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.

Morality - Romantic/sexual   Religion - Prayer  

Showing 1 to 20 of 35

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]
9 A Lamentable Ballad of the Ladies Fall [Roxburghe 3.148-49]
14 A Godly Warning for all Maidens, by the exam/ple of Gods Judgement shewed on one Jermans Wife of Clifton [Pepys 1.504-05]
16 The Lamenting Ladies last farewel to the/ WORLD [Euing 183]
17 The Merchants Daughter of Bristow [Euing 210]
22 The Spanish Ladies Love [Euing 340]
24 An Excellent Ballad, intituled, The Constancy of/ Susanna [Bodleian Douce 1 (30a)]
34 The Brides Buriall [Roxburghe 1.59]
36 A Courtly new ballad of the Princely wooing of the/ fair Maid of London by King Edward [Euing 51]
37 The lamentable Ditty of Little Mousgrove,/ and the Lady Barnet [Pepys 1.364-65]
39 An Hundred Godly Lessons,/ That a Mother on her Death-Bed gave to her Children [Pepys 2.16-17]
41 The Woful Lamentation of Mistris Jane Shore, a Goldsmiths Wife/ in London, sometime King Edward the Fourth's Concubine [Euing 394]
42 An Excellent Ballad of Patient Grissel [Euing 85]
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]
46 A lamentable Ballad of a Combat lately performed neere London,/ betwixt Sir James Steward, and Sir George Wharton  [Euing 195]
51 The Loyal English Man's WISH/ For the Preservation of/ The King and Queen [Pepys 5.63]
52 England New Bell-man:/ Ringing into all peoples ears Gods dreadful/ Judgements against this Land and Kingdom [Bodleian Wood 401 (159v-160r)]
54 An Excellent Ballad of George Barnwel an Apprentice in Lon-/don, who was undone by a Strumpet [Pepys 2.158-59]
58 An excellent Ballad, Intituled, the unfortunate love of a Lancashire Gentleman,/ and the hard fortune of a fair young Bride [Euing 80]

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