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.

Houghton Library, Harvard University   William Andrews Clark Memorial Library  

Showing 1 to 20 of 53

3 The Catholick Ballad:/ OR AN/ INVITATION/ TO/ POPERY [Euing 24]
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]
5 The Ballad of the CLOAK:/ Or, The Cloaks Knavery [Pepys 2.218]
6 A most sweet Song of an English Merchant,/ borne at Chichester [Roxburghe 1.104-05]
7 THE/ Sale of Esau's Birth-right;/ OR,/ The New Buckingham Ballad [Crawford 3537]
8 A NEW SONG [Pepys 4.312]
9 A Lamentable Ballad of the Ladies Fall [Roxburghe 3.148-49]
11 THE/ Rare Vertue of an Orange;/ Or, Popery purged and expelled out of the Nation [Pepys 2.259]
16 The Lamenting Ladies last farewel to the/ WORLD [Euing 183]
23 The Countrey FARMER:/ OR, THE/ Buxome VIRGIN [Roxburghe 2.77]
26 The Whig Rampant:/OR, EXALTATION [Euing 389]
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]
33 The most Rare and Excellent History,/ Of the Dutchess of Suffolks Callamity [Euing 228]
35 The Judgement of God shewed upon one John Faustus/ Doctor in Divinity [Euing 145]
44 The Lamentation of Master Pages wife of Plimmouth, who being enforced by her Parents to wed him against/ her will, did most wickedly consent to his murther [Pepys 1.126-27]
45 A pleasant new Ballad of the Miller of Mansfield, in Sherwood and of King Henry the second [Roxburghe 1.228-29]
46 A lamentable Ballad of a Combat lately performed neere London,/ betwixt Sir James Steward, and Sir George Wharton  [Euing 195]
47 THE/ Lord RUSSELS/ Last Farewel to the World [Huntington HEH 18016]
49 A constant Wife, a kinde Wife,/ A loving Wife, and a fine Wife [Pepys 1.390-91]

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