Page:An Elizabethan garland; being a descriptive catalogue of seventy black-letter ballads, printed between the years 1559 and 1597.djvu/19



The "metre-ballad-monger" warns Elizabeth against the "forked cap" (the Pope); bringing before her the example of her "Proginitours." The burden of the song is very ancient, viz., "Lady, Lady, moste dere Lady."

(A copy of this "newe ballade," is preserved among the broadsides in the library of the Society of Antiquaries. Query— Was "R. M." Richard Mulcaster?)

Alluding to the death of Edward VI.; the accession of Mary to the throne; the restoration of the Roman Catholic religion in England; and its fall, on the accession of Queen Elizabeth.

(One of the numerous productions, in "ballad lore." of the rhyming printer John Awdeley.)