Thomas Lodge - Broadview Press Publisher's Blog

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The rest his confederates after their several 1 confessions,
were served with the same sauce, and
thus ended the troubles with their tragedies.
Their bodies cut down were buried by their
friends, and happy was he among the poorer sort
that had any thing to enrich the funeral of William
Longbeard. And notwithstanding his confession
at his death, and divers other evidences at his condemnation,
yet were there divers 2 who after his
death held him for a saint, casting out slanderous
libels against the Archbishop, terming him the
bloodsucker of good men. There were many
superstitious women, who in their devotion were
wont to pray to him, and after his death digged up
the ground about the gallows’ tree, affirming that
many had been healed of sundry sicknesses by the
touch thereof. All this their idolatrous constructions
at first began by reason of a priest, a near ally
to William, who openly preached that by virtue of
a chain wherewith William was bound, during the
time of his imprisonment, there were divers men
healed of hot fevers. The blood that fell from him
at such time as he was quartered, they clearly
scraped up, leaving nothing that could yield any
memory of him, either unsought or ungotten. But
at last the Archbishop of Canterbury remedied all
these things, who first accursed the priest that
brought up the fables, and after that caused the
place to be watched, where-through 3 such idolatry
ceased, and the people were no more seduced. But
for that William wrote many notable poems and
translations in the prison, which if you peruse will
notify unto you his singular wit, I have thought
good to subscribe them, desiring your favourable
censure of them.
William Longbeard’s Epitaph.
Untimely death and my fond 4 fruits of treason,
My lawless lust, my murders long concealed,
Have shipwrecked life amidst my April season.
1 several separate, individual.
2 divers many.
3 where-through whereby; by that means.
4 fond foolish.
T HOMAS L ODGE
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Thus, covered things at last will be revealed.
A shameful death my sinful life succeedeth,
And fear of heavenly judge great terror breedeth.
My mangled members in this grave included,
Have answered law’s extremes to my confusion,
O God, let not my murders be obtruded
Against my soul wronged through my earth’s
illusion.
And as the grave my lifeless limbs containeth,
So take my soul to thee where rest remaineth.
Thou travailler 5 that treadest on my tomb
Rememb’reth thee of my untimely fall;
Prevent the time, forethink what may become,
See that thy will be to thy reason thrall, 6
Scorn world’s delights, esteem vain honour small:
So may’st thou die with fame, where men of
conscience foul
Perish with shame and hazard of their soul.
I have hereunto annexed likewise some other of
his spiritual hymns and songs, whereby the virtuous
may gather how sweet the fruits be of a reconciled
and penitent soul.
The First.
That pity Lord that earst 7 thy heart inflamed
To entertain a voluntary death,
To ransom man, by loathed sins defamed,
From Hell and those infernal pains beneath:
Vouchsafe, my God, those snares it may unlose 8
Wherein this blinded world hath me entrapped,
5 travailler labourer; but also, “traveller.”
6 thrall bound.
7 earst first.
8 unlose unloose.