Where Rosamond had once a bower,
To keep her from Queen Elinour,
And had escap’d her poys’nous power
By good-luck,
But fate had otherwise decreed,
And Woodstock Manner saw a deed,
Which is in Hollinshed or Speed
Chro-nicled;
But neither Hollinshed nor Stow,
Nor no historians such things show,
Though in them wonders we well know
Are pickled;
For nothing else is history
But pickle of antiquity,
Where things are kept in memory
From stinking;
Which otherwise would have lain dead,
As in oblivion buried,
Which now you may call into head
With thinking.
The dreadfull story, which is true,
And now committed unto view,
By better pen, had it its due,
Should see light.
But I, contented, do indite,
Not things of wit, but things of right;
You can’t expect that things that fright
Should delight.
O hearken, therefore, hark and shake!
My very pen and hand doth quake!
While I the true relation make
O’ th’ wonder,
Which hath long time, and still appeares
Unto the State’s Commissioners,
And puts them in their beds to feares
From under.
They come, good men, imploi’d by th’ State
To sell the lands of Charles the late.
And there they lay, and long did waite
For chapmen.