Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.

June 6

The Rhymed Will of Hunnis

By William Hunnis (d. 1597)

Hunnis was chapel master to Queen Elizabeth and was a ryhmester—he cannot be called a poet—as well. According to his last will and testament, thus written in metre by himself, he experienced the proverbial poverty of the rhyming race. He died June 6, 1597.

“TO God my soul I do bequeathe, because it is His own,

My body to be laid in grave, where, to my friends best known;

Executors I will none make, thereby great strife may grow,

Because the goods that I shall leave will not pay I owe.”