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.

Kirkpatrick, John   National Library Of Scotland  

Showing 1 to 14 of 14

3 The Catholick Ballad:/ OR AN/ INVITATION/ TO/ POPERY [Euing 24]
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]
11 THE/ Rare Vertue of an Orange;/ Or, Popery purged and expelled out of the Nation [Pepys 2.259]
35 The Judgement of God shewed upon one John Faustus/ Doctor in Divinity [Euing 145]
36 A Courtly new ballad of the Princely wooing of the/ fair Maid of London by King Edward [Euing 51]
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]
48 A pretty Ballad of the Lord of Lorn, and the false Steward [Pepys 1.494-95]
52 England New Bell-man:/ Ringing into all peoples ears Gods dreadful/ Judgements against this Land and Kingdom [Bodleian Wood 401 (159v-160r)]
64 A PATTERN of true LOVE to you I will recite,/ Between a Beautiful Lady and a Courtious Knight [Roxburghe 2.579]
97 A Turn-Coat of the Times [Pepys 2.210]
111 The Famous Fight at Malago,/ Or, The Englishmen's Victory over the Spaniards [Pepys 4.204]
117 The Protestant Court of England:/ OR, THE/ Joyful Coronation of K. William III. and Q. Mary II [Pepys 2.275]
118 BELGICK-BOAR [Crawford 429]

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