The ''Lament of Edward II'' ("En tenps de iver me survynt damage") is traditionally credited to

Edward II of England Edward II (25 April 1284 – 21 September 1327), also called Edward of Caernarfon, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1307 until he was deposed in January 1327. The fourth son of Edward I, Edward became the heir apparent to t ...

, and thought to have been written during his imprisonment shortly after he was deposed by his wife

Isabella Isabella may refer to: People and fictional characters * Isabella (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Isabella (surname), including a list of people Places United States * Isabella, Alabama, an unincorpor ...

in January 1327. Not all readers are convinced of the royal attribution of its authorship. The poem, in fifteen stanzas, bears the heading ''De Le Roi Edward, le Fiz Roi Edward, Le Chanson Qe Il Fist Mesmes'' ("Of the King Edward, son of King Edward, the Song that He Made himself"). It was a ''

chanson A (, , french: chanson française, link=no, ; ) is generally any lyric-driven French song, though it most often refers to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music. The genre had origins in the monophonic so ...

'', and was likely to be sung to an existing tune. In each stanza two rhymes alternate, in approximately octosyllabic lines. The text survives in a manuscript on

vellum Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other anima ...

Longleat Longleat is an English stately home and the seat of the Marquess of Bath, Marquesses of Bath. A leading and early example of the Elizabethan era, Elizabethan prodigy house, it is adjacent to the village of Horningsham and near the towns of War ...

, bound into a volume titled ''Tractatus varii Theologici saec. XIII et XIV'' (76v and 77r), causing it to be overlooked; and in a manuscript in the Royal Library. It was identified by Paul Studer and first published by him with a short literary introduction and an English translation in 1921. "The tone of the poem, the line of arguments, the touches of deep personal feeling unmistakably stamp the work as genuine," Studer concluded. "The king's song is a rare and valuable specimen of

Anglo-Norman Anglo-Norman may refer to: *Anglo-Normans, the medieval ruling class in England following the Norman conquest of 1066 * Anglo-Norman language **Anglo-Norman literature * Anglo-Norman England, or Norman England, the period in English history from 10 ...

lyric poetry Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person. It is not equivalent to song lyrics, though song lyrics are often in the lyric mode, and it is also ''not'' equi ...

." The poet uses the poetical conventions of Provençal love poetry to

lament A lament or lamentation is a passionate expression of grief, often in music, poetry, or song form. The grief is most often born of regret, or mourning. Laments can also be expressed in a verbal manner in which participants lament about something ...

his fall, the loss of his queen and his kingdom. In the Provençal tradition of the '' canso'', he commences by invoking the (winter) season and ends with an ''

envoi Envoi or envoy in poetry is used to describe: * A short stanza at the end of a poem such as a ballad, used either to address an imagined or actual person or to comment on the preceding body of the poem. * A dedicatory poem about sending the book ...

''. Nevertheless, the poem compares favourably with contemporary poems of Northern France, Studer concludes: "It is free from their mannerism and artifice, and possesses a directness of speech and an accent of deep sincerity which they seldom exhibit." A garbled account of this "lamentable complaynt" from manuscripts that he had seen, "with many other of the same makynge" was given by

Robert Fabyan Robert Fabyan (died 1512) was a London draper, Sheriff and Alderman, and author of ''Fabyan's Chronicle''. Family Robert Fabyan was the son of John Fabyan and his wife, Agnes. He is said to have been born in London. He had a brother, John. His n ...

(died 1513), who rendered six lines of the incipit in Latin and offered his own flowery and pedantic variant in English.Fabyan's ''Chronicle'' was first printed in 1515, after his death (Studer 1921:34ff); Studer quotes Fabyan's ''New Chronicles of England and France'' with both versions. No other poems by Edward survive. A translation into modern English is in Ref 6.

External links

Full text of the poem
in Studer, Paul, "An Anglo-Norman Poem by Edward II, King of England", The Modern Language Review, Volume XVI, 1921.

Notes

{{Reflist, 2 Anglo-Norman literature 1327 works Edward II of England