A PEPYSIAN GARLAND - online book

Black-letter Broadside Ballads Of The years 1595-1639

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	A WARNING FOR WIVES
	and pamphlets can be trusted) the rule. All the steps involved in burning a woman to death are minutely described in a pamphlet printed by Henry Gosson in 1608 on The Araignement iff burning of Margaret Ferne-seede, for the Murther of her late Husband Anthony Ferne-seede, found deade in Peckham Field neere Lambeth, hauing once before attempted to poyson him with broth, being executed in S. Georges-f eld the last of Februarie. 1608 (British Museum, C. 21. b. 5). Mrs Ferneseed, who vehemently denied her guilt and against whom the evidence now appears very dubious, was burned on Monday, February 28, at two p.m. "She was stripped of her ordinary wearing apparell, and vppon her owne smocke put a kirtle of Canuasse pitched cleane through, ouer which she did weare a white sheet, and so was by the keeper deliuered to the Shreue, one \i.e. on] each hand a woman leading her, and the Preacher going before her. Being come to the place of execution, both before and after her fastning to the Stake, with godly exhortations hee admonished her that now in that minute she would confesse that fact for which she was now ready to suffer, which she denying, the reeds were planted aboute, vnto which fier being giuen she was presently dead." The taking refrain of the ballad, characteristic of the tune of Bragandary (cf. No. 49), had been used earlier, and is referred to in John Webster's play, The Devil's Law Case, 1623, iv, ii: O women, as the ballad lives to tell you, What will you shortly come to! Parker's refrain is also given as the tune of ballads in Wit Restored, 1656, pp. 1 57 ff., Musarum Deliciae, 1656, pp. 88 ff., The Rump, 1661, pp. 82 ff., and the Roxburghe Ballads, m, 117; vn, 826. It is the tune also of "The Careless Curate and the Bloody Butcher" (beginning "Black Murther and Adultery"), 1662, in the Wood Collection (Wood 401 (187)). To the tune of Bragandary. i ALas what wretched bloody times -t\. doe we vile sinners Hue in! What horrid and what cruell crimes are done in spight of heauen!
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