: “While the Queens Plaiers lay in Worcester Citie to get money, it was his custome oft to sing extempory of Theams giuen him: amongst which they were appoynted to play the next day … at a Play in the Country, where as Tarltons vse was, the Play being done, euery one so please to throwe vp his Theame”.
The account is admirably clear: one of Tarlton’s feats of comedic skill in the after-play jigs was to make up songs instantly from themes suggested by the audience, with new songs composed for the next day’s jig from those same suggestions. Not only was this an impressive improvisational performance to draw an audience, spectators had the incentive of being personally involved in what Tarlton performed on stage, and were motivated to return the next day to hear more of their ideas enacted. We saw an example of Tarlton’s ability to create extempore verse in the first article, which relates Tarlton’s answer in defence of his flat nose from Tarltons Iests. What that story doesn’t make explicit, but which readers would have known and the account above makes clear, was that his ad-libbed verse, “his Theame”, was sung. As the tribute song willie and peggie (performed in the fourth article) puts it:
To rich and to poore my willy [Tarlton] was found
so meeke, so courteous, and kynde;
to singe them their themes he never denied,
so that it might plese their minde.
We don’t know if Tarlton set these extempore verses to existing tunes, or invented new melodies; and it is not clear whether Gabriel Harvey’s description of “his piperly Extemporizing” suggests that he self-accompanied these on-the-spot songs on pipe and tabor, probably keeping rhythm with the drum while he sang, perhaps playing instrumental verses and refrains with the addition of the pipe as an introduction and/or between verses, or whether the songs were sung a cappella and “his piperly Extemporizing” was a separate part of the act.
Modern comparisons can be drawn for Tarlton’s musical comedy. In his live shows during the 1970s, Richard Stilgoe composed a song in the interval from ideas called out by the audience, self-accompanied on piano in the second half; Josie Lawrence, comedic improviser, is highly skilled in creating original songs instantly from audience suggestions, seen on the Channel 4 series, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, broadcast 1988–1997 (impressive video examples below); and Showstopper! The Improvised Musical, which toured in 2019, created a new improvised plot and extempore songs every night from themes suggested by the audience.
improvised from audience suggestions on Whose Line Is It Anyway?,
can be viewed by clicking on the picture. The video opens in a new window.
Was Tarleton a ballad writer?
Jane Belfield (1978) states that “Tarlton seems to have had some reputation as a writer of ballads”, and many modern authors concur, among them James Orchard Halliwell (1844), Alfred Henry Huth (1867), John H. Long (1970), and Sally Harper (2005). Before we investigate the evidence for this claim, key terms should be defined:
• a ballad is a song, sung to a new or pre-existing melody;
• a broadside is a sheet of paper, between 28 x 38 cm and 29 x 42 cm, printed on one side – broadsides could be poetry, news (heavily weighted as propaganda) or, most popularly, ballads;
• a broadside ballad was a ballad printed on a broadsheet with the instruction “To the tune of” or similar wording, usually with one or more decorative woodcuts.
The earliest known mention of Tarlton in connection with broadsides is 13 years before he joined The Queen’s Players, when it is probable he was with The Earl of Sussex’s Men, but before anything other than verse-writing is known of his activities. The earliest broadside with Tarlton’s name is an account of a real event, filtered through a religious/moral perspective: A very Lamentable and woful discours of the fierce fluds, whiche lately flowed in Bedford shire, in Lincoln shire, and in many other places, with the great losses of sheep and other Cattel, the v. of October. Anno Domini 1570. The verse structure and writing style is in keeping with the tradition of broadside ballads but, since the broadsheet doesn’t mention a tune, this is a broadside poem rather than a ballad.
The first verse sets the scene:
All faithful harts come Waile
Com rent your garments gay:
Els nothing can prevaile
To turn Gods wrath away
A very Lamentable and woful discours tells the story of God’s wrath at human vice, expressed as divinely sent rainfall and floods, inundating houses, resulting in the drowning of people and cattle. The last verse gives the standard Christian lesson, present in every morality play and in Tarlton’s drama, the Seven Deadlie Sinns, that only repentance and faithful living can avert such punishment in future:
In us therefore for shame,
Let vice no more be seene:
and eke our selves so frame,
To serve a right our Queen.
The verses are followed by “Q Richard. Tarlton.”, Q being short for the Latin quoth, said, denoting authorship. Many modern commentators question this attribution on the basis that Tarlton’s name may have been used dishonestly to sell the ballad. However, 1570 is well before the height of Tarlton’s fame, so it is difficult to see what a ballad printer would have to gain by using his name; if his name had been used for commercial gain, it would have made more sense to make his authorship more prominent on the sheet; the doubters give no supporting evidence for questioning Tarlton’s authorship; other writings by Tarlton, about which no doubt is expressed, are on the same theme of natural acts of God punishing sinners (as we will see below); and Tarlton’s moralising verses are in the same vein as the surviving outline of his popular play, The Secound parte of the Seven Deadlie Sinns (described in the second article), the authorship of which cannot be doubted.
Richard Tarlton is the named author of other publications in the Stationers’ Register during the same decade.
10th December 1576: “Richarde Jones. Licenced unto him a newe booke in Englishe verse intituled Tarltons Toyes.”
This must have been a particularly popular publication as Thomas Nashe, in his book, The Terrors of the night, 1594, refers to the “first yere of the reigne of Tarltons toies”. A toy, in renaissance parlance, was something to amuse, light, non-serious. In this sense, several lute pieces of the period were called toys; Robert Greene’s play, The Historie of Orlando Furioso, c. 1590, has a stage direction that a fiddler “playes and sings any odde toy, and Orlando wakes”; and Feste the clown’s song which finishes William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, 1602, opens with the lines, “When that I was and a little tiny boy … A foolish thing was but a toy”. Tarltons Toyes, evidently a best-seller, is the only humorous publication by Tarlton himself (rather than bearing his name) for which we have evidence.
5th February 1577 (1578 in the modern calendar): “Hy Bynneman. Lycenced unto him Tarltons Tragicall Treatises, conteyninge sundrie discourses and pretie conceiptes bothe in prose and verse.”
7th February 1578 (1579 in the modern calendar): “John Aldee. Lycenced unto him under thand of Mr. Byshop, Tarltons devise upon this unlooked for great snowe.”
We see from the titles that the book, Tarltons Tragicall Treatises, and what may have been an essay, poem, or ballad, Tarltons devise upon this unlooked for great snowe, are serious in nature, the latter apparently on a similar theme to A very Lamentable and woful discours of the fierce fluds. Only fragments of Tarltons Tragicall Treatises survive in the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the other two publications are lost.
On 6th April 1580 there was an earthquake in Dover Straits so powerful that it was felt in south-east England, France and Flanders, resulting in two children being killed in England as masonry fell from a building, and an unspecified number of deaths in France and Flanders. Continuing the theme of Tarlton’s writing about life-threatening natural episodes as God’s punishment for sin, Tarlton and the English poet Thomas Churchyard jointly published their essays on the earthquake only two days after the event, though only Churchyard’s name appears in the title: A warning for the wise, a feare to the fond [credulous or foolish], a bridle to the lewde, and a glasse to the good. Written of the later Earthquake chanced in London and other places, the 6. of April 1580. for the glorie of God, and benefite of men that warely can walke, and wisely can judge. Set forth in verse and prose, by Thomas Churchyard Gentleman. Tarlton’s contribution was three prose pieces – A true Reporte vpon the great Earthquake; A true Reporte of the Earth quake in London; and A prayer – and an untitled 11 verse poem. As with A very Lamentable and woful discourse, no tune is given for the verse, nor any indication that it is to be sung.
The contents of A warning for the wise were soon incorporated in a larger publication, entered in the Stationers’ Register on 27th June 1580: A Bright Burning Beacon, forewarning all wise Virgins to trim their lampes against the comming of the Bridgegroome. Conteining A generall doctrine of sundrie signes and wonders, specially Eathquakes both particular and general: A discourse of the end of this world: A Commemoration of this late Earthquake, the 6. of April, about 6. of the clocke in the evening 1580. And a praier for the appeasing of Gods wrath and indignation. Newly translated and collected by Abraham Fleming. The words of the title, forewarning all wise Virgins to trim their lampes against the comming of the Bridgegroome, refers to The Gospel of Matthew 25: 1–13, an apocalyptic parable in which five wise virgins took oil for their lamps for the long night, awaiting the return of the bridegroom, i.e. they were prepared for Jesus’ second coming and divine judgement, Jesus being the bridegroom and the faithful church his bride; whereas five foolish virgins took no oil, fell asleep in the night, and were rejected by the bridegroom, i.e. they were unprepared for Jesus’ return and therefore he rejected them from his eternal kingdom. For Abraham Fleming, Thomas Churchyard, Richard Tarlton et al, Christians should be ever ready for Christ’s return, and events in the natural world were not explained by geology, geography and meteorology, but by the will of God, sending signals to humanity about sin. In this way, they followed in the tradition of the medieval bestiaries, in which creatures were not simply their naturalistically explicable selves, but emblematic symbols of the divine will: a fox was God’s representation of the devil who would have you by the throat, a goat stood for the sin of lust, and a panther signified the leadership of Christ.
Of particular interest in A warning for the wise and A Bright Burning Beacon is Tarlton’s untitled 11 verse poem. It is written in the tradition of 16th century Christian moralising verse, just as his drama, the Seven Deadlie Sinns, was in the tradition of the Christian morality play, and Tarlton’s poem refers implicitly to his other works.
In the penultimate line of the first stanza, Tarlton makes reference to his work of 4 years previous, Tarltons Toyes, 1576, and to his role on stage as fool/jester, to emphasise the seriousness of his poem:
You that desire to heare of Forrain news,
or tales new coyned by rumors rash report:
Lay by such care good freends leaue of to muse,
the tale I tell shall sound in better sort.
No toy, no trifle, no surmised iest:
But worthy wel to lodge in euery brest.
The first two lines of the second stanza use the Christian apocalyptic theme of nature being shaken to its foundations in the last days, a sign of the coming Final Judgement, and natural events being signs of God’s displeasure:
When Mountaines mooue as late they did in wales
great signe it is that nature then is crost:
This theme of natural events being God’s punishment for sin, common fare at the time, revisits a verse of A very Lamentable and woful discours of the fierce fluds 10 years before, in which Tarlton wrote:
The Arke of father Noy,
was had in minde as than:
When God did clene destroy,
Bothe woman childe and man.
The rest of the second stanza about the earthquake follows a familiar topic in 16th and 17th century literature, that God made nature, so anything unnatural must be a sign from God, warning the unfaithful:
When Monsterous Infants tels such doctors tales
the token shews some fauour hath bin lost.
With him that hath in charge the vse of all;
To spill or saue, to raise or let vs fall.
Here Tarlton revisits a verse of his woful discours of the fierce fluds, in which he wrote:
Chyldren Borne at Herne in Kent,
a broadside of 1565 about conjoined
twins who died a few hours after birth.
The event is told in moralistic
Christian terms we would now consider
insensitive and superstitious.
(Click on the picture to see it
larger in a new window.)
Of Monsters very rare,
That are unseemly borne:
Which dooth at large declare,
We live as men forlorne.
This theme is seen in other contemporaneous writing, for example, The true discription of two monsterous Chyldren Borne at Herne in Kent, a narrative news broadside of 1565 about the birth of conjoined twins. In that broadsheet, “The Monsterous and unnaturall shapes of these Chyldren & dyvers lyke brought foorth in our dayes” demonstrates that God was not only offended by the vice of the wicked parents and was thus punishing them, but was using the birth of their malformed children to admonish everyone to amend their sinful lives.
Tarlton’s fourth stanza about the earthquake reminds readers of his moralistic verse of 1570 about floods and his work of 1578–79 about snow:
The very seas of late haue chaung’d their tides
tis not so straunge as true the Sailers know:
few things or none in former state a bides,
such swelling floods, such great and monstrous snow
with other woonders to to straunge to tel:
A charme for flesh when nature would rebell.
The next 4 verses on the earthquake refer to sins, including some of the seven deadly sins, the theme of Tarlton’s play staged around 5 years later by The Queen’s Men: “pride … couetousnes … The Childe desires his fathers death for welth … Ipocrisie … Then Gluttony dooth challenge for his share … And wicked lust … Put of repentaunce til an other day.” The line about the child desiring his father’s death for wealth brings to mind the prodigal son in Tarlton’s stage role which so impressed Henry Peacham, referred to in the second article. Tarlton played that role c. 1585, 5 years after his earthquake verse but, as historian W. Carew Hazlitt observed, “the [prodigal son] incident [is] of a much older date” than the play – and would therefore have been a moral exemplar familiar to Tarlton.
Just as A very Lamentable and woful discourse ends with a verse about the shame of sin, the need to no longer engage in vice, and the holy duty to “serve a right our Queen”, so these 11 stanzas on the earthquake end with:
Let faith and trueth giue suerties of your life,
first honour God, and then obey your Prince
Vse vpright dealing bothe to man and wife:
conquere eche cause that once may breed offence.
So shall you liue deuoide of all complaints:
With Psalmes of ioy to sing among the Saints.
FINIS. Richard Tarlton.
(All 11 verses, as well as Tarlton’s three prose pieces, can be read in full in Lily B. Campbell, 1941 – see bibliography.)
Since Tarlton’s 11 verses lack the usual ballad indication, “To the tune of”, there is no evidence that this composition was intended to be sung. This is true of all his other verse. His broadside, A very Lamentable and woful discours of the fierce fluds, 1570, is 36 verses of the same scansion, eminently singable, but no tune is indicated. His book of 1576, Tarltons Toyes, is described in the Stationers’ Register as “a newe booke in Englishe verse”, but no copy has survived, so we cannot know if any of those verses were meant to be sung, but given the description – “verse”, no mention of song, ayre or ballad – it is most unlikely. His book of 1577–78, Tarltons Tragicall Treatises, contains “sundrie discourses and pretie conceiptes bothe in prose and verse”, but only fragments have survived so no conclusion about song can be drawn, but again the description makes this highly unlikely. His publication of 1578–79, Tarltons devise upon this unlooked for great snowe, is probably verses in the same vein as A very Lamentable and woful discours of the fierce fluds, but again it has not survived so nothing can be inferred about the intention or otherwise for it to be sung. Tarlton’s untitled 11 verses about the earthquake of 1580 would go well to music, but there is no evidence that this was the purpose. The claim of modern authors that Richard Tarlton was a composer of ballads is without substantiation.
all, by “R. T.” This can be read in full by clicking on the
picture, which will open larger in a new window.
Once open, click on the picture to enlarge again.
On 18th January 1592, the Stationers’ Register records a broadside ballad called the Crowe shee sittes vppon the wall : please One and please all. The ballad sheet (seen on the right) gives the title, A prettie newe Ballad, intytuled : The Crowe sits vpon the wall, Please one and please all. To the tune of, Please one and please all., ascribed to “R. T.” at the foot of the sheet. 16th century ballad sheets did sometimes include the author’s name – John Barker and W. Elderton appear on several – and more frequently no attribution or initials which retain the authors’ anonymity for all except the publisher – “W. E.”, “R. M.”, “S. P.”, “T. D.”, etc. Nevertheless, Alfred Henry Huth (1867) is sure that “R. T.” on The Crowe sits stands for Richard Tarlton, and Hyder E. Rollins (1967) considers it an uncertain possibility. The words (which you can read by clicking on the picture) read like an introductory song to a play or after-play jig. If this is so, it strengthens the circumstantial case for an ascription to Tarlton but, since evidence is lacking, this is speculation. Tarlton was over three years dead by the time of the Stationers’ Register entry for the song in January 1592, there is no record of it in his lifetime and there is nothing definitive to link the verses to him. The broadsides he did write, described above – which are poetry, not sung ballads – give his full name, and “R. T.” could be any ballad writer with those initials. Even if Richard Tarlton’s authorship of The Crowe sits could be proven, the posthumous nature of the publication would indicate cashing in on the memory of the song from his stage performance, rather than Tarlton having written a ballad for publication on a broadside.
In terms of verification from printed works, then, we are only on safe ground if we describe Richard Tarlton as a poet or a writer of Christian moralistic verse for reading or recitation, not a published ballad writer. It is still theoretically possible that he wrote ballads for print – they may be in the lost publications, or it may be that his surviving verses were sung, despite never indicating a tune – but such a supposition is special pleading, based only on repeated assertions by modern authors which are entirely without substantiating evidence.
“old Tarltons song”: The King of France
As we have seen above, a highlight of Tarlton’s stage act was to create extempore sung verses from themes called out by the audience. It is possible that he had a repertoire of established songs that became audience favourites, but if so they were songs for the stage, not ballads for the page. If there was such a repertoire, it is at least possible, though not provable, that The Crowe sits vpon the wall was one such. Another may be in a reference to “old Tarltons song” in an anonymous tract, “Printed for L. C. and M. W.” in 1642: Pigges Corantoe, or Newes from the North. A corantoe (coranto, corrento, curranta, corrente, courante, courant, currant, corant) was a popular 16th and 17th century dance, and we see more musical references in the passage which cites Tarlton:
“From France 1. March, Stilo Novo [in the new style]
That the Christian King is in a strange Quandary, and resolves with Fortie thousand men (remembring that Jersey and Garnsey were once his) to dance French broiles after the Defender of the Faiths Musick, So makes good, old Tarltons song.
The King of France with forty thousand men,
Went up a Hill, a[n]d so came downe agen.”
In other words, the French King had an army of 40,000 men who resolved to dance “broiles” – branles, a popular French dance – but instead they were defeated, were made to dance to the “Defender of the Faiths Musick” so, as “old Tarltons song” goes, the army of 40,000 marched up the hill but were forced to march down again. This is easily recognisable as the earliest known version of the nursery rhyme that became The Grand Old Duke of York, which did not appear in the York form until the late 19th century.
The Anglo-Welsh historian, James Howell, wrote a letter in 1620 which described the event referred to in the song: “France as all Christendom besides was in a profound peace … when Henry the fourth fell upon some great Martiall designe … he levied a huge army of 40,000 men, whence came the Song, The King of France with forty thousand men.”
So, to put all the pieces together, the “strange Quandary” of the French King Henry IV (Henry of Navarre), “the Christian King”, was that “the Defender of the Faith”, the Catholic League of France (Ligue catholique), who planned to wipe out Protestantism and usurp the French throne, had control of Paris. Henry responded with the siege of Paris to take the city but he was unsuccessful, and “whence came the Song, The King of France with forty thousand men.” There are two problems with this account: the siege of Paris happened in 1590, after Tarlton’s death; and all accounts put Henry’s troops at 12-13,000, up to 25,000 with reinforcements, nowhere near the “40,000 men” of the song and James Howell’s letter. It is likely, then, that Howell was mistaken in linking the song with Henry IV.
Pigges Corantoe doesn’t specify the event, but the figure of “forty thousand men” does tally with a previous conflict in or perhaps a little before Tarlton’s lifetime: the siege of Perpignan, 1542. Perpignan, now in France, was then a territory of the Crown of Aragon, Spain. If we read the Pigges Corantoe reference with the siege of Perpignan in mind, the “Christian King … in a strange Quandary” was Francis I of France, who tried to take Perpignan from Aragon with five armies, who indeed did total “Fortie thousand men”. The Spanish army, assisted by “the Defender of the Faith”, Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria, Charles V, successfully resisted, resulting in a costly defeat for Francis I. Not only does this fit the specifics of the Pigges Corantoe account and the numbers in the song better than James Howell’s suggestion, the chronology renders credible the reference to “old Tarltons song”.
Specifics about Tarlton’s performance are lacking, so we cannot know whether the song was a scripted fixture in a lost play or in the jig, that is to say an established part of his act, or a particularly memorable one-off example of him “sing[ing] extempory of Theams giuen him” by the audience.
“as fooles were wont”: Tarletons Medley
Having established the lack of any evidence for Richard Tarleton as a broadside ballad writer, we turn now to a tune bearing his name which appeared posthumously on broadsides. A ballad printed between 1623 and 1674, An excellent Medley, states, “The Tune is, Tarletons Medley”, and another ballad of 1601–40, A new Medley, OR, A Messe of All-together, gives the same instruction.
The medley was a ballad genre created by assembling lines which each make sense on their own, but together are unrelated nonsense. The full title of An excellent Medley tells us as much:
An excellent Medley,
Which you may admire at (without offence)
For every line speakes a contrary sence.
The first and sixth verses, shown below, demonstrate the medley’s disorderly form. (The first verse also confirms the role of the fool’s wisdom or candour, discussed in the first article, and lines 5 and 6 of the sixth verse appear to confirm the “vaineglorious and Thrasonicall bravinge” of Dick Tarleton so disliked by Gabriel Harvey.)
IN Summer time when folks make Hay,
All is not true that people say,
The Fools the wisest in the Play,
tush take away your hand.
The Fidlers boy hath broke his Base,
Sirs is it not a pitteous case,
Most gallants loath to smell the Mace,
of Woodstreet.
When the fifth Henry sail’d to France,
Let me alone for a Country dance,
Nell doth bewaile her lucklesse chance,
fie on false hearted men:
Dicke Tarleton was a merry wagge,
Harke how that prating Asse doth bragge.
Iohn Dory sold his ambling Nagge,
for kick-shawes.
It may seem that medley verses are the historical antecedents of the entertaining disjointed lyrics of modern songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Marc Bolan or David Bowie. However, in William Wager’s morality play, The longer thou liuest the more fool thou art, c. 1568, a stage direction tells us otherwise: “Here entreth Moros, counterfaiting a vaine gesture and a foolish countenance, Syinging the foote of many Songes, as fooles were wont.” The foot of a song can have two meanings. The first meaning is its rhythmic metre so, taken this way, Wager appears to be suggesting that medleys are lines taken from various songs to the same metre as the chosen medley melody. The second meaning of foot is the part of the song that repeats: the repeating ground of Sumer is icumen in, for example, is called the pes or foot in the manuscript. As we will see, either meaning may apply in the medley genre.
We see this foot or repetition in Moros’ song in the original print below right (click on the picture to see it larger in a new window, then click in the new window to see it larger again), the first four stanzas of which are:
Brome, Brome on hill,
The gentle Brome on hill hill :
Brome, Brome on Hive hill
The gentle Brome on Hive hill,
The gentle Brome on Hive hill a.
Robin lende to me thy Bowe, thy Bowe,
Robin the bow, Robin lend to me thy bow a;
There was a Mayde come out of Kent,
Deintie loue, deintie loue,
There was a mayde cam out of Kent,
Daungerous be :
There was a mayde cam out of Kent,
Fayre, proper, small and gent,
As euer upon the grounde went,
For so should it be.
By a banke as I lay, I lay,
Musinge on things past, hey how.
Here “the foote of many Songes” is the part that repeats, otherwise known as the burden or the chorus, from the songs, Brome, Brome on hill; Robin lende to me thy Bowe; There was a Mayde come out of Kent; By a banke as I lay; and others.
Another example of a fool’s medley in a drama is in A new interlude and a mery of the nature of the .iiii. elements, usually referred to as The Four Elements, a short morality play written circa 1510–20 by John Rastell or Rastall. The role of the fool or clown in the play is taken by the character, yngnoraunce. When the character Humanyte invites yngnoraunce, “let vs some lusty balet syng”, yngnoraunce responds with a six stanza medley, seen in the original print below.
yngnoraunce, sings a medley to Humanyte.
(As with all pictures, click to see larger in a new window.)
The first three stanzas are:
Robyn hode in barnysdale stode
And lent hym tyl a mapyll thystyll
Thā cam our lady & swete saynt andrewe
Slepyst thou wakyst thou geffrey coke
A hundred wynter the water was depe
I can not tell you how brode
He toke a gose nek in his hande
And over the water he went
He start vp to a thystell top
And cut hym downe a holyn clobe [hollin or holly club]
He stroke þe wren betwene the hornys
That fyre sprange out of the pygges tayle
We see that here the metre is very roughly maintained, but is not completely consistent, and a rhyme scheme is completely absent.
It is clear, then, that there was more than one way of composing a medley: An excellent Medley and A new Medley were both sung to the tune of Tarletons Medley, so every stanza had to have the same scansion; whereas Moros’ medley has a shape – longer stanza followed by shorter stanza – but with such internal metrical variety that the same melody could not have been used throughout; and the medley sung by yngnoraunce has some metrical variance within a generally consistent structure. What unites the forms is that a medley is a song made of parts of other songs.
In The longer thou liuest the more fool thou art, c. 1568, William Wager seemed to suggest that the medley was a song genre peculiar to the theatrical fool. If this was so in the 16th century, it was not so by the 17th, when there were medleys by commercial ballad writers for sale on broadsides. In these we see the same variety in form as just described, and new developments.
A New made MEDLY Compos’d out of sundry SONGS, For Sport and Pastime for the most ingenious Lovers of Wit and Mirth. To the Tune of State and Ambition, published 1675-1696, and A NEW Merry Medley. Containing a Fit of Innocent Mirth in Melancholy Times, together with a Health to the Man in the Moon. Tune of, Fond Boy, 1672–1696, were set to the same tune throughout, so had to be metrically consistent, like the aforementioned An excellent Medley, 1623–1674, and A new Medley, OR, A Messe of All-together, 1601–40, both set to Tarletons Medley.
Conversely, some broadsides such as A NEW and OLD MEDLEY, c. 1750, are in the same form as Moros’ medley in Wager’s play, consisting of various song extracts each with their own tune. Two broadsides further developed the idea of lyric extracts with their melodies. The Noble Prodigal, OR, The young Heir newly come to his Estate … A new Medly of six Ayres (publication date unknown) is six newly written verses set to five existing tunes with their own scansions, all named in the text (the title states six Ayres, but one was used twice). Bacchus Festival, OR, A NEW MEDLEY BEING A Musical Representation at the Entertainment of his EXCELLENCY THE Lord General Monck, 1660, gives no indication of tunes, but it is clearly a newly written song with several different scansions and therefore different melodies to represent the five characters Bacchus, French-man, Spaniard, German, and Greek.
In some cases, medley developed a quite different meaning, simply a ballad with a medley of different characters, including The New Compos’d Medly; OR, The true Vertue of the Hop-Sack … To the Tune of, With a Hop-Sack, 1685-1688; and JOAN’s Ale is New; OR: A new merry Medly, a song licensed in 1594, popular on broadsides and in other print publications for 130 years, beloved by singers of traditional song to this day, and collected in the oral tradition until the middle of the 20th century.
Having established the variety of forms within the medley genre, and in particular its 16th century association with theatrical fools, there is a solid circumstantial basis for supposing that Tarletons Medley was a piece of music used by Richard in his stage act, though corroborating evidence is lacking.
No music bearing the name Tarletons Medley has survived, but we can be almost certain of its identity. As stated above, a tune could be used for several broadsides, and take on the title of the second song when used again a third time, meaning the same tune went by several names. For example, the melody of Fortune my foe was reused for the song, Aim not too high, so when that music was used again for the ballad, A discourse of Mans life, it was called Aim not too high rather than Fortune my foe. For this reason, the tune was also called Doctor Faustus, The Letter for a Christian Family and The Godly Mans Instruction.
The stanza pattern in the broadsides which name Tarletons Medley as the tune is so unusual and distinctive that any melody which fits the rhythm is almost certain to be correct. In c. 1620 An excellent new Medley. To the tune of the Spanish Pavin was published, and it has the same scansion as the ballads using Tarletons Medley. It is almost beyond doubt, then, that Tarletons Medley was a new name given the popular Elizabeth tune, The Spanish Pavan. The obvious explanation is that Tarleton had composed a medley, “as fooles were wont” (as William Wager put it), and used The Spanish Pavan as the melody, thereafter known as Tarletons Medley when used for this purpose.
Played by Tarleton on pipe and tabor and pitched for a D tabor pipe, The Spanish Pavan might have sounded like this (followed second time through on the soundfile with my “piperly Extemporizing” divisions).
Having trawled the available historical material, we must restate that there is clear evidence for Richard Tarleton as a writer of published broadside verses and no evidence that he did so as a song writer or broadside balladeer. The association of his name with a broadside tune in the medley form, strongly associated in his lifetime with theatrical fools, raises three possibilities. In order of probability, the most likely first, they are:
(i) Tarleton used the popular Spanish Pavan melody to create a medley or medleys for performance in the jig, the tune thereby referred to as Tarletons Medley as an alternative title when used on broadsides for medleys. There is circumstantial data leading to this conclusion, but no material evidence.
(ii) Tarletons Medley was a published broadside, now lost, written in his persona. There is precedent for this with, for example, the well-established genre of writing execution ballads as if from the mouth of the condemned, and many other ballads were written from the viewpoint of a fictional or real character. This is theoretically possible, but fantasy: there is no record of such a ballad in the Stationers’ Register nor any indication of it from another source.
(iii) Tarletons Medley was the published or colloquial name of a broadside, now lost, written by Richard Tarleton himself. This makes sense of the title but is without corroboration in the Stationers’ Register or any other source, and the idea has the fundamental flaw that there is no evidence of a single broadside ballad written by Richard Tarleton.
We see, then, that while all three proposals make theoretical sense, only the first can be substantiated, and that only circumstantially.
Summary
Richard Tarleton’s role in The Queen’s Players was to act the fool’s part in the play and then perform the jig, the after-play light entertainment of comedic stories, dances and songs. The title of the tune, Tarletons jigg, indicates that it was a melody associated with Tarleton’s jig performance, played by him on pipe and tabor. He added “piperly Extemporizing” or divisions to the music, as was the norm for Elizabethan musicians. Tarleton’s style of stage presentation was full of “Timpanye” or bombast, offensive to Gabriel Harvey but loved by the audience, who shouted out themes upon which Tarleton created instant songs, possibly sung a cappella, maybe self-accompanied on pipe and tabor. He performed at least one satirical song about current or recent affairs, the originator of the song we now know as The Grand Old Duke of York, originally about the King of France: this may have been an established part of a play, or a jig, or it may have been a memorable example of him extemporising from audience-given themes. There is no evidence that Tarleton was a broadside ballad writer, that his published verses on the topic of divine judgement were meant to be sung. The name of the tune, Tarletons Medley, almost certainly an alternative title for The Spanish Pavan, is a circumstantial indication that Tarleton used the medley song form, a comedic genre associated with theatrical fools, created from unrelated portions of other songs. I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts. You are my sunshine. Together we are beautiful.
In the fourth and final article about Richard Tarleton, we survey the broadside ballads, books and plays which praised him and used his persona after his premature death. In particular, a versified version of his life, A pretie new ballad, intituled willie and peggie, has its words and music reunited after 400 years of separation in a featured video performance.
© Ian Pittaway. Not to be reproduced in any form without permission. All rights reserved.
Bibliography
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Long, John H. (1970) The Ballad Medley and the Fool. Studies in Philology, Vol. 67. Available online by clicking here. (Though this essay includes valuable information about the medley form, some of John H. Long’s claims should be approached with caution. For example, he states that “Apparently, Tarleton used the ballad medley extensively” and “we find the medley an almost inseparable companion of the stage fool Tarleton”, without providing any substantiating evidence.)
MacGregor, Neil (2014) Shakespeare’s Restless World. London: Penguin.
Marprelate, Martin [pseudeonym] (1589) Hay Any Work For Cooper. Or a brief pistle directed by way of an hublication to the reverend bishops, counselling them if they will needs be barrelled up for fear of smelling in the nostrils of her Majesty and the state, that they would use the advice of reverend Martin for the providing of their cooper. Because the reverend T. C. (by which mystical letters is understood either the bouncing parson of East Meon, or Tom Cook’s chaplain) hath showed himself in his late Admonition To The People Of England to be an unskilful and beceitful tub-trimmer. Wherein worthy Martin quits himself like a man, I warrant you, in the modest defence of his self and his learned pistles, and makes the Cooper’s hoops to fly off and the bishops’ tubs to leak out of all cry. Penned and compiled by Martin the metropolitan. Available online by clicking here.
McAbee, Kris & Murphy, Jessica C. (2007) Ballad Creation and Circulation: Congers and Mongers. Available online by clicking here.
McIlvenna, Una (2012) A Woeful Sinner’s Fall: ballads of execution. Broadcast on Into The Music, ABC Radio National, on 15th December 2012. Available online by clicking here.
McInnis, David (2012) Evidence of a Lost Tarlton Play, c. 1585, probably for the Queen’s Men. Notes and Queries. Vol. 59, No. 1 (March 27, 2012), pp. 43-45. Available online by clicking here.
Morris Ring (undated) Morris History – Before the Restoration. Morris Before The Restoration of Charles II in 1660. Available online by clicking here.
Nash(e), Thomas (1592) Pierce Penilesse His Supplication to the Devil. Describing the overspreading of vice, and suppression of virtue. Pleasantly interlaced with variable delights, and pathetically intermixed with conceited reproofs. Available online by clicking here.
Nashe, Thomas (1592) Strange Newes, Of the intercepting certaine Letters, and a Conuoy of Verses, as they were going Priuilie to victuall the Low Countries. Available online by clicking here. Modern spelling version available by clicking here.
Nebeker, Eric (2007) Ballad Sheet Sizes. Available online by clicking here.
Peacham, Henry (1634, 1638, 1642; this anthology 1962) The complete gentleman, The truth of our times and The art of Living in London. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press for the Folger Shakespeare Library. Available online by clicking here.
Percy, William (1601, this edition 1824) The cuck-queanes and cuckolds errants, or, The bearing down the inne. A comaedye. Available online by clicking here.
Poulton, Diana (1982) John Dowland. Second edition. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Preiss, Richard (2014) Clowning and Authorship in Early Modern Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rankins, William (1587) A mirrour of monsters wherein is plainely described the manifold vices, &c spotted enormities, that are caused by the infectious sight of playes, with the description of the subtile slights of Sathan, making them his instruments. Available online by clicking here.
Rasmussen, Eric, & DeJong, Ian (2016) Shakespeare’s London. Available online by clicking here.
Rastell, John (1510–20, this facsimile edition 1908) A new interlude and a mery of the nature of the .iiii. elements. London: Issued for subscribers by T. C. & E. C. Jack. Available online by clicking here or here.
Robinson, John (2018) Music Supplement to Lute News 127 (October 2018). Guildford: The Lute Society.
Rollins, Hyder E. (1967) An analytical index to the ballad-entries (1557-1709) in the registers of the Company of Stationers of London. Hatboro, Pennsylvania: Tradition Press.
Saunders, Anthony (2014 ) Italian Rapier Play c. 1570–1620. Available online by clicking here.
Scottowe, John (after 1588) Alphabet book, British Library Harley 3885. Available online by clicking here.
Sharp, Cecil J. & MacIlwaine, Herbert C. (1907) The Morris Book. A history of morris dancing with a description of eleven dances as performed by the morris-men of England in two parts. Part I. London: Novello and Company. Available online by clicking here.
Simpson, Claude M. (1966) The British Broadside Ballad and Its Music. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Smith, Douglas Alton (2002) A History of the Lute from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Massachusetts: Lute Society of America.
Southworth, John (1998) Fools and Jesters at the English Court. Stroud: Sutton Publishing.
Spring, Matthew (2001) The Lute in Britain. A history of the instrument and its music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stradling, John (1607) Epigrammatum Libri Quatuor. Available online by clicking here.
Tarleton, Richard (c. 1585) MSS 19 – The ‘Platt’ (or Plot) of The Second Part of the Seven Deadly Sins 1612-1626. Available at The Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project by clicking here.
Thorpe, Vanessa (2015) Actor who plays Archers villain in shock at social media onslaught. Available online by clicking here.
Wager, William (c. 1568, this facsimile edition 1910) The longer thou liuest the more fool thou art. Issued for subscribers by the editor of the Tudor facsimile texts. Available online by clicking here or here.
Welsford, Enid (1935) The Fool: His Social and Literary History. New York: Faber & Faber.
Williams, Sir Roger (1590) A Briefe discourse of Warre. Written by Sir Roger Williams Knight; With his opinion concerning some parts of the Martiall Discipline. Available online by clicking here.
Wilson, Robert (1590) The pleasant and stately morall, of the three lordes and three ladies of London With the great ioy and pompe, solempnized at their mariages: commically interlaced with much honest mirth, for pleasure and recreation, among many morall obseruations and and other important matters of due regard. by R.W. Available online by clicking here and in facsimile here.
Winchcombe, Alys (2015) Henry VIII and the harp. Available online by clicking here.