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.

Anonymous   Cittern   Central Library, Manchester  

Showing 1 to 12 of 12

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]
10 The Norfolke Gentleman his last Will and Testament [Roxburghe 1.284-85]
16 The Lamenting Ladies last farewel to the/ WORLD [Euing 183]
24 An Excellent Ballad, intituled, The Constancy of/ Susanna [Bodleian Douce 1 (30a)]
41 The Woful Lamentation of Mistris Jane Shore, a Goldsmiths Wife/ in London, sometime King Edward the Fourth's Concubine [Euing 394]
49 A constant Wife, a kinde Wife,/ A loving Wife, and a fine Wife [Pepys 1.390-91]
60 A new Sonnet, shewing how the Goddesse Diana transformed Acteon into the/ shape of an Hart [Manchester Central Library Blackletter Ballads 1.29]
61 The Wandring Jew,/ OR, The Shoo-maker of Jerusalem [Pepys 1.524-25]
77 The wonderfull example of God shewed upon Jasper Coningham. a Gentleman borne in/ Scotland [Crawford 714]
83 The dying tears of a true Lover forsaken,/ Made on his Death=bed [Euing 64]
88 An excellent song, wherein you shall find,/ Great consolation for a troubled mind [Pepys 2.63]
94 An Excellent Ditty, called the Shepherds wooing Dulcina [Roxburghe 2.402-03]

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