Lyr Add: The Miserable End of Bannister (1600)

Subject: Lyr Add: The Miserable End of Bannister (1600)
From: chico
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 12:23 AM

(registered 1600)

AIR -- 'Come live with me'

    Am   C         Dm       E
If ever wight had cause to rue
    C       Dm         C E Am
a wretched deed, wild and untrue
      C    F         D       E
Then banister with shame may sing
      C       Dm       Am E Am
who sold his life that loved him

The noble Duke of Buckingham
his death did make me sing this song
I unto them did him betray
that wrought his downfall and decay

I him betray'd and none but I
For which I sorrow heavily
But sorrow now too late doth come
for I alone have him undone

From court unto my house is fled
Duke Buckingham, to save his head
When Richard sought thee to cast down
Whose hand did help him to the crown

But thou found'st treason hid in trust
for which I have my guerdon just
King Richard caus'd them to proclaim
a thousand pound the man should gain

That Buckingham coud first bring in
Beside the favor of the king
This gold and favor drew my heart
To play the wild and traitorous part

But lo, I found another thing
I was disclaimed of the king
And rated as a varlet base
that so betray'd the good Duke's grace

All you that hear my woeful song
Know this, though God do suffer wrong
Yet reason foul, he doth abhor,
and traitor vile he doth not spare

Ye Christians dear, blot not your fame
with the disgrace of traitor's name
Which I did carry to my grave
and to the world's end shall it have

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Miserable End of Bannister (1600)
From: LadyJean
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 12:28 AM

I'd like the history behind this. Presumably the Richard is Richard III. But the song is dated 1600, so it was written more than a hundred years after the event.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Miserable End of Bannister (1600)
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 04:27 PM

Stafford, Henry, 2d duke of Buckingham
 
1454?–1483, English nobleman. He was the grandson of Humphrey Stafford, the 1st duke, whom he succeeded in 1460. He passed the death sentence on George, duke of Clarence, in 1478, but it was not until the death (1483) of Edward IV that Buckingham achieved political prominence. Though married to a sister of Edward's widow, Elizabeth Woodville, he joined Richard of Gloucester (later Richard III) in taking custody of the young Edward V from the queen mother and figured largely in the political plot by which Richard seized the throne. He was given enormous power, especially in W England and Wales, but soon, for reasons not clear, he rebelled against Richard, intending to place Henry Tudor (later Henry VII) on the throne. His army, gathered in the west, was prevented from advancing by floods of the Wye and Severn rivers and soon dispersed. He went into hiding, was betrayed by one of his retainers, tried as a traitor, and beheaded. It has been suggested that, as constable of the Tower of London, Buckingham, rather than Richard III, was the probable murderer of the two princes held in the Tower.