of the English Nation_, vol. ii. p. 114, ed. 1903; the _Libel_ is also reprinted in Thomas Wright’s _Political Poems and Songs relating to English History_, 1861, ii. 157). It sets forth also the consequences of forgetting to guard the seas, and the damage which English commerce suffered from the pirates who were allowed to prey upon it unchecked. Of these the Bretons, especially the men of St. Malo, and the Flemings were the chief, and two particular pirates, Hankyn Lyons and Pety Pynson, are mentioned by name. Throughout the fifteenth century, and indeed until the close of the sixteenth, the Channel and the British seas in general were infested by pirates. There were Italian pirates as well as Bretons. In a ballad which gives a legendary history of the overthrow of Richard III., a messenger is sent by Lord Stanley to Henry Tudor with money for the intended expedition to England. The great danger the messenger fears is the galleys of the Italian pirates. ‘They will me rob, they will me drown, They will take the gold from me.’ (_The most pleasant Song of Lady Bessy_, edited by J. O. Halliwell, Percy Society, 1847, pp. 27, 64). The popular ballad entitled _John Dory_, which first appeared in print in 1609, seems to embody some tradition of the fights with Italian pirates, or perhaps of some earlier battle with Italian sailors in French service such as that of 1416. The longer ballad, narrating Sir Edward Howard’s battle with Sir Andrew Barton, printed on pages 6-15, describes an historical event which took place in 1511, and is recorded by John Lesley, Bishop of Ross, in his Chronicle. The details embody popular tradition rather than facts. The version of the ballad printed here is a sixteenth century version preserved in Bishop Percy’s MS. It was partially rewritten and adorned with various rhetorical additions by some seventeenth century writer. This late version, which begins, ‘When Flora with her fragrant flowers Bedeckt the earth so trim and gay,’ is reprinted in Stone’s _Sea Songs and Ballads_ (p. 64), where there may also be found a still later echo of the original ballad, entitled _Henry Marten_ (p. 72).