You shall have your heart's desire."
He brought her to his mother,

And above all other

He set forth this maiden's praise:
Long was his heart inflamed,

At length her love he gained,

155

So fortune did his glory raise.

Thus unknown he matcht

With the king's fair daughter;
Children seven he had,

Ere she to him was known.

But when he understood

She was a royal princess,

By this means at last

He shewèd forth her fame :

He cloath'd his children then

Not like other men,

In party colours strange to see ;

The right side cloth of gold,

169-174.

"This will remind the reader of the livery and device of Charles Brandon, a private gentleman, who married the Queen Dowager of France, sister of Henry VIII. At a tournament which he held at his wedding, the trappings of his horse were half cloth of gold, and half frieze, with the following motto:

'Cloth of Gold, do not despise,

Tho' thou art matcht with Cloth of Frize;

Cloth of Frize, be not too bold,

Tho' thou art matcht with Cloth of Gold.'

See Sir W. Temple's Misc. vol. iii. p. 356." PERCY.

The left side to behold

Of woollen cloth still framed he. Men thereat did wonder,

Golden fame did thunder

This strange deed in every place; The king of France came thither Being pleasant weather,

In the woods the hart to chase.

The children there did stand,
As their mother willed,
Where the royal king
Must of force come by;
Their mother richly clad
In fair crimson velvet,
Their father all in gray,

Most comely to the eye.
When this famous king,

Noting every thing,

Did ask him how he durst be so bold,

To let his wife to wear,

And deck his children there,

In costly robes of pearl and gold,—

The forester bold replièd,

And the cause descrièd,

And to the king he thus did say : "Well may they by their mother Wear rich gold like other,

Being by birth a princess gay."

178, king he coming.

175

180

185

190

196

200

The king upon these words
More heedfully beheld them,
Till a crimson blush

His conceit did cross.

"The more I look," quoth he, Upon thy wife and children, The more I call to mind

My daughter whom I lost." "I am that Child," quoth she, Falling on her knee;

"Pardon me my soveraign liege !"

The king perceiving this

His daughter dear did kiss,

Till joyful tears did stop his speech.

With his train he turned,

And with her sojournèd;

205

210

215

Straight he dubb'd her husband knight; He made him Earl of Flanders, One of his chief commanders ;

Thus was their sorrow put to flight. 220

CONSTANCE OF CLEVELAND.

From Collier's Book of Roxburghe Ballads, p. 163.

"THIS romantic ballad, in a somewhat plain and unpretending style, relates incidents that may remind the reader of the old story of Titus and Gisippus, which was told in English verse by Edw. Lewicke, as early as 1562: the ballad is not so ancient by, perhaps, thirty or forty years; and the printed copy that has come down to our day is at least fifty years more recent than the date when we believe the ballad to have been first published. The title the broadside (Printed for F. Coles, J. W., T. Vere, W. Gilbertson,') bears is, Constance of Cleveland: A very excellent Sonnet of the most fair Lady Constance of Cleveland, and her disloyal Knight.' We conclude that the incidents are mere invention, but Constance of Rome is the name of a play, by Drayton, Munday and Hathway, mentioned in Henslowe's Diary under the year 1600, (p. 171.) The tune of Crimson Velvet was highly popular in the reigns of Elizabeth and her successor."

VOL. IV.

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