ABSTRACT

It is refreshing to read some really bad verse from the “golden age” of English poetry. Here are some lines from Sir Henry Goodyear’s celebration of Prince Charles’ visit to Madrid to court the Spanish princess Donna Marïa Anna in 1623:

The Protestant divines that greatest be,

For number, knowledge, and for sanctity,

Retain more knowledge than to presume

So far to say, the present Church of Rome

Is not part of God’s church, or to deny

A way to Heaven to all that therein die.

They only say that it should be reformed

Since it is sickly, mangled and deformed.