page_title: Can She Excuse My Wrongs
section_title: Identity of the poet
hierarchical_section_title: Can She Excuse My Wrongs / Identity of the poet
context_page_description: "Can She Excuse My Wrongs" is a late 16th-century song by the English Renaissance composer John Dowland, the fifth song in his First Booke of Songes or Ayres. The words are set to a dance-tune, a galliard.
  The song is associated with Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, who was executed for treason in 1601 after he rebelled against Elizabeth I. The song is sometimes referred to as "The Earl of Essex Galliard", although that title normally refers to an instrumental version, "The Earl of Essex, his galiard", scored for viol consort and lute.
context_section_description: Dowland's lyricists are often anonymous, their identities lost over time. Given this, it is often unclear as to whether the tune or the text came first. The tune for "Can She Excuse My Wrongs" was included in the "Dowland Lutebook", now in Washington, completed at least before 1594, before any earlier dating of the text. Edward Doughtie notes that the lyrics do not have a metric structure that combines well with music, and at times forces the singer into unusual word stresses. Bertrand Harris Bronson makes a similar observation, noting how the timing and meter of the tune forces "the text into its service". The upbeat and energetic style and pace of the music seems to be at odds with the somewhat downbeat mood of the lyrics. For these reasons it is generally assumed that the lyrics were a later addition.
  "Can She Excuse My Wrongs" has been widely attributed to Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex (1565–1601), but the lack of surviving documentation make it impossible to discern if in fact Essex was the lyricist. He is certainly a possible candidate: other poems by him survive and there is another lute-song associated with him, "To plead my faith", set by Daniel Batcheler.  However, the attribution of "Can She Excuse" largely rests on the posthumous dedication of the galliard published in Dowland's 1604 collection Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares. By this time Essex's Rebellion had become less controversial.  When Essex was executed his title was made extinct.  However, as Essex had favoured James to succeed to the throne, James I was sympathetic to those involved in the Rebellion, and restored the title in 1604 for his son Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex.  Dowland's dedication of the same year was therefore not risky in the way it would have been in previous years.
  It has also been suggested that Dowland makes a veiled reference to the Earl in the third strain by quoting the melody of the popular early 16th-century Tudor ballad, "Will Yow Walke the Woods soe Wylde". Contemporary listeners would have picked up the allusion to woods, and, according to some scholars, would have gone on to make the connection to the Earl's habit of retreating to the woods north-east of London where he had a house. Both retreat to the country and, drawing from older poetic traditions, the utilisation of woodland imagery, were common features of this type of ballad. The song has been interpreted as recording the poet's feelings of exile and alienation, after being banished from court to the countryside, presumably having fallen from favour with Elizabeth I. This was a popular theme in Tudor poetry and lyrical balladry, and often the poet would use the sense of political alienation to make acute, often satirical commentary on the world of the court, with all its intrigues and jostling for position.
caption: Young man, possibly the Earl of Essex, c.1588. Nicholas Hilliard, Victoria and Albert Museum.
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