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.

Politics - War  

Showing 1 to 7 of 7

5 The Ballad of the CLOAK:/ Or, The Cloaks Knavery [Pepys 2.218]
51 The Loyal English Man's WISH/ For the Preservation of/ The King and Queen [Pepys 5.63]
72 A Lamentable Ballad of Fair Rosamond, King Henry the Second’s Concubine,/ Who was put to death by Queen Elinor, in Woodstock Bower near Oxford [Pepys 1.498-99]
111 The Famous Fight at Malago,/ Or, The Englishmen's Victory over the Spaniards [Pepys 4.204]
116 Love and Honour: Or,/ The Lovers Farewel to Calista [Roxburghe 2.306]
118 BELGICK-BOAR [Crawford 429]
119 A Voyage to Virginia;/ OR,/ The Valiant Soldiers Fare-well to his Love [Bodleian Douce 2 (236b)]