A Mirror for Magistrates

The Mirror for Magistrates is a collection of English poems from the Tudor period by various authors which retell the lives and the tragic ends of various historical figures.

This work was conceived as a continuation of the Fall of Princes by the 15th century poet John Lydgate. Lydgate's work was in turn inspired by Giovanni Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum Illustrium ("Concerning the Falls of Illustrious Men") and the other significant work of exemplary literature in English: The Monk's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer. The title refers to holding a mirror up to the actions of famous people and reflecting their deeds so that magistrates and other people in important positions can learn from their errors. Most of the poems take the form of ghosts examining themselves and their deeds in front of a mirror. Similar titles were popular in the middle ages and there were numerous other works which presented themselves as a speculum (Latin for "mirror") chief among them the Speculum Maius by Vincent de Beauvais, who lived during the time.

William Baldwin and George Ferrers were the first editors of the work and the principal contributors. Between them they are credited with writing fifteen of the nineteen lives which made up the work when it was published in 1559 by Thomas Marsh, although some of the lives are unsigned and are only conjectured to be written by them. Other contributing poets include: Thomas Phaer, Thomas Chaloner and Thomas Churchyard, with one poem supposedly by John Skelton despite his having died thirty years before. There are also some links in prose between the poems, conversations between the poets themselves which mention several other noble lives. Baldwin also sets forth his reasons for beginning the work:

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