The Devonshire Manuscript/I may well say with Ioyfull harte

←Who hath more cawse for to complayne || width="200" align="right" | To yowr gentyll letters an answere to resyte→ The Devonshire Manuscript facsimile 28v|thumb|389px f. [28v] 1    I may well say with{w+t+} Ioyfull harte12    as neuer woman myght say beforn3    that I haue takyn to my part4    the faythfullyst louer that ever was born5    great paynes he suffereth for my sake6    contynnually both nyght and day7    for all the paynes that he doth take8    from me hys loue wyll not decay9    Wyth thretnyng great he hath ben sayd10    off payne and yke off punnysment11    yt all fere asyde he hath layed12    to loue me best was hys yntent13    Who shall let me then off ryght14    onto myself hym to retane15    and loue hym best both day and nyght16    yn recompens off hys great payne17    yff I had more more he shold haue18    and that I kno he knowys full well19    to loue hym best vnto my graue20    off that he may both bye and sell21    And thus fare well my hartes{es} desyer22    the only stay off me and myne23    onto god dayly I make my prayer24    to bryng vs shortly both in one lynefinis __NOTOC__ Notes & Glosses      1. There is no clear reason for the crossout of e, but it does enable a graphic rhyme with "part." Commentary Attributed to Lady Margaret Douglas, William A. Ringler, Jr., Michael Rudick, and Susan J. Rigler, Bibliography and Index of English Verse in Manuscript, 1501-1558 (London: Manswell, 1992), 122. this poem denotes her feelings for her husband, Lord Thomas Howard. "I may well say with loyfull harte", entered by TH2, is one of the few ruled pages in the manuscript. Other ruled pages include: "The knot which fyrst my hart did strayn" (23r) through "O ye louers that hygh vpon the whele" (30r) and "What deth ys worse then thys" (39r) through "ther ys no cure ffor care off miyd" (41r). Helen Baron observes that "I may well say with Ioyfull harte" (28v) and the following poem "To yowr gentyll letters an answere to resyte" (29r) follow an epistolary formulae: the poem ends with the hope that the two will meet again (line 24), and the next poem responds to this plea, beginning: "To yowr gentyll letters an answere to resyte / both I and my penne there to wyll aply" (29r, lines 1-2).Helen Baron, “Mary (Howard) Fitzroy's Hand in the Devonshire Manuscript,” Review of English Studies 45 (1994): 325. While E.A. Bond argues that this relation shows internal evidence that the lovers exchanged letters during imprisonment in the Tower,EA Bond, “Wyatt’s Poems,” Athenaeum 27 (1871): 655. Baron notes that no existing evidence supports the theory that Margaret wrote in the manuscript while at the Tower.Baron, 325. Works Cited