A myrroure for magistrates Wherein may be seen by example of other, with howe greuous plages vices are punished: and howe frayle and vnstable worldly prosperitie is founde, even of those, whom fortune seemeth most highly to fauour. Anno. 1559.

Hovv the lord Clyfford for his straunge and abhominable cruelty, came to as straunge and sodayne a death.

OPen confession areth open penaunce, And wisedome would a mā his shame to hide: Yet sith forgeuenes cummeth through repentaunce I thinke it best that men their crimes ascried, For nought so secrete but at length is spied: For couer fire, and it wil neuer linne Til it breake furth, in like case shame and sinne.

As for my selfe my faultes be out so playne And published so brode in every place, That though I would I can not hide a grayne. All care is bootles in a cureles case, To learne by others griefe sum haue the grace, And therfore Baldwin write my wretched fall, The brief wherof I briefly vtter shall.

I am the same that slue duke Richardes childe The louely babe that begged life with teares. Wherby my honour fowly I defilde. Poore selly lambes the Lyon neuer teares: The feble mouse may lye among the beares: But wrath of man his rancour to requite, Forgets all reason, ruth, & vertue quite.

I mean by rancour the parentall wreke Surnamde a vertue (as the vicious say) But litle know the wicked what they speake, In boldning 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 fathers faultes vpon his kyn.

Because my father lord Iohn Clifford died Slayne at S. Albons, in his princes ayde. Agaynst the duke my hart for malyce fryed, So that I could from wreke no way be stayed. But to avenge my fathers death, assayde All meanes I might the duke of Yorke to annoy. And all his kin and frendes to kill and stroy.

This made me with my bluddy daggar wound. His giltles sunne that never agaynst me sturde: His fathers body lying dead on ground, To pearce with speare, eke with my cruell swurd To part his necke, and with his head to bourd, Envested with a paper royal crowne, From place to place to beare it vp and downe.

But cruelty can never skape the skourge Of shame, of horror, and of sodayne death. Repentaunce selfe that other sinnes may pourge, Doth flye sc••o•••• this, so sore the soule it slayeth, Dispayre dissolves the tirauntes bitter breath▪ For sodayne vengeaunce sodaynly alightes On cruell heades, to quite thier cruel spightes.

〈2 pages missing〉〈2 pages missing〉