The Fall of the Lord Clifford for His Strange and Abominable Cruelty

Open confession axeth open pennaunce,
And wisdome would a man his shame to hyde:
Yet sith forgieuenes commeth through repentaunce,
I thinke it best that men theyr crimes ascride,
For nought so secret but at length is spyed:
For couer fire, and it will neuer lynne
Till it breake forth, in like case shame and sinne.

As for my selfe my faultes be out so playne,
And published [so] abroade in euery place,
That though I would I cannot hide a grayne.
All care is bootelesse in a curelesse case,
To learne by other’s griefe, some haue the grace:
And therefore, Baldwine, write my wretched fall,
The briefe whereof I briefly vtter shall.

I am the same that slue duke Richard’s childe,
The louely babe that begged life with teares,
Whereby mine honour fouly I defilde:
Poore sely lambes the lion neuer teares,
The feeble mouse may ly among the beares,
But wrath of man, his rancour to requite,
Forgets all reason, ruth, and vertue quite.

I meane by rancour the parentall wreke
Surnamde a vertue, as the vicious say,
But litle knowe the wicked what they speake,
In boldening vs our enmyes kin to slay:
To punish sinne is good, it is no nay:
They wreke not sinne, but merit wreke for sinne,
That wreke the father’s fault vpon his kinne.

Because my father lord Iohn Clyfford, dyed,
Slayne at S. Albane’s, in his prince’s ayde,
Agaynst the duke my heart for malice fryed,
So that I could from wreck no way bee stayed,
But to auenge my father’s death, assayde
All meanes I might the duke of Yorke t’annoy,
And all his kin and friendes to kill and stroy.

This made mee with my bloudy dagger wound
His guiltlesse sonne, that neuer agaynst mee storde:
His father’s body lying dead on ground
To pearce with speare, eke with my cruell sworde,
To part his necke, and with his head to bourd
Enuested with a royall paper crowne,
From place to place to beare it vp and downe.

But cruelty can neuer scape the scourge
Of shame, of horror, or of sodayne death:
Repentaunce selfe, that other sinnes may pourge,
Doth fly from this, so sore the soule it slayeth:
Despayre dissolues the tyraunt’s bitter breath:
For sodayn vengeaunce sodaynly alightes
On cruell deedes, to quite theyr cruell spights.

This finde I true, for as I lay in stale,
To fight with duke Richard’s eldest son,
I was destroyde not far from Dintingdale,
For as I would my gorget haue vndon
To euent the heat that had mee nigh vndone,
An headles arrow strake mee through the throte,
Where through my soule forsooke his fylthy cote.

Was this a chaunce? no sure, God’s iust awarde,
Wherein due iustice playnly doth appeare:
An headlesse arrow payde mee my rewarde:
For heading Richard lying on his bere,
And as I would his childe in no wise heare,
So sodayne death bereft my tongue the power
To aske for pardon at my dying hower.

Wherefore, good Baldwine, warne the bloudy sort,
To leaue theyr wrath, theyr rigour to refrayne:
Tell cruell judges horror is the port
Through which they sayle to shame and sodayn payne:
Hell haleth tyrauntes downe to death amayne:
Was neuer yet, nor shal be cruell deede,
Left vnrewarded with as cruell meede.