The Beggar Woman by William King | The Poet: William King (1663-1712)Little is known about William King except that he was educated at Christ Church College Cambridge, and made a living as a lawyer and judge while writing occasional satires and comic verse, most of which were published anonymously. | The Beggar Woman is like a story, it suggests that it should be read to people. This is again because it is aimed at lower class and uneducated people who would have to have someone read it to them rather than reading it for themselves. It is written in the tradition of the street or broadside ballads, printed stories in verse that were sold cheaply and passed around for pleasure, often dealing with popular scandals and murder stories. In a time before the popular press and television chat shows, these ballads satisfied a need for entertaining stories, a tradition that has deep roots in oral traditions of storytelling and wandering minstrels.At the beginning of this poem, there is a description of a gentleman out hunting, which is an upper class activity, as they are the only people who could afford to take part in such an expensive activity, also by the fact he is described as a 'Gentleman' suggests he belongs to the upper class or 'Gentry'. The 'Gentleman gets separated from his group and spots the 'Beggar Woman'. He then propositions her for sex. She obliges and they wander off into the nearby wood. She is described as 'game', because really to the man that is all she is. The poem tells a traditional tale of a poor but attractive beggar woman, accosted by a local squire who intends to use her for his own sexual pleasure and then abandon her to her fate - something which the beggar woman has clearly experienced before, judging by the child strapped to her back. Appearing to go along with his wishes, she leads him to 'an unfrequented place' where she deftly turns