Tudor & Elizabethan
Thomas Blenerhasset
Thomas Blenerhasset wrote the Second Part of A Mirror for Magistrates (1578), a series of twelve complaints spoken by British kings and queens from the Roman conquest down to Harold, the last Saxon king. Each is introduced by a short prose dialogue between Memory and Inquisition. He later wrote A Direction for the Plantation in Ulster (1610).
The complaints here are taken from Joseph Haslewood’s 1815 reprint, which follows the 1578 text collated with the edition of 1610. The prose Inductions are left out.
Poems (12)
- The Complaint of Guidericus, Slain in a Tempest of Thunder
- The Complaint of Carassus, a Husbandman’s Son Who Won the Crown
- The Life of Queen Helena, Empress of the World
- The Complaint of Vortiger, Burnt in His Castle
- The Complaint of Vter Pendragon, Who by Lawless Love Lost His Kingdom
- The Complaint of Cadwallader, the Last King of the Britons
- The Complaint of Sigebert, Slain by a Herdsman
- The Life of Lady Ebbe, Who Flayed Away Her Nose and Upper Lip to Save Her Virginity
- The Complaint of Alurede, Brought to Untimely Death by the Sin of the Flesh
- The Complaint of Egelrede, Distressed by the Danes
- The Complaint of Edricus, Beheaded by Canutus
- The Complaint of Harold, Slain by Duke William