The Wandering Jew's Chronicle is an English broadside ballad dating back to the 17th century, with The Wandering Jew as its narrator. From the point of view of the titular character, this ballad tells the history of the English monarchs, beginning with William the Conqueror, and continuing through King Charles II in early versions, and King George II in later versions. The ballad, according to Giles Bergel, dates back to an initial publication of 1634.[1] Copies of the ballad can be found at the British Library and Magdalene College. Online facsimiles of the text are also available for public consumption.[2] [3]
The ballad, often printed with woodcut illustrations of all the monarchs named, begins with the narrator, the Wandering Jew, declaring that he was fifteen years old when William the Conqueror came to England, and that he can recall and recount with accuracy all that has happened since. He goes on to spend one stanza (sometimes less, sometimes more) telling the story of each subsequent English monarch until the time from which he is narrating. In the case of a few monarchs (Edward I, Henry VII, and Henry VIII, for example) he indicates a more personal knowledge, claiming either to have served in their armies, or as their servants at court. In addition to the monarchs, he names several other figures important to Medieval and Early Modern British monarchical history (see below for examples). The ballad is written in a variation of traditional Ballad Meter, alternating couplets of Iambic tetrameter with single lines of Iambic trimeter, resulting in six-line stanzas with an A-A-B-C-C-B rhyme scheme.