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Brief Lives, Vol. 1

Chapter 201: Robert Devereux, earl of Essex (1567-1600/1).
By John Aubrey
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BiographiesHistory - Early Modern (c. 1450-1750)

About This Book

A collection of concise biographical sketches compiled from the author's manuscript notes, offering anecdotal portraits of a wide range of literary, scientific, political, and social figures across several generations. Entries blend remembered quotations, learned citation, personal recollection, and occasional gossip, producing uneven but vivid character sketches. Material is presented alphabetically and supplemented by antiquarian notes, a short theatrical piece, and facsimiles of manuscript drawings and plans. An introduction outlines editorial principles and reproduces the manuscript spellings and citations where appropriate, preserving the informality and immediacy of the original notes.

Robert Devereux, earl of Essex (1567-1600/1).

[830]Ex registro capellae Turris London, scil. 1600[831], 'Robert, earle of Essex, beheaded, Febr. 6th.'

From my lady Elizabeth, viscountesse Purbec, repeated by her:—

1. There is none, oh none but you,
 Who from me estrange your sight,
 Whom mine eyes affect to view
 And chained eares heare with delight.
2. Others' beauties others move,
 In you I all graces find:
 Such are the effects of love
 To make them happy that are kind.
3. Woemen in fraile beauty trust,
 Only seeme you kind to me,
 Still be truly kind and just
 For that can't dissembled bee.
4. Deare, afford me then your sight,
 That surveighing all your lookes
 Endlesse volumnes I may write
 And fill the world with envyed bookes.
5. Which when after ages view
 All shall wonder and despayre,
 Women, to find a man so true,
 And men, a woeman halfe so faire—

made by Robert, earl of Essex, that was beheaded.

[832]The tradition is that the bell of Lincoln's-Inne was brought from Cales (Cadiz), tempore reginae Elizabethae, plundered in the expedition[833] under <Robert Devereux>, earl of Essex.