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  • Multiple Audiences

    Although ostensibly an epitaph, William Elderton’s A proper new balad of my ladie marques, Whose death is bewailed To the tune of new lusty gallant is in reality a curious mix which speaks to various audiences on several levels.  The first was a general listenership who might be edified by ideals of piety and entertained…

  • Parr Family History

    As we have seen, William Elderton’s emphasis on the exemplary feminine virtues of his heroine in A proper new balad of my ladie marques, Whose death is bewailed To the tune of new lusty gallant is line with the norms of the Renaissance epitaph.  But in Elizabeth Parr’s case it is especially interesting. It reflects…

  • The Lady Marques in Context

    William Elderton’s A proper new balad of my ladie marques, Whose death is bewailed To the tune of new lusty gallant was not the only eulogy published in 1569. Thomas Newton penned a steadfastly Protestant panegyric to Lady Katherine Knollys. Katherine, who may have been the illegitimate daughter of Henry VIII, was also a confidante…

  • The Ladie Marques and the Lusty Gallant

    With apologies for the length of the delay between posts (brought about by a computer faliure), here is the second piece about Elizabeth Parr and William Elderton: William Elderton’s A proper new balad in praise of my Ladie Marques (London, 1569; STC (2nd ed.) / 7562) is unique among the surviving early ballad epitaphs in…

  • William Elderton and the Ladie Marques part 1

    I’ve been doing a lot of work on ballad epitaphs in recent months, inspired by a William Elderton ballad entitled A proper new balad of my ladie marques, Whose death is bewailed To the tune of new lusty gallant. The first thing that caught my attention was the fact that the epitaph had a named, known…