Sir Ed[mundbury] Godfreys Ghost [manuscript], ca. 1682.
Items
Details
Title
Sir Ed[mundbury] Godfreys Ghost [manuscript], ca. 1682.
Description
3 p., pen and ink on bifolium.
Summary
A contemporary manuscript copy of an anonymous poem on the controversy surrounding the death of Sir Edmundbury Godfrey (1621-1678). His mysterious death - he was strangled and several days later his body was impaled on his sword and left in a ditch — remains unsolved. Godrey's association with Titus Oates and the Popish Plot has lead to suggestions that he was murdered by Catholics (an interpretation championed by Oates), or, conversely, that he was murdered by the plotters themselves, in hopes of stirring up anti-Catholic sentiment. "Sir Edmundbury Godfrey's Ghost" appeared some four years after the murder. The poem was published in two editions in March 1682 by Richard Janeway and was later included in the anthology of satirical Restoration verse, Poems on Affairs of State. "Godfrey's Ghost" was a response to Catholic bookseller Nathaniel Thompson's pamphlet, a Letter to Miles Prance, of February 1682, which questioned the reliability of evidence given by Prance in the trial of Godfrey's murder.
Note
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Place of creation/publication
Great Britain -- England -- London.
Item Details
Call number
X.d.754
Folger-specific note
Adopted by David B. Smith in honor of Laura Smith "my Shakespeare buddy, love Dad," Aquisitions Night 2018.
Folger accession
269816