Top pop from seventeenth-century England. Broadside ballads were single-sheet songs that sold for a penny a piece. This website concentrates on over 100 resoundingly successful examples that you can investigate through recordings, images and a wealth of other materials. Whether you are interested in music, art, love, gender, tragedy, politics, family life, crime, history, humour or death, you will find something to engage you here. See also User’s Guide.

Thackeray, William   National Library Of Scotland  

Showing 41 to 60 of 65

64 A PATTERN of true LOVE to you I will recite,/ Between a Beautiful Lady and a Courtious Knight [Roxburghe 2.579]
65 A pleasant new Ballad to sing both Even and Morne,/ Of the bloody murther of Sir John Barley-corne [Pepys 1.426-27]
68 Poor Robin's Dream, commonly call'd, Poor Charity [Euing 285]
70 The wofull complaint, and lamentable death of a forsaken Lover [Pepys 1.354-55]
74 Ann Askew, intituled, I am a Woman Poor and Blind [Pepys 2.24-25]
77 The wonderfull example of God shewed upon Jasper Coningham. a Gentleman borne in/ Scotland [Crawford 714]
78 John ARMSTRONG's Last Good-Night [Pepys 2.133]
81 Prides fall: Or, A warning for all English Women./ By the Example of a strange Monster born of late in Germany [Euing 269]
82 The two Constant Lovers. Or,/ A patterne of true Love exprest in this loving Dialogue betweene Samuell and Sara [Euing 360]
83 The dying tears of a true Lover forsaken,/ Made on his Death=bed [Euing 64]
84 A very godly Song, intituled, The earnest petition of a/ faithfull Christian, being Clarke of Bodnam, made upon his/ Death-bed [Pepys 1.48-49]
85 A new Ballad, intituled, The stout Cripple of Cornwal [Euing 242]
87 New Mad Tom of Bedlam / OR,/ The Man in the Moon drinks Clarret [Pepys 1.502-03]
90 Cupids Courtesie:/ OR,/ The young Gallant foild at his own Weapon [Euing 39]
92 An Excellent Ballad of the Mercers son of Midhurst, and/ the Clothiers daughter of Guilford [Euing 91 and 12]
97 A Turn-Coat of the Times [Pepys 2.210]
100 Luke Huttons Lamentation: which he wrote the day before his death, being/ condemned to be hanged at Yorke for his robberies and trespasses committed/ there-about [Euing 189]
101 Saint Bernards Vision./ OR,/ A briefe Discourse (Dialogue-wise) betweene the Soule and the Body of a dam/ned man newly deceased [Roxburghe 1.376-77]
104 The Careless Gallant: Or, A farewel to Sorrow [Pepys 4.241]
105 The New Courtier [Bodleian Wood E25 (89)]

Top Fives

Click any item to filter the ballad list.
Use the search function to find additional material.

Authors

Publishers

Topics

Instruments

Performers

Tunes

Woodcuts

Holding Libraries