Note 1. These verses are from Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, where they are said to have been written by “Chidiock Tichborne, being young and then in the Tower, the night before his execution.” Tichborne, a native of Southampton, was executed in 1586, for participating in the Babington’s conspiracy. “A beautiful letter,” says Mr. Quiller-Couch, “to his wife, written before his execution, is still preserved.” The poem was set to music in John Munday’s Songs and Psalms, 1594; in Richard Alison’s Hours Recreation, 1606; and Michael Este’s Madrigals of three, four, and five Parts, 1604. Dr. Hannah prints a reply to them in his Courtly Poets, p. 115, purporting to have been written by Babington, Tichborne’s fellow conspirator, beginning:
