We British: The Poetry of a People. Andrew Marr

      Ye Virgins, ye from Cupid’s tents

      do bear away the foil

      Whose hearts as yet with raging love

      most painfully do boil …

      Beware of fair and painted talk,

      beware of flattering tongues:

      The Mermaids do pretend no good

      for all their pleasant songs.

      Some use the tears of crocodiles,

      contrary to their heart:

      And if they cannot always weep,

      they wet their cheeks by art.

      Ovid, within his Art of Love,

      doth teach them this same knack

      To wet their hand and touch their eyes,

      so oft as tears they lack.

      Here we have a woman’s-eye view of the swooning swains and untrustworthy lovers described by so many sonneteers in codpieces.

      Trust not a man at the first sight

      but try him well before:

      I wish all maids within their breasts

      to keep this thing in store.

      For trial shall declare his truth

      and show what he doth think,

      Whether he be a lover true,

      or do intend to shrink.

      And that’s an image, I think, you would not find in John Donne or Shakespeare. In another, more famous poem, Isabella leaves her rather scanty worldly wealth to the city of London, a place which is less the doomy moral theatre of Anne Askew than a throbbing cockpit of trade and good things:

      I, whole in body, and in minde,

      but very weake in Purse:

      Doo make, and write my Testament

      for feare it wyll be wurse …

      … First for their foode, I Butchers leave,

      that every day shall kyll:

      By Thames you shal have Brewers store,

      and Bakers at your wyll.

      And such as orders doo obserue,

      And pouring into London thrice a weeke:

      I leave two Streets, full fraught therwith,

      they neede not farre to seeke.

      Watlyng Streete, and Canwyck streete,

      I full of Wollen leave:

      And Linnen store in Friday streete,

      if they mee not deceave.

      And those which are of callyng such,

      that costlier they require:

      I Mercers leave, with silke so rich,

      as any would desyre.

      In Cheape of them, they store shal finde

      and likewise in that streete:

      I Goldsmithes leave, with Iuels such,

      as are for Ladies meete.

      And Plate to furnysh Cubbards with,

      full braue there shall you finde:

      With Purle of Siluer and of Golde,

      to satisfye your minde.

      With Hoods, Bungraces, Hats or Caps,

      such store are in that streete:

      As if on t’one side you should misse

      the t’other serues you feete.

      For Nets of every kynd of sort,

      I leave within the pawne:

      French Ruffes, high Purles, Gorgets and Sleeves

      of any kind of Lawne.

      For Purse or Kniues, for Combe or Glasse,

      or any needeful knacke

      I by the Stoks have left a Boy,

      wil aske you what you lack.

      I Hose doo leave in Birchin Lane,

      of any kynd of syse:

      For Women stitchte, for men both Trunks

      and those of Gascoyne gise.

      Bootes, Shoes or Pantables good store,

      Saint Martins hath for you:

      … And for the men, few Streetes or Lanes,

      but Bodymakers bee:

      And such as make the sweeping Cloakes,

      with Gardes beneth the Knee.

      Artyllery at Temple Bar,

      and Dagges at Tower hyll:

      Swords and Bucklers of the best,

      are nye the Fleete vntyll.

      Now when thy Folke are fed and clad

      with such as I have namde:

      For daynty mouthes, and stomacks weake

      some Iunckets must be framde.

      Wherfore I Poticaries leave,

      with Banquets in their Shop:

      Phisicians also for the sicke,

      Diseases for to stop.

      Some Roysters styll, must bide in thee,

      and such as cut it out:

      That with the guiltlesse quarel wyl,

      to let their blood about.

      For them I cunning Surgions leave,

      some Playsters to apply.

      That Ruffians may not styll be hangde,

      nor quiet persons dye.

      For Salt, Otemeale, Candles, Sope,

      or what you els doo want:

      In many places, Shops are full,

      I left you nothing scant …

      Here, in all its plenty, is the sprawling mercantile metropolis of modern times beginning to slide into view; here is a first version of the ‘embarrassment of riches’ described by Simon Schama in relation to the slightly later civilisation of the Dutch Republic. It is clear, however, that Isabella Whitney’s London is also a harsh, challenging place where change is almost too fast-moving. As it still is.

      Earlier, we saw how during Tudor times the world of the court began to intersect more closely with the ordinary urban imagination; like a dangerous magnet, the court attracted attention from everywhere. That’s partly about the politics, increasingly aggressive, of religious reform. But nowhere is it clearer than in the development of the period’s most brilliant and long-lasting cultural innovation – the English theatre. It can often seem as if William Shakespeare and a select few contemporaries exploded upon the world from nothing. But as the man said, nothing comes from nothing. The truth is that the urban world of the sixteenth century across England was brimming with spectacle and theatre long before Shakespeare.

      In trying to tell the story of the British through poetry there is a particular problem which begins around now, and which I ought to own up to. Just as in high medieval culture, so in early modern culture, Britain was still a Latin-soaked society. If you wanted to