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.

Society - Rich/poor  

Showing 1 to 15 of 15

13 The rarest Ballad that ever was seen,/ Of the Blind beggers daughter of Bednall-green [Euing 293]
33 The most Rare and Excellent History,/ Of the Dutchess of Suffolks Callamity [Euing 228]
42 An Excellent Ballad of Patient Grissel [Euing 85]
45 A pleasant new Ballad of the Miller of Mansfield, in Sherwood and of King Henry the second [Roxburghe 1.228-29]
49 A constant Wife, a kinde Wife,/ A loving Wife, and a fine Wife [Pepys 1.390-91]
57 The Shepherd and the King, and of Gillian the Shepherds Wife, with her churlish Answer [Euing 332]
58 An excellent Ballad, Intituled, the unfortunate love of a Lancashire Gentleman,/ and the hard fortune of a fair young Bride [Euing 80]
64 A PATTERN of true LOVE to you I will recite,/ Between a Beautiful Lady and a Courtious Knight [Roxburghe 2.579]
68 Poor Robin's Dream, commonly call'd, Poor Charity [Euing 285]
85 A new Ballad, intituled, The stout Cripple of Cornwal [Euing 242]
86 A most excellent Ballad, of an old man and his wife, who in great want and misery sought to/ Children for succour, by whom they were disdained [Pepys 1.43]
88 An excellent song, wherein you shall find,/ Great consolation for a troubled mind [Pepys 2.63]
93 Ragged, and Torne, and True./ Or, the poore mans Resoltion [Roxburghe 1.352-53]
103 A Friends advice:/ In an excellent Ditty, concerning the variable Changes in this World [Roxburghe 1.116-17]
110 The doleful Dance, and Song of Death; Intituled, Dance after my Pipe [Pepys 2.62]

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