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.

Emotions - Love   Emotions - Joy   National Library Of Scotland  

Showing 1 to 20 of 38

1 A proper new Ballad, intituled, The wandring Prince of Troy [Pepys 1.84-85]
4 A lamentable Dittie composed upon the death of/ Robert Lord Devereux late Earle of Essex, who was beheaded in the/ Tower of London, upon Ashwednesday in the morning [Huntington Britwell 18290]
6 A most sweet Song of an English Merchant,/ borne at Chichester [Roxburghe 1.104-05]
9 A Lamentable Ballad of the Ladies Fall [Roxburghe 3.148-49]
10 The Norfolke Gentleman his last Will and Testament [Roxburghe 1.284-85]
11 THE/ Rare Vertue of an Orange;/ Or, Popery purged and expelled out of the Nation [Pepys 2.259]
17 The Merchants Daughter of Bristow [Euing 210]
18 An excellent Ballad of a Prince of England's Courtship to the/ King of France’s Daughter, and how the Prince was disasterously slain [Roxburghe 1.102-03]
19 A Pleasant Ballad of Tobias, wherein is shewed/ what wonderful things chanced to him in his Youth [Euing 270]
20 A sweet Sonnet, wherein the Lover exclaimeth against/ Fortune for the loss of his Ladies favour [Pepys 1.512-13]
23 The Countrey FARMER:/ OR, THE/ Buxome VIRGIN [Roxburghe 2.77]
26 The Whig Rampant:/OR, EXALTATION [Euing 389]
27 A Pleasant Song of the Valiant Deeds of Chivalry,/ Atchieved by that Noble Knight Sir Guy of Warwick [Roxburghe 3.50-1]
28 A most excellent Song of the love of young Palmus, and faire Sheldra, with their unfortunate love [Pepys 1.350-51]
30 The Delights of the Bottle;/ OR,/ The Town-Gallants Declaration for Women and Wine [Euing 71]
34 The Brides Buriall [Roxburghe 1.59]
38 A worthy example of a vertuous wife, who fed her father with her own milk [Roxburghe 3.48-49]
42 An Excellent Ballad of Patient Grissel [Euing 85]
48 A pretty Ballad of the Lord of Lorn, and the false Steward [Pepys 1.494-95]
49 A constant Wife, a kinde Wife,/ A loving Wife, and a fine Wife [Pepys 1.390-91]

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