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.

Family - Children/parents   Death - Execution  

Showing 1 to 20 of 51

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]
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]
13 The rarest Ballad that ever was seen,/ Of the Blind beggers daughter of Bednall-green [Euing 293]
15 The Lamentable and Tragicall History of Titus An-/dronicus [Folger L252a]
16 The Lamenting Ladies last farewel to the/ WORLD [Euing 183]
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]
24 An Excellent Ballad, intituled, The Constancy of/ Susanna [Bodleian Douce 1 (30a)]
25 A most notable example of an ungracious Son, who/ in the pride of his heart denyed his own Father [Roxburghe 1.226-27]
26 The Whig Rampant:/OR, EXALTATION [Euing 389]
29 A Lamentable ballad of the tragical end of a Gallant Lord,/ and a Vertuous Lady [Euing 197]
31 The SUCCESS of/ Two English Travellers;/ Newly Arrived in London [Pepys 2.232]
33 The most Rare and Excellent History,/ Of the Dutchess of Suffolks Callamity [Euing 228]
36 A Courtly new ballad of the Princely wooing of the/ fair Maid of London by King Edward [Euing 51]
38 A worthy example of a vertuous wife, who fed her father with her own milk [Roxburghe 3.48-49]
39 An Hundred Godly Lessons,/ That a Mother on her Death-Bed gave to her Children [Pepys 2.16-17]

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