|
|
|
|
The Mowbray lion in a stained glass window.
Photograph ©Gordon Plumb.
A
SONG WRITTEN BY THE EARL OF SURREY.
OF A LADY THAT
REFUSED TO DANCE WITH HIM.1
EACH beast can choose his fere according to his mind,
And eke can show a friendly chere, like to their beastly kind.
A lion saw I late, as white as any snow,
Which seemed well to lead the race, his port the same did show.
Upon the gentle beast to gaze it pleased me,
For still methought he seemed well of noble blood to be.
And as he pranced before, still seeking for a make,
As who would say, 'There is none here, I trow, will me forsake',
I might perceive a Wolf as white as whalèsbone,
A fairer beast of fresher hue, beheld I never none ;
Save that her looks were coy, and froward eke her grace :
Unto the which this gentle beast gan him advance apace,
And with a beck full low he bowed at her feet,
In humble wise, as who would say, 'I am too far unmeet.'
But such a scornful chere, wherewith she him rewarded !
Was never seen, I trow, the like, to such as well deserved.
With that she start aside well near a foot or twain,
And unto him thus gan she say, with spite and great disdain :
'Lion,' she said, 'if thou hadst known my mind before,
Thou hadst not spent thy travail thus, nor all thy pain for-lore.
Do way ! I let thee weet, thou shalt not play with me :
Go range about, where thou mayst find some meeter fere for thee.'
With that he beat his tail, his eyes began to flame ;
I might perceive his noble heart much moved by the same.
Yet saw I him refrain, and eke his wrath assuage,
And unto her thus gan he say, when he was past his rage :
' Cruel ! you do me wrong, to set me thus so light ;
Without desert for my good will to shew me such despite.
How can ye thus intreat a Lion of the race,
That with his paws a crowned king devoured in the place.2
Whose nature is to prey upon no simple food,
As long as he may suck the flesh, and drink of noble blood.
If you be fair and fresh, am I not of your hue ?3
And
for my vaunt I dare well say, my blood is not untrue.
For you yourself have heard, it is not long ago,
Sith that for love one of the race did end his life in woe,
In tower both strong and high, for his assured truth,
Whereas in tears he spent his breath, alas ! the more the ruth.
This gentle beast so died, whom nothing could remove,
But willingly to lese his life for loss of his true love.4
Other
there be whose lives do linger still in pain,
Against their will preserved are, that would have died fain.
But now I do perceive that nought it moveth you,
My good intent, my gentle heart, nor yet my kind so true.
But that your will is such to lure me to the trade,
As other some full many years trace by the craft ye made.
And thus behold my kinds, how that we differ far ;
I seek my foes ; and you your friends do threaten still with war.
I fawn where I am fled ; you slay, that seeks to you ;
I can devour no yielding prey ; you kill where you subdue.
My kind is to desire the honour of the field ;
And you with blood to slake your thirst on such as to you yield.
Wherefore I would you wist, that for your coyed looks,
I am no man that will be trapp'd, nor tangled with such hooks.
And though some lust to love, where blame full well they might ;
And to such beasts of current sought, that should have travail bright ;
I will observe the law that Nature gave to me,
To conquer such as will resist, and let the rest go free.
And as a falcon free, that soareth in the air,
Which never fed on hand nor lure ; nor for no stale
5 doth care ;
While that I live and breathe, such shall my custom be
In wildness of the woods to seek my prey, where pleaseth me ;
Where many one shall rue, that never made offence :
Thus your refuse against my power shall boot them no defence.
And for revenge thereof I vow and swear thereto,
A thousand spoils I shall commit I never thought to do.
And if to light on you my luck so good shall be,
I shall be glad to feed on that, that would have fed on me.
And thus farewell, Unkind, to whom I bent and bow ;
I would you wist, the ship is safe that bare his sails so low.
Sith that a Lion's heart is for a Wolf no prey,
With bloody mouth go slake your thirst on simple sheep, I say,
With more despite and ire than I can now express ;
Which to my pain, though I refrain, the cause you may well guess.
As for because myself was author of the game,
It boots me not that for my wrath I should disturb the same.'
|
1 Dr. Nott's remark on
this piece, "That it is valuable
from
the circumstance of its preserving an
account of a
quarrel be-
tween Surrey and the fair Geraldine, which, as we
hear nothing
of any reconciliation afterwards, was
the
occasion probably
of his renouncing his ill fated passion," is an
amusing instance
of first imagining a fact, and then
making
every circumstance
support it. The learned
editor, as in most other
instances,
assumes that Geraldine was the subject
of the
poem, without
a shadow of evidence ; and
gratuitously gives it this title —
" Surrey renounces all affection for the fair Geraldine,"
whereas,
in all the printed editions, it
bears the title assigned to it in
the text. There is no doubt
that Surrey personated himself
by the " White Lion," which was one of
the badges (and not
the arms, as Dr. Nott asserts) of the house of
Howard, derived
from their descent from the Mowbrays, Dukes of
Norfolk. The
word "pranceth" in line 7, alluded
to the position "rampant"
of the animal, and perhaps a playful reference
was intended to
Surrey's invitation to the lady to dance. But there is not
any
reason to presume by the Wolf
the fair Geraldine was intended,
though it is almost certain that the family of the lady adverted to
bore that animal on their standards, or in their arms. Dr. Nott has
cited a MS. in the Museum to prove that the
Fitzgeralds, Earls
of Kildare, used a Wolf as their crest,
but this is unsupported
by any other authority, and
Drayton, with more probability,
says, that the lady meant by the "Wolf," was Ann, the daughter
of Sir Edward Stanhope, who became the wife of
the Protector
Somerset. The Stanhope family
once used a Wolf as their
crest, in consequence of their descent
from Maulovel, and a
Wolf is still one of the supporters of the
Earls of Chesterfield,
Stanhope, and Harrington. See
Collins' Peerage, Ed. 1779, iii.
301, 302. It is proper to add, that the family of Arundell
of Lan-
hearne, in Cornwall, bore a white wolf as a badge.
2
Apparently an allusion to the defeat and death of James the
Fourth at Flodden Field,
by Thomas, then Earl of Surrey, the
Poet's grandfather.
3
Query, is it to be understood by this
line that Surrey was
related to the lady, or did he only mean that his lion was
of the
same hue as her wolf?
4
Dr. Nott observes: "This means
Thomas Howard, second
son of Thomas second Duke of Norfolk, by Agnes
his second
wife, and consequently half uncle to
Surrey. He was attainted
of high treason, and committed to the Tower, in June,
1536, for
having, without the knowledge or approbation
of King Henry
VIII., affianced himself to the Lady Margaret Douglas,
daughter
of Margaret Queen of Scotland, the King's sister.
Lord Thomas
Howard remained in confinement till his decease on
Allhallows
Eve, 1538. Upon his death the Lady
Margaret, who had been
confined likewise, was set at
liberty. It is probable that this
unfortunate affiance was the effect on the part of Lord
Thomas
Howard, as well as on the
part of Lady Margaret,
of real
attachment, and not of ambition. Had he
relinquished all claim
to her hand, he probably would have been released from his con-
finement. It is likely
therefore that his love, as Surrey
inti-
mates, really cost him his life."
5
A piece of meat used to allure falcons back to
their master.
Source:
Surrey, Henry Howard, Earl of.
The Poetical Works of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey.
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1854. 47-52.
 |
to Works of Henry Howard |
Site copyright ©1996-2019 Anniina
Jokinen. All Rights Reserved.
Created by Anniina Jokinen
on September 26, 2003. Last updated on January 2, 2019.
|
|
The Tudors
King Henry VII
Elizabeth of York
King Henry VIII
Queen Catherine of Aragon
Queen Anne Boleyn
Queen Jane Seymour
Queen Anne of Cleves
Queen Catherine Howard
Queen Katherine Parr
King Edward VI
Lady Jane Grey
Queen Mary I
Queen Elizabeth I
Renaissance English Writers
Bishop John Fisher
William Tyndale
Sir Thomas More
John Heywood
Thomas Sackville
John Bale
Nicholas Udall
John Skelton
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Henry Howard
Hugh Latimer
Thomas Cranmer
Roger Ascham
Sir Thomas Hoby
John Foxe
George Gascoigne
John Lyly
Thomas Nashe
Sir Philip Sidney
Edmund Spenser
Richard Hooker
Robert Southwell
Robert Greene
George Peele
Thomas Kyd
Edward de Vere
Christopher Marlowe
Anthony Munday
Sir Walter Ralegh
Thomas Hariot
Thomas Campion
Mary Sidney Herbert
Sir John Davies
Samuel Daniel
Michael Drayton
Fulke Greville
Emilia Lanyer
William Shakespeare
Persons of Interest
Visit Encyclopedia
Historical Events
Field of the Cloth of Gold, 1520
Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536
The Babington Plot, 1586
The Spanish Armada, 1588
Elizabethan Theatre
See section
English Renaissance Drama
Images of London:
London in the time of Henry VII. MS. Roy. 16 F. ii.
London, 1510, the earliest view in print
Map of England from Saxton's Descriptio Angliae, 1579
Location Map of Elizabethan London
Plan of the Bankside, Southwark, in Shakespeare's time
Detail of Norden's Map of the Bankside, 1593
Bull and Bear Baiting Rings from the Agas Map (1569-1590, pub. 1631)
Sketch of the Swan Theatre, c. 1596
Westminster in the Seventeenth Century, by Hollar
Visscher's Panoramic View of London, 1616. COLOR
|
|
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
