Walsham, Alexandra. “’The Fatall Vesper’: Providentialism and Anti-Popery in Late Jacobean London.” Past and Present 144 (August 1994) 36-87.
[1] The characters “n” and “i” probably were omitted when setting “Admonition.” There is no doubt that they are missing, but “admotion,” though the O.E.D. records it in Adam Harsnet’s God’s summons unto general repentance (1639/1640) as “A bringing into contact,” makes less sense than “Admonition” in this context.
[2] The verse quoted is Psalm 124, Verse 8. This appears to be a combination of bad printing on rough paper that caused the “4” not to register completely, and a simple typesetting error of “3” for “8.” Close examination of the Goucher-Bright copy reveals the foot of the numeral “4” appearing at the bottom of the otherwise empty space following the “12.” The King James text of Psalm 124, Verse 3, reads “Then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us,” referring to the Lord’s aid “when men rose up against us.” Though this text is not entirely inappropriate to the poem’s agenda, it is not the text from verse 8 which follows.
[3] The following stanza appears to associate the policies promulgated in the previous century by the Council of Trent (1545-1563) with Philip II’s contemporary attempts to advance the interests of the Counter-Reformation and the Spanish Empire, including the rebuilding of Spain’s Armada del Mar Oceano, begun as early as 1617, to reverse Protestant gains in England, Scotland, and the Low Countries (Stradling 69-70).
[4] Unlike Buchan’s transcription, which may have attempted to regularize punctuation, but as in the NLS fragment transcribed by Bawcutt, there is no punctuation following “parte,” in a change from previous stanzas’ routine end-stopped punctuation (Bawcutt 8). The same is true of the eighth line of this stanza which does not follow “hearte” with a period. This stanza begins the poem’s theme of providential intervention by God on behalf of English Protestantism against the forces of European Catholicism, a common topic in controversial pamphlets and broadsides since Elizabeth’s time (Walsham 39).
[5] “Wave,” a Middle English usage which remained more common in Northern dialects.
[6] A rectangular piece of the outer margin of leaf one is missing from the Goucher/Bright copy. Missing characters are reconstructed from Bawcutt and Peter Buchan’s transcription
[7] Bawcutt points out that the first two of these names correspond reasonably well with Spanish warriors in charge of the fleet (20). The commander of the Armada was the duke Medina Sidonia, and the commander of the great galleass, don Hugo de Moncalda, was killed at Calais on August 8 (n.s.), 1588, and his death was reported in print at London on August 10 in Deloney's second Armada poem, "A joyfull new ballad." The remaining five names are considerably distorted and may reveal effects of the oral transmission of a ballad which this poem draws upon.
[8] Because the foot of this leaf is trimmed, we do not know whether it contained the expected signature (“A3”). The following signature from leaf 3r (“A4”) shows beneath the cut on the digital image, but it should not be mistaken for a signing error.
[9] This heavily damaged leaf is partially reconstructed from Buchan’s transcription reproduced in Bawcutt.
[10] “Impyre” may be a nonce verb for “to set fire to.”
[11] “To recall to mind with remorse or regret” (O.E.D. “remord, v., 3).
[12] See Bawcutt on the commonplace reference to these mythic Spanish whips of wire (19-20).
[13] Significant damage to this leaf destroyed text that cannot be restored from Buchan because his copy was missing all four lines of this stanza. The stanza obviously attempts to add an element of sexual threat by alleging the Spanish designed special whips for women, alone.
[14] The O.E.D. offers no similar usages for “horse,” which here appears to suggest “vulnerable woman,” though sense 4. is the closest: “fig. Applied contemptuously or playfully to a man, with reference to various qualities of the quadruped.” The paired noun, “tyke,” in this context appears to mean “child” though O.E.D. sense 2. records the closest usage as “transf. Applied opprobriously to a man (rarely with similar force to a woman): A low-bred, lazy, mean, surly, or ill-mannered fellow; a boor. (Cf. DOG n.1 3a, HOUND n.1 4a.) Also said in playful reproof to a child; hence (unreprovingly), a child, esp. a small boy; occas., a young animal (U.S.).” The oldest usage as “child” dates to 1902. Nevertheless, the following stanza about a weapon destined for use on “Mens flesh” makes it unlikely the author meant anything else.
[15] “sore” in Scots dialect.
[16] “early” in Scots dialect.
[17] Without being struck?
[18] “A low, mean, or contemptible fellow; a rascal, rogue” (O.E.D.), though perhaps merely “fellow.”
[19] “braid, v.” in several senses suggests a sudden, jerky movement (O.E.D.). “braul, v.” in Barbour’s Bruce and the English Merlin, “to move to and fro, vibrate, waver, quiver” (O.E.D.).
[20] The stanza ends with no punctuation, unlike Buchan’s transcription, suggesting enjambment of the sense into the next stanza’s “For wate yee why.”
[21] Typesetting error or intentional metathesis for “folke”?
[22] By “thir two lands” (i.e., “their two lands”), the poet may mean Scotland and England as territories under a single threat, referred to in the previous stanza as a unified people by the “Yslands name” (i.e., “Britaine” in the poem’s third line).
[23] “hy,” O.E.D. “n. Haste, speed,” function shifted to a verb.
[24] Bawcut points out the common Protestant comparison of their cause with Israelites, both as the persecuted enemies of the “Pharaoh” (i.e., the Pope, and Catholicism in general) and as the object of God’s righteous chastisement when they failed to heed the balladeers’ prophecies (19-20).
[25] The Vulgate phrase, “viri famosi,” which describes the wicked men whose pride brought on the Flood (Genesis 6:4), can be translated “men of names,” though the King James Version calls them “men of renown."
[26] “Ednirocke” for “Edinrocke” (Edinburgh) may be another instance of typesetting error or intentional metathesis for “Eden Rock,” to associate Edinburgh as Scotland’s capital with Eden.
[27] Buchan’s “tawes” matches the a-rhyme and sense of the stanza, but the characters following “taw” appear, under magnification, to be “iu” rather than “es.” The following line also has a lapse in typesetting.
[28] Under magnification, the third character in the line’s last word is a “b” mis-set for a “u,” which would make sense and would rhyme with “pawes” (i.e., “laues”).
[29] “Hamelie” is a dialect spelling of “homely,” in the O.E.D.’s senses 1 and 2, “Kindly” or “Plainly,” but also possibly, as irony, “Rudely.”
[30] Probably “a way of going,” after O.E.D.’s first noun sense, “a. Manner of walking or stepping, bearing or carriage while moving, walk, step. Also fig., esp in phr. to go one's (own) gait, to go one's own way; to pursue one's own course.”
[31] The “black band” may refer specifically to members of the Jesuit order. Walsham’s study of English Protestant reaction to the 1623 collapse of a house where English Catholics were meeting reproduces a broadside engraving titled “A Plot Without Powder” which illustrates a group of black-robed Jesuits presumably plotting to overthrow public order, and identifies them as a “Black Breed” (68. 73).
[32] “To gain a reputation,” following the “men of name” usage above. The left portion of the leaf is damaged but readable.
[33] This stanza appears to refer to women who sheltered shipwrecked survivors of the Armada who were not taken prisoner and returned to Spain.
[34] “fyle” in the sense of “foul,” a Northern dialect usage, O.E.D., “1. trans. To render (materially) foul, filthy or dirty; to pollute, dirty; to destroy the cleanness or purity of; = DEFILE v.1 2. Obs. exc. dial.
[35] “Glengore,” from Old French “grand gorre” or “great syphilis” was a Fifteenth-Century term for syphilis. In 1497, legislation restricting the movement of “all light women” was passed to control its spread, and the Edinburgh Statute of James IV became known as the Glengore Act (Eder, Hekma, and Hall 59-60). Syphilis routinely was used symbolically by libel writers to attack those associated with foreign intrigues, especially the Spanish, and politicians like Sir Robert Cecil, Frances Howard, and the duke of Buckingham were alleged to have contracted it (Bellany, “Libellous” 295-6 and 301-2). This makes sense of “Pest” as the Plague. Also see O.E.D., “grandgore.”
[36] “lake,” with “shame,” may be an ironic usage form of the Northern dialect in O.E.D. 1. Play, sport, fun, glee. In pl. games, tricks, goings on,” with implications of 2., “A fight, contest” the men have lost in their shame for having aided the Spanish.
[37] The “yough” type (here “3” in “Span3ards”) occurs rarely in the document.
[38] “sease,” a spelling of “seize,” to put into feudal possession of.
[39] Domestic “faies” may refer to the loyal allegiances in those God might raise to dominion over the seas in place of faithless Scots who succumb to Spanish persuasion.
[40] “Agreed,” possible in a pun on “greed,” which they shared with the Spanish enemy.
[41] “To” may be mis-set type for “So sicke a seede.” This stanza, like the stanza at the bottom of leaf 4r, ends with a comma, which is either a typesetter’s error or enjambs its sense with the following stanza on leaf 6v, which begins “This to bee true.” In the latter case, the pronoun reference of “they” in the following stanza is somewhat more clearly “they of Spaine” in the previous stanza.
[42] “reards” is probably a compression of “rewards.”
[43] “Burriours” may be the plural of O.E.D. “burrio,” “A hangman, an executioner.” John Rowe’s History of the Kirk of Scotland is cited as a usage of “burrioes” in 1842, and usages of “burio” in Scots publications are cited in 1536 and 1567.
[44] Bawcutt called Buchan’s transcription of “Baires” into question, thinking it “must certainly be Bairds, ‘beards’” (21). Though the transcription is, indeed, accurate as “Baires,” it may be mis-set type for “Bairds,” as she suspected.
[45] Buchan accurately transcribed “meanespace,” which corresponds with a relatively rare “meanspace,” i.e., “meantime.
[46] “maling” is an alternate spelling of “malign” in the now obsolete sense of “To act wickedly or sinfully, to do wrong.”
[47] This identifies the “they” of the previous stanzas as Catholic sympathizers of the Spanish cause whose activities the poem associates with royal and clerical authority, perhaps to defuse popular discontent with Charles I’s to enhance the power and income of the bishops and Crown (Donaldson 302-308).
[48] Bawcutt perhaps understates the situation when she writes that “Guishan-jare” is “puzzling,” but it may be understood as a combination of “Guisian” (a follower of the duke of Guise, a papal sympathizer) and “jar,” or “discord,” as in “something which brings discord to those who favor Catholicism and the Spanish.” That is, the “Guisian-jar” addressed as “You” by the narrator (i.e., this poem, itself?) may make Catholic supporters too afraid to disrupt our plans (“To dip ou’r fare”).
[49] The partially obscured third word includes quite distinctly the only apostrophe in the pamphlet’s surviving leaves, which may contract “ou’r.”
[50] “dant” might be a dialect spelling of “daunt.”
[51] Though faint, the auxiliary verb “can” appears before “call” in this line.
[52] With the stanza’s previous lines, this obscure passage may mean “If no one can cause them to fall, pride exposes them by causing them to boast openly of their plans.”
[53] Close inspection confirms Buchan’s transcription of an ungrammatical period ending this line instead of a comma to connect the “Magistrates”’ salutation to the command (“Let no conceates / Your selves beguile”).
[54] Bawcutt speculated that the second “consider” in this stanza might be a misreading of the long “s” for “f” in “confider,” to “form a league” (21). The typesetter is far from perfect enough to make this unlikely, but the type set in the second word contains the same long-“s”-“i” ligatured type used in the first word, rather than the “f” type seen in “fall” and “foolish” on the recto side of leaf 7. Repetition of rhyme words is not beyond the skill of the poet, who sometimes does it intentionally, as in stanza 17, where all the “a” rhymes are “us.”
[55]
“lidder” as a dialect spelling of “lither,” O.E.D. “
1.
Of persons, their actions, dispositions, etc.: Bad, wicked; base,
rascally unjust.”
[56]
Possibly a dialect spelling of “quiddle,” O.E.D. “
1. intr. To discourse or expound
upon a subject in a trifling or frivolous manner.Obs..”
[57] Though the sentence ends with a period, the stanza is incomplete, and would be the only such stanza in the poem. A badly trimmed catchword is barely visible at the bottom of the leaf, only an ascender and the letter “e” surviving. Nevertheless, this confirms Gardeyne’s, Bright’s and Bawcutt’s belief that the poem was not complete, though it may indeed be “drawing to a close” (Bawcutt 19). If the pattern of eight-stanza groups is not illusory, there might be at least one and a half stanzas missing, or as many as nine and a half, or more.
[58] This loose leaf 4 from the printing is held to the top of the binding’s endpapers with a straight pin. Its condition is considerably worse than bound leaf 4, but it differs in no substantive form from the bound leaf. Because its inner margin is missing, it cannot be examined for sewing holes and the leaf may be printer’s waste.
[59] Missing text is reconstructed by comparison with the other leaf, again correcting some minor errors in the Buchan transcription.