1609 Chronology

Memorial Poem to Sir Francis Vere by Cyril Tourneur with dedication to the Earl of Oxford

2009-10-16T17:09:00.003-04:00

On October 16, 1609, a book was registered at the Stationers’ Hall, called, “A Funerall Poeme. Upon the death of the most worthie and true souldier, Sir Francis Vere, Knight. Captaine of Portsmouth, &c. L. Gouernour of his Maiesties Cautionarie Towne of Briell in Holland, &c.”

The author was Cyril Tourneur (c.1575-1626) whose father, Captain Richard Turner, served in Holland at the same time as Sir Francis Vere and Sir Horatio Vere. We have evidence that Cyril himself saw some service there in 1613. Prior to that it is assumed he was living in London.

Tourneur has left us with a very limited set of works: one long poem, The Transformed Metamorphosis (1600), is often described as deeply imitative of Shakespeare. He wrote elegies for Sir Francis Vere (1609) and for Prince Henry, the doomed Stuart heir (1613). He is credited with only two plays, The Revenger's Tragedy (1607) and The Atheist's Tragedy (1611); Revenger, however, is now often credited to Middleton, leaving Atheist’s as the principal “certain” dramatic work of Tourneur.

Tourneur was also associated with various members of the Cecil family and left an unpublished MS with an intriguing title, The Character of Robert, Earl of Salisburye, Lord High Treasurer of England, "ritten by Mr Sevill Tumour." The text was discovered within a larger MS in possession of one Lord Mostyn and is descibed in Hist. MSS. Commission, 4th Report, appendix, p. 361. I haven’t seen this work, but I would like to. Usually books called “The character of…” are filled with personal details, scandals, dirt, etc., not easily found elsewhere.

Cyril Tourneur’s association with both the Vere family and the Cecil family, and his emergence as an imitator of Shakespeare, gives me pause to consider that he might have known the inside story --- the one we are now trying to reconstruct.

The 1609 elegy to Francis Vere begins with a one-page dedication. It is ambiguously written and may be designed to honor Francis, or his nephew, Henry, the 18th Earl of Oxford, or the 1604-deceased 17th Earl of Oxford. This dedication has never been discussed before, not by Miller, the Ogburns, Chiljan, or myself in previous articles. The principal source for finding and identifying dedications is the book, Index of dedications and commendatory verses in English books before 1641‎, by Franklin B. Williams, 1962. In that book, Williams lists this opening dedication in Tourneur’s 1609 elegy as pertaining to Henry, 18th Earl of Oxford. My thinking at the moment is that while Henry is probably the obscure but overt dedicatee, his father, Edward de Vere (17th Earl) is, in fact, the covert dedicatee. Let’s read the text:

DEDICATED TO HIS
LIVING MEMORIE;
WHICH ASCENDS

TO THE INHERENT
HONOVR OF THE HEROYQVE
HOPE OF NOBILITIE, THE
EARLE OF OXFORD, &c.

FROM WHOSE NOBLE-FAMILIE,
THIS IMMORTALL WOR-
THIE, HATH THE HO-
NOVR TO BE
Descended.

In most other works, when a book is dedicated to a known, living nobleman, that man’s name and titles are delineated explicitly. Thus, the only path to reading this as pertaining to Henry (born February 23, 1593, and therefore age 16 in October 1609) would lie in the words, “…which ascends to the inherent honour of the heroyque hope of nobilitie, the Earl of Oxford, etc.”

But one can read this another way. In the first section, “Dedicated to his living memorie which ascends to…” would seem to refer to the recently deceased Sir Francis. But how does the living memory of Francis ascend to his nephew? Francis is honored in section three with, “this immortall worthie,” descended from the same noble family. I propose that section one honors Edward, 17th Earl, section two honors Henry 18th Earl, and section three (and the poem that follows) honors the soldier, Sir Francis.

Next consider the layout of the dedication. There are three sections, each in the shape of a “V” or inverted triangle. This is the exact same shape as the famous dedication to the 1609 Sonnets. The number of lines in each triangle differs. In the Sonnets, the sequence is the famous 6, 2, 4. Here we have 3, 4, 5. Add ‘em up. Each dedication has twelve lines! Is it possible that Tourneur is drawing readers’ attentions to a similarity? Consider that the typesetter has gone out of his way to stretch the last section into five lines and has played with the justification of letters (kerning) to create the three triangles.

There are also some lines in the elegy where Tourneur seems to be thinking of Edward de Vere’s poems, and his legacy:

“His Minde was like an Empire, rich and strong,
In all defensive pow'r against the wrong,
That civill tumult or invasive Hate Might
raise against the peace of her estate.”

“In all his gestures and his Countenance,
He did so pleasing a consent expresse
Of Noble Courage, and free Cherefulnesse;
That his assurance had the pow'r to raise
The most deiected spirit into praise
And imitation of his worth. And thus,
By meanes Heroique and iudicious,
He did incline his armies gen'rous part
With love unto the practise of Desart.
And in that moouing Orbe of active warre;
His high command was the transcendent Starre,
Whose influence, for production of mens worthes,
Did gouerne at their militarie Birthes”

“Offences done against his owne estate,
(Which alwayes doth more strongly aggravate
The weight of iniurie to private sense,
Then publique apprehension of offence;
And stirres mens passions more;) have oftentimes
Subduc'd the Malefactors for those crimes,
Into the hands of lustice: where he might
With approbation and consent of right…”

“Upon the instant of his waking, hee
Did with such life, and quicke dexteritie,
His troupes direct; the seruice execute;
As practis'd Printers, Sett and Distribute
Their Letters: And more perfectly effected;
For what he did, was not to be corrected.”

“His praise may iustly (then) extend thus farre;
Hee was a Man, fit both for Peace and Warre.
Whose Monument, while Historie doth last;
Shall neuer be forgotten or defac'd.
Cyril Tourneur.”

These lines are all in elegiac praise of Francis, but one cannot escape the feeling that Cyril Tourneur was talking about the loss of two Veres, one in 1604, and one in 1609.

Henry Hudson 'discovers' Manhattan Island

2009-10-02T13:16:00.008-04:00

Henry Hudson (1565-1611), the famed English explorer with the Dutch East India Company, was on a mission to find a Northwest Passage to the Far East in 1609. The river that now bears his name had been found earlier, by Giovanni da Verrazano in 1524.

In 1609, Hudson and company founded a settlement at the harbor at the mouth of the river. Hudson recorded a name for the island, “Manna-Hata,” on his map. Various derivations of this name have been offered. One is that Manna-hata is Lenape for "many-hilled land." [Manah= "island" / Atin= "hill.") However, the native Lenape and Delaware Indians often gave a different (some argue incorrect) account of the name, calling the island “Manahachtanienk,” meaning "the island where we all got drunk." A legend has it that their encounter with Hudson was the first time they tasted alcohol and they all got completely plastered, as do many modern-day inhabitants of the isle.

Pictured below is a commemorative coin, issued just this year, by the Dutch Royal Mint in honor of the 400th anniversary of Hudson's contact. The front of the new 5 euro coin shows lower Manhattan. The inscription reads:

The Half Moon, 2 October, 1609
It Is On That Side Of The River That Is Called Manna-Hata

Concerning the date

Other accounts of Henry Hudson's landing at Manhattan give various dates in September 1609. I have gone with the date featured on the Dutch coin. The problem, as always, is the disparity between the Julian and Gregorian calendars. England did not adopt the new system in 1582. Parts of the Netherlands (Catholic controlled) did adopt the system that year, while Protestant areas kept the Julian calendar, as did the British, until the 18th century. Because Englishman Hudson's voyage was a Dutch enterprise there are multiple sets of dates in the various histories of his voyages.

Below, an image of Hudson on the river between upper Manhattan and the Pallisades.

Elizabeth de Vere Stanley, Countess Derby, and the Isle of Man

2009-09-15T17:24:00.003-04:00

Elizabeth de Vere was the eldest child of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, and his wife, Anne Cecil.

There was considerable doubt in Oxford’s mind as to whether he had really fathered the girl; she was born (July 2, 1575; christened July 10) while he was overseas… and he did not feel the math added up correctly for his role in her conception. Nevertheless, Oxford did come to accept her, and the three surviving daughters he had with Anne (Elizabeth, Susan and Bridget, all granddaughters of England’s Lord Treasurer Burghley) all married well (i.e., to wealthy aristocrats).

Elizabeth married Wiliam Stanley, the 6th Earl of Derby in January, 1594/5, at the Royal Court at Greenwich. There is some thought, even in orthodox Shakespeare theory, that Midsummer Night’s Dream was written for this ceremony and first performed on that occasion.

This page at the British Library mentions the Derby wedding theory (without mentioning that the bride’s father might very well have written the play).

The purpose of playing : Shakespeare and the cultural politics of the Elizabethan theatre by Louis Adrian Montrose, 1996 has a representative entry.

Mark Anderson’s Beauty and the Paradigm goes into more detail about why the Vere-Stanley 1595 wedding is a good candidate for the theme of MND.

The Stanley – Derbys were the hereditary “owners” and rulers of the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. However, due to the suspicious death of Ferdinando Stanley in April 1594, Not only was William Stanley’s inheritance in question, but the rulership of Man was brought into dispute. Elizabeth Vere eventually took on many administrative roles appertaining to the Isle, and as early as 1609 we have her attempting to influence business on behalf of the Island. What’s interesting is that at exactly this time (1609) the normative management and power of the Isle of Man had completely slipped it’s moorings.

This list is instructive:

LORDS OF THE ISLE OF MAN c 1570 - 1627
*Oct. 24, 1572 - Sep. 25, 1593 -- Sir Henry Stanley, Earl of Derby (1531-1593)  
* Sep. 25, 1593 - Apr. 16, 1594 --Ferdinando Stanley, Earl of Derby (1559-1594)  
* Apr. 16, 1594 – 1607 -- Vacant; disputed by daughters of Ferdinando  
* 1607 - 1608 Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, (1540-1614)  
* 1608 - 1609 Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury (1563-1612)  
* Jul. 7, 1609 - 1627 William IV Stanley, Earl of Derby (c.1561-1642)  
* 1612 - 1627 Elizabeth, Countess of Derby (1575-1627)   (government admin)  
* Mar. 10, 1627 - Oct. 15, 1651 James I Stanley, Baron Strange (1607-1651)  
(from 1642, Earl of Derby)  (from Sep. 1651, in rebellion)

Here is Countess Derby’s September 15, 1609, letter to Robert Cecil regarding the Isle of Man.

The Countess of Derby to the Earl of Salisbury and the Earl of Suffolk 1609, Sept. 15.

I have made choice of John Ireland, esq, your Lordships' lieutenant and captain of the Isle of Man, for the receiving of all moneys henceforth due upon the foot of the accounts of officers there, and to cause the same to be transported to Liverpole for my use. The doing thereof may sometimes prove dangerous by means of piracy or wreck, and I hold it not convenient the loss should be charged upon him. I pray your Lordships by your letters will be pleased to undertake the saving of him harmless from such casualty and danger, so as the same happen not through his own negligence. I hereby promise to discharge your Lordships from all loss that may grow to you by such undertaking. From the Stronde, the 15th day of September, 1609.

Signed: 'Your lordshipes moost loving nece and cosin, E.Derbye.'

Endorsed "Countess of Derby's undertaking to save my Lord and Lord Chamberlain harmless for the warrant they have given the Lieutenant of the Isle of Man for transportation of money from thence.'

Note, in the list above the letter, that Countess Derby was the Lord of Man from 1612 to 1627. This is probably the only recorded time in Manx history that a woman was the “ruler” of Mnax affairs. Elizabeth de Vere Stanley, Countess Derby, died in 1627 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

John Ireland (mentioned in the letter) was Governor of Isle of Man 1609 - 1623.

The Earl of Suffolk in 1609 was Thomas Howard 1st Earl of Suffolk (fourth and final creation). This Thomas Howard (seen below) was Admiral and a Knight of the Garter. He achieved political prominence in the Jacobean era. At first, King James favored him, making Suffolk his Lord Chamberlain immediately in April 1603. Later, James distrusted him, calling Howard/Suffolk, along with Cecil/Salisbury and Howard/Northampton his “trinity of knaves.”

The above Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk was the son of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk (pictured below), who was imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth in 1569 for scheming to marry Mary Queen of Scots. Next he was involved in the related Ridolfi plot, sent to the Tower, and executed for Treason in 1572. The doomed Norfolk followed in his father’s footsteps. His parents were Henry Howard the poetical Earl of Surrey and his wife, Frances de Vere.

So the 1609 Earl of Suffolk in question was a close cousin to Edward de Vere 17th Earl of Oxford, and an uncle or “cousin” to Elizabeth Vere.

Sir Francis Vere dies in London

2009-08-28T00:01:00.005-04:00

Sir Francis Vere (1560-1609) was a notable military officer who served for years leading English troops in the Netherlands in battles against the Spaniards. Sir Francis died in London on August 28, 1609. Born in Essex to a cadet branch of the Vere family, Francis was first cousin to Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.

While not a lot is known of Francis' childhood or early years, we know from documents that he traveled to Paris with another young Vere, on behalf of Edward de Vere. A letter from the English ambassador noted the two teenage Veres at Court in the summer of 1577, volunteering to fight in the religious wars. In Francis' journal, written many years later, he recalls that he served the Duke of Guise -- on the Catholic side ! -- until he was called in by command of Queen Elizabeth and persuaded to change his ways. Thereafter, Francis fought only for the Protestant armies. Francis' brother, Sir Horatio Vere, was the much more religious of the two. By all accounts, Horatio and his wife and family were ardent Calvinists. Francis wanted military glory and to be on the right side and the winning side. Around 1580 he traveled to Eastern Europe, visiting Poland, a rare adventure at the time.

Francis fist served in the Netherlands as a mercenary in 1581-'82. He is first noted under the command of the Earl of Leicester's forces in 1585 and was active in many skirmishes and battles after that. He showed courage and valor at the siege of Sluys where he served under Sir Roger Williams (1540-1595), the Welsh warrior who was also a friend to Edward de Vere. Williams has also been suggested as the likely model for the character of Fluellen, the Welsh soldier in Shakespeare's Henry V. How do we know that Oxford knew Sir Roger Williams? There’s a letter by Sir Francis Vere to Sir Robert Cecil of November, 160,5 in which he writes:

"I received the enclosed from Thomas Morgan this morning by an Englishman, a stranger to me, but as he says well known to Sir William Waad. It was delivered to him by Sir Robert Dormer. The contents are strange to me, for I never borrowed money of him, nor to my remembrance spake with him; but such a man I saw when I was very young at Paris, by reason of the company I kept with Sir Roger Williams and one Denys a Frenchman, followers of my Lord of Oxford's, to whom he sometimes resorted."

Francis Vere fought at Bergen op Zoom in 1588, where he was knighted on the battlefield by Peregrine Bertie, the 13th Lord Willoughby, who was Edward de Vere’s brother-in-law (by marriage to his sister, Mary). Sir Francis sailed with the Cadiz "mission" of the Earl of Essex' in 1596. In 1598 he negotiated on behalf of England with the Dutch to get them to provide more money materiel and men to the war against Spain being fought on their land. Vere's achievement with the Dutch led to him achieving the rank of general and became Governor of Brill.

Vere's moment of greatest military triumph came at the Battle of Neuport in July 1600. General Vere and his associates trounced the best of the Spanish armies. When Spain retaliated against Ostend in 1601-02, Vere bravely defended the city.

In 1604 King James' commission drafted a treaty of peace with the Spanish Empire. This was a marvelous breath of air in the international struggles --- but it shortly left Sir Francis Vere with nothing to do. There were negotiations to have him stay on in governance in the Netherlands, but there was a power struggle. As it worked out, the Dutch and English worked out a severance package to General Francis Vere of £300 per year, for life.

Thus, Sir Francis finally returned to England for good, wrote his military memoirs, and settled into several houses. Aching for more useful work, Sir Francis got himself appointed as Governor of Portsmouth. The years of naval warfare had severely run down England's coastal defenses and strongholds. With active warfare itself abated, much money formerly wasted on bloodshed could now be flowed into military and defense infrastructure spending at home. Vere's mission was to rebuild Portsmouth, a task he threw himself into wholeheartedly. And then, out of the blue, Sir Francis fell in love with a girl --- and got married to the very young Elizabeth Dent, step-daughter to Sir Julius Caesar, the jurist, a close friend to Sir Francis. Caesar opened his purse wide and paid for an elaborate wedding, held October 26, 1607. Elizabeth came with a dowry of £2,000. She was 16. General Vere was three times her age. The "age" issue will be treated below, but in 1607 Sir Francis was at least 47 and perhaps as old as 52! Their married bliss must have comforted the old soldier. But less than two years later, Sir Francis died rather suddenly, on August 28, 1609. Sir Francis was buried the next day. Over the next few years, his young widow arranged for a monument to Sir Francis to be designed and erected in Westminster Abbey where it stands today, in the chapel of St John the Evangelist, on the eastern side of the north transept. The alabaster and black marble monument shows Sir Francis lying recumbent wearing the clothes of a civilian magistrate. This likeness lies underneath a black-marble bier on which his suit of armour is arranged, in pieces: "a helmet with plumes, breastplate, a shield with eight quarterings, pouldrons, vantbraces, gauntlets, taces, and spurs, all carved in white marble." Sir Francis' feet are resting on a wild boar, the crest of the de Vere family. This bier is carried on the shoulders of four life-sized knights in armour seen kneeling at the four corners. The Latin inscription reads, around the outer edge, in gold lettering:

"Francisco Vero equiti aurato, Galfredi F. Joannis Comitis Oxoniae nepoti, Brieliae et Portsmuthae praefecto, Anglicarum copiarum in Belgia ductori summo. Elizabetha uxor vero charissima, quocum conjunxissime vixit, hoc supremum amicis et fidei conjugatis monumentum maestissima, et cum lacrymis gemens posuit. Obiit xxviii Die Augusti anno salutis MDCVIIII et anno aetatis suae LIIII."

I have translated this anew as it has never been done properly before.

To Francis Vere, Knight, son of Geoffrey and grandson of John [15th] Earl of Oxford, Governor of Brill and Portsmouth, chief leader of the English forces in Belgium. Elizabeth, his true beloved wife, with whom he lived, has in great sadness and sobbing with tears, placed this supreme monument to conjugal faith and love. He died 28 August, in the year of our savior 1609, and in the 54th year of his age.

According to The Fighting Veres, the age of Sir Francis, as recorded here, is incorrect. If born in 1560, he was 49 at death. Apparently his own letters suggest he was born in 1560 as does a document in the College of Heralds. The above mentioned annuity from service in the Dutch wars was not lost. The £300 annual payment continued to Henry de Vere, 18th Earl of Oxford (heir of Earl Edward). In addition to the monument inscription there is an additional inscription adjacent to the display:

"When Vere sought death, aim'd with his sword and shield,
Death was afraid to meet him in the field;
But when his weapons he had laid aside,
Death, like a coward, strooke him, and he died."

“Egyptians” (Gypsies) Banished from Scotland

2009-08-01T15:32:00.001-04:00

The Gypsies or Romani people were spread widely throughout Europe by the 17th century. They were first noted in the British Isles in the 1500s. As with Jews, the Gypsies were feared, persecuted, and exiled. Scotland and Ireland, being among the westernmost outposts of Europe, have often served the same frontier function that, by analogy, California or Alaska have provided for Americans. Go west to seek freedom. On August 1, 1609, by Scots law, Gypsies were banned from Scotland.

The name or descriptive, “Gypsies,” as such, and linked to "Egyptians" (their imagined origin), appear several times in the Shakespeare plays.

Antony & Cleopatra
ANTONY ….Betray'd I am.
O this false soul of Egypt! this grave charm-
Whose eye beck'd forth my wars and call'd them home,
Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end-
Like a right gypsy hath at fast and loose
Beguil'd me to the very heart of loss.
What, Eros, Eros!

PHILO. ….His captain's heart, Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst
The buckles on his breast, reneges all temper,
And is become the bellows and the fan To cool a gipsy's lust.

Romeo & Juliet
Ben. Here comes Romeo! here comes Romeo!
Mer. Without his roe, like a dried herring.
O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified!
Now is he for the numbers that Petrarch flowed in.
Laura, to his lady, was but a kitchen wench
(marry, she had a better love to berhyme her),
Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra a gypsy,
Helen and Hero hildings and harlots...

As early as 1541, the Scots King James V (grandfather of James Stuart VI / I) issued an order evicting all gypsies from Scotland. However, After the elder James died in 1542, the gypsies started returning en masse to Scotland, led by their putative ‘king,’ one John Faw, “Lord and Earl of Upper Egypt.” There are several popular ballads extant - usually called “The Gypsy Laddie" - which give memory to the gypsy king, Faw.

After the younger James ascended to the throne of Scotland in 1567, an act was passed against ‘the idle people calling themselves Egyptians,” with regular renewals from 1592-1603. This final act, concerning the ‘Egyptians’ became law on August 1, 1609, demanding that all gypsies leave Scotland, never to return on pain of death. After August 1, 1609, any of the King’s subjects could, ‘take, apprehend, imprison and execute to death the said Egyptians, either men or women, as common, notorious and condemned thieves’.    Most gypsies fled Scotland. Others assimilated. In subsequent decades gypsies who were found in Scotland were forcibly emigrated to colonies in Virginia, Jamaica and Barbados.

Ignatius of Loyola Beatified

2009-07-27T16:38:00.002-04:00

Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556)

Ignatius Loyola was a prime mover in the Catholic counter-reformation, the Vatican's formal strategic reaction to the Lutheran-originated reformation of the church. Loyola was the main founder and first superior general of his religious order, the Society of Jesus, also called the Jesuits.

Ignatius was beatified by Pope Paul V on July 27, 1609, and canonized (made a Saint) by Pope Gregory XV on March 13, 1622. These dates are on the Gregorian Calendar and would have been ten days out of sync with England’s calendar at the time.

Loyola is revered by many as a pious man of god. Perhaps there are just as many who despised him as a fanatical gatekeeper of ideology and dogma, a cold persecutor of religious dissenters, philosophers, Latina wise women, and anyone who may have bumped into things that go bump in the night. Loyola, himself harassed by the Spanish Inquisition, created in the Jesuits a vast intelligence operation that served as a model for modern intelligence services. In fact, many of the famous operatives in 20th-century military intelligence were directly influenced by Jesuit education.

In England, the fear of Jesuit plots drove Elizabeth I bonkers, and James I was also a frequent Jesuit target. (Note previous post.)

RSB

Thomas Harriot Views Moon Through Telescope

2009-07-26T16:07:00.000-04:00

Thomas Harriot (1560-1621) was the significant catalyst of science in the English Renaissance. Harriot was a hands-on scientist where Bacon was mostly lofting thought balloons of theory and ideology.

It is Harriot, not Galileo, who gets the credit (proven by documents) as the first person to look at a celestial object through a telescope. Harriot studied our Moon a few months before the more famous Italian did. Harriot first aimed his Dutch-made telescope at the Moon on July 26th, 1609, and sketched his findings. The July 26 sketch is pictured below.

Thomas Harriot’s historic lunar sketch, dated July 26, 1609, shows the terminator line marking the boundary between day and night on the moon that day. The dark areas show Mare Crisium, Mare Tranquilitatis, and Mare Foecunditatis.

Harriot received his BA at Oxford in 1580, then taught mathematics. He accompanied Raleigh on the first Virginia expedition and was a resident of the famous Roanoke Colony. While Harriot’s associates often got in trouble and ended up in the Tower --- or dead (Raleigh, Earl of Northumberland, Marlowe), Harriot managed to stay out of trouble. Perhaps because Harriot remained both low-key and well-off, his story has been eclipsed by the more dramatic tales of persecuted Galileo and martyred Bruno.

Thomas Harriot's map of the whole Moon circa 1610.

Earl of Worcester writes to Lord Treasurer Cecil

2009-07-24T16:40:00.001-04:00

E. Somerset, 4th Earl of Worcester

Edward Somerset, 4th Earl of Worcester (c.1568–1628) was an influential aristocrat and office holder in the reigns of both Elizabeth I and James I. Worcester was made Knight of the Garter in 1593. See Garter Knights roster here. Worcester was one of the investigators of the Earl of Essex after the failed rebellion of 1601. Elizabeth then favored him with Essex’ former position: Master of the Horse. The Stuart king appointed Worcester Keeper of the Great Park and, eventually, Lord Privy Seal.

In June 1603 Worcester was nominated custos rotulorum (keeper of the rolls) for Monmouthshire. In the 16th century this was the highest position within each county.
In Shakespeare’s play, The Merry Wives of Windsor, at Act I, sc. 1, Slender jokes about Shallow being a “ratolorum.’

SHALLOW: Ay, cousin Slender, and Custalorum.
SLENDER: Ay, and Ratolorum too.

On September 5, 1604, in spite of his personal preference for the Roman Catholic faith, Worcester was given a seat on a royal commission for the expulsion of the Jesuits; later he examined the conspirators of the "Gunpowder plot" in the Tower.

Edward Somerset became a patron of drama; in 1601, Worcester’s Men had comedian Will Kempe in its ranks. Worcester’s Men combined with the Earl of Oxford’s Men in 1602 and, due to Oxford’s successful petition. they were able to play the Boars Head Theatre. John Heywood’s controversial pamphlet, An apology for actors of 1612, was dedicated to Worcester.

Worcester’s letter to Cecil of July 24, 1609. is an interesting window into the times.

He discusses King James' annoyance at the slowness of letter carriers.
He discusses the interrogation of Mr. Strange, an accused Jesuit and Papist.
He relates the story of a stable fire that killed royal horse, and worried it might have been a Jesuit plot.
He calms down Robert Cecil, who was apparently upset at being called a fool... and worse.

The Earl of Worcester to the Lord Treasurer, July 24, 1609

"Your letter I received this day, being Tuesday, at 2 in the afternoon, whereby I found great laziness in the posts. The King was very inquisitive all the morning what might be the cause, examining the hours and miles, concluding it could be no other but the post was 'sonke.' I showed him your letter, wherewith he was well satisfied, saying there needed no dispatch. Not long after he would needs have me write concerning the examination of Strange, that you might be thoroughly resolved by his learned counsel of the state of that cause against your coming to Salisbury. His desire, as you know, is that he might be proceeded with not substantially, mentioning his priesthood or Jesuitical profession, but finding by his confession main points of treason to be his declared opinion; beside his flying from a direct answer to the interrogatories argues his treasonable heart. For example, at the first examination before the Lords, he confessed the King being excommunicated by the Pope, that it was lawful or at least a happiness for any that could light upon him to kill him. Being put from that by the grossness of his argument, he said it was the common opinion, but he would not be the doer of it. Now being urged to declare his opinion, he believes as the Church does; but being demanded what the Church holds in that point, he does not remember: which forcibly must needs be concluded that he thinks the Church holds so, and he is of the same mind, which no jury in the world will doubt to avow him a traitor. This proceeding of the Jesuit he merrily alludes to Peter's thrice denial of Christ, for three times he has refused directly to deliver his opinion, as bound in duty to his Sovereign. For the Venetian's cause he will make no judgment until he be advertised what success the confronting will produce: I mean of the priest and Dabscat.

Yesternight the King's stable fell on fire by negligence of a candle set on a post, which fell into the litter and burned the stable, 20 or 30 horse being in the stable. There miscarried but 4, and but 2 of them burnt to death, the other 2 unlike to recover. If our coach horses had miscarried, which were in the same place, we had made a short progress. I waited on the King as my duty was. He lost a pad horse, I lost another; he one hunting horse, I another; all our saddles both his and mine burnt, and the Queen's coach harness. While this tragedy was acting, it was a world to hear the report here. Some said it was a new Powder treason. An Englishman said a Scottish man was seen there with a link and he fired the stable. Some other said it was a device to set the stable on fire to draw all the guard and Court thither, that they might work some practice upon the King. But God be thanked, neither King, Queen or Prince slept the worse or even waked until the morning in due time.

One word more touching yourself. You take exceptions to be called 'fool,' and as it will be maintained, not only so but a parrot monger and a monkey monger and twenty other names; which fearing the issue of future inconvenience or challenge I will forbear to speak of any more."
Farnham, 24 July.

Letter from the Bishop of Limerick to the Earl of Salisbury (R. Cecil)

2009-07-22T13:13:00.003-04:00

Bernard Adams (1566-1625) held the position of Anglican Bishop of Limerick from 1604–1625. Educated at Trinity College, Adams was a scholar and a liberal churchman. At that time in Ireland, the official Anglican hierarchy was in competition with Catholic priests and bishops who were legion throughout Ireland. Adams' letter to Cecil, on July 22, 1609, gives a remarkably humorous insight into these conditions.

1609, July 22.
"How 'tranquillous' this country is, there [are] none but know and 'infinite' rejoice at it. What certainty may be expected of the continuance, seeing many buzzing bees, crawling out of the old beehive of treasonous conspiracies, swarm here about daily, your watchful eye can easiest discern. Yet the multitude and presumption of 'mistary' priests (who, more than ever was usual, exercise all papal jurisdiction as confidently as if Italy were in Ireland: prescribe frequent masses almost openly: insolent pilgrimages of many thousands in an assembly, and some of them armed: procure secret offerings for unknown uses: publish toleration by suggestion of warrant from his Highness: proclaim penny pardons for sundry years past and to come: proscribe his Majesty in printed pamphlets to be no Christian), are prologues, as wisest prognosticators here affirm, of some consequences, the catastrophe whereof may prove a tragedy. These things I write but out of my study, and with silence pass them over, as being a mere divine and no politician, assuring myself that whilst the religious pillars of commonwealth stand, Holy Church can never miscarry. Therefore, fearing that these suspicions by the 'understandinger' sages may be called needless carefulness, I only solicit the all-ruling power for continual peace, and for your prosperity as one of the chiefest stays of true religious maintenance and the safety of God's saints. Limerick, July 22, 1609."

Federico Zuccaro, court artist, dies July 20, 1609

2009-07-20T16:47:00.006-04:00

Federico Zuccaro (c.1543-1609), also spelled “Zuccari” and "Zucchero" was an Italian painter of the Mannerist school. Zuccaro got his training on various church projects throughout Italy. In 1574 he traveled to England, where he quickly earned commissions to paint the royalty and nobility of the Tudor Court. Of his proposed painting of Elizabeth I, we have only the sketch, seen below.

Zuccaro’s other commissions included Mary, Queen of Scots, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Francis Walsingham, and Lord Admiral Howard.

One of Zuccaro’s most interesting legacies is his “Allegory of Calumny,” a recreation of a lost painting by the Greek master, Apelles, based on a description of that lost work in Lucian.

Zucarro's Calumny allegory

Calumny is like slander; it is said that this work got Apelles in trouble, and in similar fashion, got Zuccaro exiled from Rome. There is also a 16th century engraving by Giorgio Ghisi of the Calumny of Apelles, and paintings by Mantegna and Boticelli. Apelles was the celebrated painter in ancient Greece. His painting of grapes was said to be so realistic that birds tried to eat the painted fruit. This anecdote is alluded to in Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis (601-606):

“Even so poor birds, deceived with painted grapes,
Do surfeit by the eye and pine the maw;
Even so she languisheth in her mishaps
As those poor birds that helpless berries saw.
The warm effects which she in him finds missing
She seeks to kindle with continual kissing.”

Roman satirist Lucian gave the only eyewitness description of Apelles’ Calumny, from which the Renaissance painters managed their recreations, though mediated through Alberti (Leon Battista Alberti “On Painting” 1435):

“Invention is praised when one reads the description of Calumny which Lucian recounts was painted by Apelles. I do not think it alien to our subject. I will narrate it here in order to point out to painters where they ought to be most aware and careful in their inventions. In this painting there was a man with very large ears. Near him, on either side, stood two women, one called Ignorance, the other Suspicion. Farther, on the other side, came Calumny, a woman who appeared most beautiful but seemed too rafty in the face. In her right hand she held a lighted torch, with the other hand she dragged by the hair a young man who held up his arms to heaven. There was also a man, pale, ugly, all filthy and with an iniquitous aspect, who could be compared to one who has become thin and feverish with long fatigues on the fields of battle; he was the guide of Calumny and was called Hatred. And there were two other women, serving women of Calumy who arranged her ornaments and robes. They were called Envy and Fraud. Behind these was Penitence, a woman dressed in funeral robes, who stood as if completely dejected. Behind her followed a young girl, shameful and modest, called Truth. If this story pleased as it was being told, think how much pleasure and delight there must have been in seeing it painted by the hand of Apelles. [Alberti, On painting, Book 3]

The donkey-man is often described elsewhere as King Midas. This theme, Apelles allegory of calumny, was most famously painted by Botticelli, though only he portrays Envy, Malice, and Deceit as women.

An essay by modern author, Richard Dutton, “The Comedy of Errors and The Calumny of Apelles: An Exercise in Source” argues that the allegory of calumny as transmitted from Apelles, to Lucian, to-Alberti, to Boticelli, Zuccaro, and others, served as inspiration for the plot of Comedy of Errors.

The main point is that the ruler or judge is so overcome with bad information that his ears have grown ridiculously long. Slander is the enemy of Truth.

Federico Zuccaro, court artist, died July 20, 1609.
(Note, this date is by the Continental or Catholic Gregorian calendar, then 10 days out of sync with the British who were still using the Julian.)

Castle Hedingham and Countess Oxford in 1609

2009-07-08T14:14:00.009-04:00

Castle Hedingham in county Essex was the ancestral home of the de Vere family. It is the best-preserved Norman-era moated castle in Europe. The keep was built in the 12th century by Aubrey De Vere II.

Edward de Vere (1550-1604) was born there and spent a portion of his childhood in and around the imposing castle and estate.

In the 1580s-1590s a series of transactions saw the ownership of the castle and grounds leave the hands of the Earl of Oxford: first, in trust to the Queen, then to William Cecil, Lord Burghley, on behalf of Oxford’s three daughters by Anne Cecil: Elizabeth, Susan, and Bridget de Vere.

On July 8, 1609, Countess Elizabeth Trentham Oxford, the 17th Earl’s widow, signed papers that brought Castle Hedingham back into the family.

But first, some background:

1587, July 3: Oxford grants Castle Hedingham to the Queen with the stipulation that Elizabeth re-grant it to him and his three daughters; Oxford entered into a bond of £4000.

1587, October 6: a follow-up document records Oxford’s transfer of clear title to Castle Hedingham to the Queen.

1588, March 8: letter from Lord Burghley authorizing Castle Hedingham to be brought “by extant” into the Queen’s possession to save it from ‘utter spoil’.

1591, November 25: Oxford transfers clear title to Hedingham and the manors of Hedingham, Shetleford, and Parkes to Lord Burghley and his heirs by fine.

1591, December 2: authorization for Oxford to alienate the manors of Castle Hedingham and Gosfield to Lord Burghley and to Oxford's three daughters Elizabeth, Bridget, and Susan Vere.

1592, April 12: Oxford and his second wife, Elizabeth Trentham, transfer clear title to the manors of Castle Hedingham and Gosfield to Lord Burghley and his heirs and to Oxford's three daughters Elizabeth, Bridget, and Susan.

More detail about these transactions can be found on Nina Green’s website.

After 1592 the paper trail goes cold for some 17 years. At the time of this writing it is not clear to me who, if anyone, resided at Hedingham in the 1590s and the first decade of the 1600s. In 1609 we have records that indicate that Countess Elizabeth Trentham Oxford was endeavoring to purchase back the castle and manors of Hedingham on behalf of her son, Henry, the 18th Earl of Oxford.

A document from 1609 (no precise date) describes a private act of Parliament (HL/PO/PB/1/1609/7J1n33) allowing the sale of the manor of Bretts to help finance Elizabeth Trentham’s apparent 1609 repurchase of Castle Hedingham. (Essex Record Office D/DRg 2/39):

Anno 7 Regni Jacobi An Act for the sale of the manor of Bretts and farm of Playstowe in the county of Essex, parcel of the possessions of Henry, Earl of Oxenford, towards the repurchasing of the castle, manor, & parks of Hedingham in the same county, being the ancient inheritance and chief mansion-house of the Earls of Oxenford.
Document transcription (pdf file) by Nina Green.

However, there seems to have been an objection to this deal. From the Calendar of State Papers Domestic: James I, 1603-1610:

1609 - June 24. Eston Lodge. Sir Hen. Maynard to Salisbury. Trusts he will not disapprove of his not yielding to the Countess of Oxford's desire in the business of Herringham, though the young Earl, Mr. Trentham, his uncle, and the Countess herself, earnestly pressed his giving up the bargain. Web source here.

By “Herringham” is meant Hedingham. The “young Earl” refers to Henry, the 18th earl of Oxford (age 16). "Mr. Trentham" is Francis Trentham, Countess Elizabeth’s brother. On the face of it, this note appears to indicate that Henry Maynard was trying to squash the proposed deal.

Who was Sir Henry Maynard? Sir Henry Maynard (1547-1610), an English politician and bureaucrat, was secretary to Lord Treasurer Burghley. By virtue of his position he was able to take advantage of troubled assets and gradually became a major landowner, especially in Essexshire. He also developed a reputation as a moneylender (see An Elizabethan: Sir Horatio Palavicino - by Lawrence Stone.) Maynard also served terms as MP for St. Albans in the parliaments of 1586, 1588, 1592 and 1597. In 1603 Maynard was High Sheriff of Essex and was knighted by Elizabeth’s. In July 1603, James I appointed Maynard as Deputy Lieutenant for Essex.

What and where is Eston Lodge? Eston Lodge is now called Easton Lodge, near Great Dunmow, Essex, only a few miles from Castle Hedingham. Sometime around 1590, Elizabeth I granted the 10,000 acre Manor of Estaines to Henry Maynard as a reward for his duties as Private Secretary to the Lord Treasurer. Maynard demolished an existing hunting lodge and constructed a vast, “H”-shaped mansion. In 1847, almost the entire Elizabethan part of the mansion was destroyed by fire. The property was rebuilt and is now a tourist destination.

Maynard wrote his will on August 20, 1609. He died in 1610 and was buried at Little Easton, Essex. His epitaph in Little Easton Church reads: “Here resteth, in assured hope to rise in Christ, Henry Maynard, Knight, descended of the ancient family of Maynard, in the county of Devon; and Dame Susan, his wife, daughter and one of the coheirs of Thomas Pierson, Esq. to whom she bear eight sonnes and two daughters. He ended this life the 11th of May, 1610; his lady, six sonnes, and two daughters then living.”

Thanks to research (conducted independently) by Jeremy Crick and Christopher Paul, I learned that an additional detail of the Hedingham saga is found in Philip Morant's The History and Antiquities of the County of Essex (1763-68). I looked at Morant’s History and have transcribed the full passage, presented here on the web for the first time:

“For Edward, the 17th Earl of Oxford, having taken to his second wife Elizabeth daughter of Thomas Trentham of that place, Esq; her brother Francis Trentham Esq; advanced ten thousand pounds to clear incumbrances on the Oxford Estates. In consideration whereof, 8 July 1609, by deed inrolled, and recovery suffered pursuant thereto, the three daughters of the said Earl Edward, by his first wife, with their husbands, William Earl of Derby, Francis Lord Norris, and Philip Earl of Montgomery, by the appointment of the forementioned Elizabeth Vere Countess dowager of Oxford, conveyed the Honour of Castle Hedingham to her for life, remainder to her son Henry Earl of Oxford for his life, and to his sons in taile male; remainder to Trustees to perform contingent estates, remainder to Francis Trentham Esq. brother of the said Countess, and his heirs for ever.”
[From Philip Morant's ‘The History and Antiquities of the County of Essex (1763-68)]

It is not entirely clear what document Morant consulted for these details. Other documents do not support the notion that Francis Trentham paid out ten thousand pounds to clear Oxford’s incumbrances. However, the amounts that Francis Trentham did forward on behalf of his sister and brother in law do add up to significant sums, and perhaps the ten thousand is a fair aggregate amount.

Did the Countess move to Hedingham in 1609? Well, she did sell King’s Place (Hackney) in spring 1609 to Fulke Greville. But the little evidence we have suggests that the Countess continued living in London, at Cannon Row. The Countess’ letter to Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, Lord High Treasurer of England, and the Earl of Northampton, Lord Privy Seal, dated July 22, 1611, is signed by her:

"In the meantime myself for this and sundry other your honourable favours shall now and ever rest exceedingly bound unto your Lordships, and thus craving pardon for this my boldness I humbly take my leave from my house in Cannon Row this 22nd of July 1611. Your Lordships’ assured friend, Elizabeth Oxenford"

Canon Row, in the White Hall / Downing Street area of London, abuts Derby Gate. This, I think, was the location of the Derby House, home of the 6th Earl of Derby, William Stanley, and his wife, Elizabeth de Vere, daughter of Edward Earl of Oxford. Apparently the older Oxfords were comfortable staying with the next generation. Earl Edward penned a letter in 1596 from Canon Row, which ends:

"...Thus taking my leave from Cannon Row, this 6 of September, 1596...."

Confusing the issue is the larger "Cannon Street" (two "n's"), located further east, that is, indeed, the general location of London Stone and St Swithin where the Vere House in town was located on Candlewick Street. Yet, Oxford is said to have sold this house around 1588.

So while it is not completely clear where the Countess was living, she does say "Cannon Row," not Street, just as her husband did in 1596. It is simply a strong conjecture that she was living with the Stanley-Derbys.

If any readers can help with the following questions, please post a comment here or send me an e-mail.
Thanks,
Robert Sean Brazil – July 8, 2009

*Why did Henry Maynard try to squelch the Hedingham deal?

*What document served as Morant’s source?

*Who lived in Hedingham in the 1590s?

*Is there any evidence that Countess Oxford moved there in 1609 or at any time before her death? Some of the documents in this matter suggest that Hedingham in the 1590s was run down and unlivable. Other documents, however, suggest that the residence(s) were in shape for habitation. Is it possible that no one was living there because the estate was too far in disrepair to provide country comfort?

Old Folks Boogie in Herefordshire

2009-06-20T14:49:00.001-04:00

What do you get when a dozen octo-, nono-, and cento-genarian senior citizens of Hereford danced the Morris in June 1609? You get a marvelous cultural event more outrageous than the Nine-day Morris, though now almost completely forgotten.

Old Meg of Herefordshire for a Mayd Marian, and Hereford towne for a Morris-dance; or twelve Morris-dancers in Herefordshire of 1200 years old was registered at Stationers’ Hall on June 20, 1609.

The event had taken place that spring. Although the book was anonymous, one modern source states that the work was by Will Kemp, and a sequel of sorts to his Nine Daies Wonder of 1600.

The men dancing ranged in ages from 80 to 108, or so is claimed. The one woman, named Meg Goodwin, at 80 years old, danced the part of Maid Marian. See this page for images related to the Robin & Marian dance.

“But now give way for the Maide-marrian, old Meg Goodwin the famous wench of Erdisland, of whom Maister Weauer, of Burton that was fourescore &: ten yeares old, was wont to say, she was twentie yeares elder then he, and he dyed ten yeares since. This old Meg was at Prince Arthurs death at Ludlow, and had her part in the dole, she was threescore yeares (she saith) a Maide, and twentie yeares otherwise, thats what you will, and since hath beene thought fit to be a Maide-marrian. "

Read the full text of Old Meg here.

Curious Inscribed Slate of 1609 era Discovered at Jamestown in 2009

2009-06-18T12:07:00.012-04:00

On June 8, 2009, the National Geographic news service reported that archaeologists excavating a well in Jamestown, Virginia, have found an inscribed slate tablet dating back to around 1609. The slate is etched on both sides with caricatures of people, flora, and fauna, and features enigmatic words and numbers begging for decipherment. The slate measures approximately 5” x 8” inches.

The slate was uncovered down a well at James’ Fort. It is known that Captain John Smith dug a well for the settlement in 1609. By 1611 the well’s water went bad and settlers filled it in with trash. This slate was found below the level of general trash, and among a layer that includes early trade trinkets, so it may have been accidentally dropped in, or tossed in to evade discovery. The slate, now being studied closely, is perhaps the earliest known graffiti record of early English Colonists. (There are earlier inscribed stones in the Americas conventionally described as either native, or forgeries, but in some key instances, may be remnants of early arrivals on the continent by Norsemen, Vikings, Irish, Romans, Greeks, Carthaginians, and Chinese. See links below.)

The curious slate tablet is etched with the words:
"A MINON OF THE FINEST SORTE."
Above this sentence are the letters and numbers:
"EL NEV FSH HTLBMS 508," and strange symbols that have, so far, resisted interpretation.

"Minon" is, no doubt, intended as "minion" and can mean anything from "follower," to "sycophant," to "ass-kisser," which might make the slate a critique of a camp officer. Complicating that theory is the fact that minion also referred to a type of cannon (weapon) that was used at Jamestown. Rough sketches on the slate show several flower blossoms and birds that may be attempts to represent native eagles, songbirds, and owls.

A cartoon-like image of a settler smoking a pipe adds humor and a contemporary activity. An image of a palmetto tree, not native to Virginia at that time --- but widely seen in the Caribbean and more southern areas of North America --- is something a settler might have seen on the way to Jamestown, which often involved a loopy southern route. Another possibility is that the artist of the slate was one of the survivors of the Sea Venture shipwreck. The slate also has images of heraldic lions rampant, as seen in the Arms of England.

Archaeologists relate that slates such as these were used and reused, and while the pencil-like sketch’s surface materials are long gone, the scratches remain, and, as a result, the slate today carries multiple overlapping images. In books and manuscripts such an effect is called a palimpsest. The point is, we are not looking at a single message, but many records overlaid upon each other. The scientists studying the slate hope to use CT-scan technology to trace the layering and separate out the superimposed images via software.

By Robert Sean Brazil, June 18, 2009

PS- If you are interested in the idea that there may be evidence of Pre-Columbian visitors to the Americas see the following web-pages for starters:
http://epigraphyusa.com/
http://all-ez.com/epigraphy.htm
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/01/001stengel2.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Creek_inscription

Arabella Stuart's Letter to Shrewsbury

2009-06-17T16:36:00.006-04:00

Arabella Stuart (1575-1615), cousin of King James I of England, had also been considered a successor to Queen Elizabeth I, as she was also directly descended from Henry VII. In 1582 she became one of the wards of William Cecil, Lord Burghley. She was housed mostly in the care of the famous Bess of Hardwick, but she also must have been a familiar to fellow ward Henry Wriothesley (3rd Earl of Southampton, born 1573) at times.

After James’ succession there was a plot (The Main Plot), implicating Raleigh, to get rid of James and put Arabella on the throne. Arabella (sometimes spelled Arbella) was a prolific letter writer.

On June 17, 1609, she penned a curious letter to her uncle, the Earl of Shrewsbury. The holograph letter still exists, shown below. The Earl of Shrewsbury in question was George Talbot 7th Earl, son of George Talbot 6th Earl ((1528–1590) and his wife, Gertrude Manners, daughter of the 1st Earl of Rutland. The 7th Earl married Mary Cavendish, daughter of his stepmother, Bess of Hardwick who had become the 6th Earl’s second wife.

George Talbot 7th Earl of Shrewsbury

While of only minor historic importance, this letter has a few fascinating features. We see Arabella’s literary flair. “Idle lines” resonates with the sonnets of Thomas Watson and Shakespeare’s poetry. We see her wicked dry sense of humor at play as she compares herself to Pope Joan. And I find charming Arabella’s description of some sort of illusion show in which two virginals (small harpsichords) were seen and heard to play by themselves. Another contraption heated a glass invisibly.

To the right honorable my very good uncle the Earl of Shrowsbury,

"Because I know not that your lordship hath forsaken one recreation that you have liked heretofore, I presume to send you a few idle lines to read in your chair, after you have tired yourself either with affairs or any sport that bringeth weariness; and, knowing you well advertised of all occurrents in serious manner, I make it my end only to make you merry, and show my desire to please you even in playing the fool, for no folly is greater, I trow, than to laugh when one smarteth; but that my aunt's divinity can tell you St. Lawrence, deriding his tormentors even upon the gridiron, bade them turn him on the other side, for that he lay on was sufficiently broiled, I should not know how to excuse myself from either insensibleness or contempt of injuries. I find if one rob a house and build a church with the money the wronged party may go pipe in an ivy leaf for any redress ; for money so well bestowed must not be taken from that holy work, though the right owner go a-begging. Unto you it is given to understand parables or to command the comment ; but if you be of this opinion of the Scribes and Pharisees, I condemn your lordship, by your leave, for an heretic, by the authority of Pope Joan; for there is a text saith, you must not do evil that good may come thereof. But now from doctrine to miracles. I assure you within these few days I saw a pair of virginals make good music without help of any hand, but of one that did nothing but warm, not move, a glass some five or six feet from them. And if I thought thus great folk, invisibly and far off, work in matters to tune them as they please, I pray your lordship forgive me, and I hope God will, to whose holy protection I humbly recommend your lordship. From Broad Street, June 17, 1609.

in margin:

"I humbly pray your lordship to bestow two of the next good personnages of yours shall fall on me; not that I mean to convert them to my own benefit, for though I go rather for a good clerk than a worldly-wise woman, I aspire to no degree of Pope Joan, but some good ends, whereof this bearer will tell your lordship one. My boldness shows how honourably I believe of your disposing of such livings.
Your lordship's niece, "ARBELLA STUART."

Although her political ambitions were thwarted, Arabella successfully made a killing in commodities through monopolies granted by James. For a time she had rights to control imports of wine and spirits into Ireland, and sought the the grant for exclusive rights for licensing, brewing and selling beer in Ireland! Now that’s a profitable market!

Shakespeare v. Addenbrooke lawsuit ends in Stratford

2009-06-08T19:05:00.003-04:00

As previously mentioned here, Wiiliam Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon entered into a law case against John Addenbrooke on August 17, 1608. There are numerous surviving Stratford court documents for this case. Not much is known about Addenbrooke. Schoenbaum found a reference dated 1600 for an Addenbroke in Warwickshire who was selling starch licenses. [Which leads me to imagine the following interchange: ‘What are you doing there, ma’am?' – ‘Starching shirts, guvnah.’ – ‘Let me see your starch license!’]

In the June 7, 1609, final document of the case the name of the plaintiff is spelled, "Willielmus Shackspeare" and "Willielmo Shackspeare."

What happened is that Addenbrooke, a local tradesman, was sued by Shakespeare in the Stratford court of record to recover a debt of £6. It is not clear whether the six pounds was a straightforward loan or was tied to some prior business dealings.

On June 7, 1609, the case, now in its tenth month, reached a kind of conclusion. In earlier parts of the case, Addenbrooke was arrested and later released when the local blacksmithand alehouse-keeper, Thomas Hornby, stood “surety” (bondsman) for the defendant. Addenbrooke promptly disappeared from the face of the earth and now, on June 7, “Shackspeare” attempted to get Hornby to pay up. The court had found in favor of Shackspeare, awarding him the original £6, with 24 shillings added for damages. It is unknown whether Shackspeare ever collected from Hornby.

Of these proceedings Samuel Schoenbaum wrote (in A Documentary Life),

“His persistence may strike moderns as heartless, but the course Shakespeare followed was normal in an age without credit cards, overdrafts, or collection agencies.”

That’s true Sam, but was it normal for a man thought to be the nation’s leading playwright, who could have been making much more money in London, to spend ten months in the boondocks chasing £6 that turned out to be uncollectable?

Prinary Sources: Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Records Office, Misc. Doc. V, 116; Misc Doc V, 139; Misc Doc V, 127a; Misc Doc V, 127b; Misc Doc V, 115; MS. ER 27/6; MS. ER 27/7).

RSB

The Voyage and Wreck of The Sea Venture

2009-06-02T16:03:00.012-04:00

Model of the Sea Venture in Bermuda Maritime Museum

As I have outlined in previous installments, in the spring of 1609 news from the Jamestown Colony in Virginia was bleak. The colony needed more able-bodied workers, soldiers, food, supplies, and money. The Virginia Company council enlisted churchmen to give sermons on the necessity of colonial “outreach” and used contacts in the Stationers’ Guild to rush these sermons and other pro-Virginia propaganda to press. With hordes of new investors, and a sweeping re-chartering of the enterprise on May 23, 1609, the funds were in place to roll out the Third Supply mission, as it was formally named. Sea vessels were already under construction and now were rushed to completion.

The 1609 fleet comprised eight ships, of which the flagship was the Sea Venture, built by master shipwright, Christopher Newport. The three men in charge of the mission were Admiral Sir George Somers, Samuel Jordan, and Sir Thomas Gates. On board the ships were as many as 600 people. The Sea Venture is said to have been England’s first built-to-order emigration vessel…a tradition that climaxed in the industrial age when thousands of Scots and Irish were forcibly uprooted and relocated to Nova Scotia and other destinations. The Sea Venture displaced 300 tons and had an innovative new design that placed her 24 defensive cannons on the main deck. However, with all this high technology employed, the Sea Venture’s fate was similar to the ill-fated Titanic. Both vessels did not survive their maiden voyages.

The Sea Venture set sail from Plymouth on June 2, 1609, bound for Jamestown, Virginia. Everything was going smoothly until the flotilla ran into a monstrous hurricane. By July 24, the winds had driven the vessels apart from each other and it was each ship for herself. Because the Sea Venture was brand new, the caulking and joining was still loose and the great vessel began coming apart and leaking. They threw the heavy guns overboard. On July 25, with water in the hold rising fast, Admiral Somers spotted land and purposely drove the ship ashore. He wrecked his vessel but discovered Bermuda.

Bermuda's 1987 commemorative $5 coin shows wreck of the Sea Venture

About 150 survivors made it safely to shore, including Lieutenant-General Gates, Christopher Newport, Sylvester Jordain, and the voyage’s clerk, William Strachey. The shipwrecked band stayed on Bermuda (at first called the Somers Isles) for about nine months. Most of their time was spent disassembling what was left of the Sea Venture and using the salvaged rigging, hardware, and other materials -- along with cedar timber from the island -- to build two small ships, which they named the Deliverance and the Patience. The company also sent out one Henry Ravens and a crew in a small boat to try to find the way to Virginia. They were never heard from again. Thus begins the saga of the Bermuda Triangle. Mariners, Steer Clear!

On May 10, 1610, almost a year after setting out from England, the Sea Venture survivors boarded the Deliverance and the Patience and set a course to Virginia, arriving without complications on May 23, 1610. Quite a few Sea Venture colonists had died and were buried in Bermuda including the wife of John Rolfe. This unexpected widower-hood allowed him to woo and win the abducted Pocahontas a few years later. To maintain the Crown’s claim on Bermuda, two colonists were left behind to keep the fort.

National flag of Bermuda and close-up of the Bermuda arms, which show the wreck of the Sea Venture.

Arriving in Jamestown, the Virginia Company discovered that there were only about 60 survivors from the 500 who were crossing on the other ships of the fleet. Many of the original colonists had also died. The time was called the “Great Starving” and was the darkest period in Jamestown’s history. As the emigration of skilled workers was one of the prime reasons for the re-supply mission, this was nothing short of a second disaster. The officers decided the project and plantation was doomed for the moment. They decided to abandon the colony and ship all survivors back to London. So much for stiff upper lips and steely resolve.

But wait, just as the cowardly brigade was sailing down the James River for open seas, they encountered the relief mission of Governor Baron De La Warre! He talked sense into the scurrying scurvy lot, and all turned around back to Jamestown. Needing more fresh food, Admiral Somers volunteered himself to return to Bermuda on the Patience to secure more wild pig. However, Somers died in Bermuda in 1610.

The misadventures of the Sea Venture flotilla were documented by two of the participants, Sylvester Jordain, and William Strachey.

Sylvester Jordain's A Discovery of the Barmudas was printed in 1610. Title page below.

William Strachey’s account (in the form of a letter) wasn’t printed until 1625 (in Purchas his Pilgrimes. v.4. by Samuel Purchas, London, 1625). It is widely known and referenced as "A true reportory..."

It has been a commonplace in English literary criticism that Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest, was modeled on these accounts. If this were true, Shakespeare would have had to have seen Strachey’s report in manuscript. However, this common wisdom is almost certainly a falsity. A monumental error. The argument that Shakespeare used these texts would appear to rest on actual similarities between the historical accounts and the narrative in The Tempest.

Research published in the last ten years shows that these alleged parallels are false. Other, earlier books show stronger parallels, and that the likely existence of a staged version of The Tempest, circa 1600, or nine years before the wreck of the Sea Venture, makes such speculation moot.

Here are some web resources if you are interested in looking into this complex matter more closely.

Researcher Nina Green has published an excellent 94-page paper on the web (note- it’s in PDF format) rebutting the claims of Dave Kathman, who is a defender of the Strachey-influenced-Tempest theory. Nina’s argument is comprehensive and well referenced.
http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/Kathman/Kathmanrefutation.pdf

Dr. Roger Stritmatter and co-author Lynne Kositsky offered a fresh look on the Strachey claim in 2007: "Shakespeare and the Voyagers Revisited " Review of English Studies, 2007; 58: 447-472.

Stritmatter and Kositsky wrote another article, "Dating The Tempest: A Note on the Undocumented Influence of Erasmus' "Naufragium" and Richard Eden's 1555 Decades of the New World." This is on the web here: http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/virtualclassroom/tempest/kositsky-stritmatter%20Tempest%20Table.htm

And a summary by my colleague, Mark Anderson here:
http://shakespearebyanothername.blogspot.com/2008/03/tempest-was-written-before-1604.html

The standard view is found in Alden T. Vaughan:  William Strachey's "True Reportory" and Shakespeare: A Closer Look at the Evidence Shakespeare Quarterly - Shakespeare Quarterly, Volume 59, Number 3, Fall 2008

And, on the web, Dave Kathman's foaming diatribe:
http://www.shakespeareauthorship.com/tempest.html

In sum, the voyage and wreck of the Sea Venture was a momentous event in the history of America, of the emerging British Empire, and of the island of Bermuda. The one hero in the mix, De La Warre, became the namesake of the State of Delaware.

Robert Sean Brazil c. June 2, 2009

The Second Charter of the Virginia Company -- May 23, 1609

2009-05-23T18:33:00.004-04:00

The Virginia Company of London, also known as "The London Company," was formally established by James I's royal charter, granted April 10, 1606. The plan in 1606 was to fund voyages to establish, supply, and resupply colonial outposts in North America. and to seek return through agriculture export, trade, [plunder], and discovery of mineral riches. The main venture became the Jamestown Colony (founded May 24, 1607).

The first few years at Jamestown were extremely difficult. Attrition to disease and hardship was steady and there were no profits to speak of. But it was deemed a national necessity to not let the venture flounder. As we still hear today, some things are too important to allow to fail.

By the spring of 1609 a new scheme was evolved to emphasize the profit potential and draw in a large group of wealthy investors as well as merchant-class men with a few pounds to risk. The Second Virginia Charter of May 23, 1609, created a joint stock company -- a group-invested business enterprise. Apparently, the buy-in price in May 1609 was £12 10s per share. Funds were managed by Treasurer of the Virginia Company Sir Thomas Smith.

The Virgina Company was not alone in the new world. It was in direct competition with the Plymouth Company, which had similar goals and corresponding rights.

At that point in time "Virgina" extended from the 34th parallel -- Cape Fear [North Carolina] -- all the way to the 41st parallel (Long Island). On the earliest English maps of the region, Virginia comprised all land north of Spanish Florida and south of "The Maine" or, essentially, the entire present-day US east coast minus FL and ME.

The first Plymouth colony was a failure. Their Popham Colony only lasted a year and, by 1609, the company was caput, leaving more territory available for the Virginia Company.

Jamestown and Virginia did not start showing any profits until about 1612, from improved tobacco exports, but the total debt of the Company and Colony mounted every year and the investors did not get the returns they were promised in 1609. In 1624 England took over Virginia from private company to Royal Colony, property of the crown.

Many familiar names are seen on the May 23, 1609, Charter.
Here are some notable names, many who who have already been mentioned on this chononology/blog.

Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury
Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton
William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke
Henry, Earl of Lincoln
Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery
Sir Henry Nevil
Sir Thomas Smith
Sir Anthony Cope
Sir Horatio Vere
Sir Thomas Gates
Sir Henry Carey
Sir Walter Cope
Sir Francis Wolley
Sir Francis Bacon
Sir George Somers
Sir Dudley Digges

The charter also names its ruling council, which I quote in full:

"...AND further, We ESTABLISH and ORDAIN, That Henry Earl of Southampton, William Earl of Pembroke, Henry Earl of Lincoln, Thomas, Earl of Exeter, Robert, Lord Viscount Lisle, Lord Theophilus Howard, James, Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells, Lord Edward Zouche, Thomas Lord Lawarr, William, Lord Mounteagle, Edmund, Lord Sheffield, Gray, Lord Chandois, John, Lord Stanhope, George, Lord Carew, Sir Humfrey Weld, Lord Mayor of London, Sir Edward Cecil, Sir William Wade, Sir Henry Nevil, Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Oliver Cromwell, Sir Peter Manwood, Sir Thomas Challoner, Sir Henry Hobert, Sir Francis Bacon, Sir George Coppin, Sir John Scot, Sir Henry Carey, Sir Robert Drury, Sir Horatio Vere, Sir Edward Conway, Sir Maurice Berkeley, Sir Thomas Gates, Sir Michael Sandys, Sir Robert Mansell, Sir John Trevor, Sir Amias Preston, Sir William Godolphin, Sir Walter Cope, Sir Robert Killigrew, Sir Henry Fanshaw, Sir Edwin Sandys, Sir John Watts, Sir Henry Montague, Sir William Homney, Sir Thomas Roe, Sir Baptist Hicks, Sir Richard Williamson, Sir Stephen Poole, Sir Dudley Digges, Christopher Brooke, Esq. John Eldred, and Jolm Wolstenholme shall be our Council for the said Company of Adventurers and Planters, in Virginia. AND the said Thomas Smith, We Do ORDAIN to be Treasurer of the said Company; which Treasurer shall have Authority to give Order for the Warning of the Council, and summoning the Company to their Courts and Meetings."

In the above, it has to be considered a remarkable coincidence that Henry Wriothesley and William Herbert are the first named Councillors, and each is a prime candidate for "Mr. WH."

Note also Sir William Homney -- yet another Mr WH!

The Booty (as promised)

"And we do also of our special Grace, certain Knowledge, and mere Motion, give, grant and confirm, unto the said Treasurer and Company, and their Successors, under the Reservations, Limitations, and. Declarations hereafter expressed, all those Lands, Countries, and Territories, situate, lying, and being in that Part of America, called Virginia, from the Point of Land, called Cape or Point Comfort, all along the Sea Coast to the Northward, two hundred miles, and from the said Point of Cape Comfort, all along the Sea Coast to the Southward, two hundred Miles, and all that Space and Circuit of Land, lying from the Sea Coast of the Precinct aforesaid, up into the Land throughout from Sea to Sea, West and Northwest; And also all the Islands lying within one hundred Miles along the Coast of both Seas of the Precinct aforesaid; Together with all the Soils, Grounds, Havens, and Ports, Mines, as well Royal Mines of Gold and Silver, as other Minerals, Pearls, and precious Stones, Quarries, Woods, Rivers, Waters, Fishings, Commodities, Jurisdictions, Royalties, Privileges, Franchises, and Preheminences within the said Territories, and the Precincts thereof, whatsoever, and thereto, and thereabouts both by Sea and Land, being, or in any sort belonging or appertaining, and which We, by our Letters Patents, may or can grant, in as ample Manner and Sort, as We, or any our noble Progenitors, have heretofore granted to any Company, Body Politic or Corporate, or to any Adventurer or Adventurers, Undertaker or Undertakers of any Discoveries, Plantations, or Traffic, of, in, or into any Foreign Parts whatsoever, and in as large and ample Manner, as if the same were herein particularly mentioned and expressed; To HAVE AND TO HOLD, possess and enjoy, all and singular the said Lands, Countries and Territories, with all and singular other the Premises heretofore by these Presents granted, or mentioned to be granted to them, the said Treasurer and Company, their Successors and Assigns forever To the sole and proper Use of them, the said Treasurer and Company, their Successors and Assigns forever; To BE HOLDEN of Us, our Heirs and Successors, as of our Manor of East-Greenwich, in free and common Soccage, and not in Capite; YIELDING and PAYING therefore, to Us, our Heirs and Successors, the fifth Part only of all Ore of Gold and Silver, that from Time to Time, and at all Times hereafter, shall be there gotten, had, or obtained, for all Manner of Services."

Royal Signoff and Date

"Although express Mention of true yearly Value or Certainty of the Premisses, or any of then), or of any other Gifts or Grants by Us, or any of our Progenitors or Predecessors to the aforesaid Treasurer and Company heretofore made in these Presents, is not made; Or any Act, Statute, Ordinance, Provision, Proclamation, or Restraint' to the contrary hereof had, made, ordained, or provided, or any other Thing, Cause, or Matter whatsoever in any wise notwithstanding. IN WITNESS whereof, We have caused these our Letters to be made Patent. Witness ourself at Westminster, the 23d Day of May, in the seventh Year of our Reign of England, France, and Ireland, and of Scotland the * * *
PER IPSUM REGEM."

The full charter is here:
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/va02.asp

Public Reception of Shake-Speares Sonnets 1609 (Sonnets Part Three)

2009-05-22T14:36:00.012-04:00

This may surprise you, but there isn't a single extant record of any contemporary critical response to the appearance of Shake-Speares Sonnets in May 1609. Nor any for the rest of 1609 or for decades to follow. This is odd for several reasons. For one, Shakespeare's other books of poetry, Venus & Adonis 1593 and The Rape of Lucrece 1594 had both gone to multiple editions by 1609. They were steady bestsellers. Surely there should have been a ready and appreciative market for the Sonnets. Additionally, there are perhaps a dozen authentic contemporary allusions to the V&A and Lucrece poems in printed works and diaries of the time. Yet, nothing similar exists for the Sonnets.

The only scrap that serves as even an acknowledgement that the Sonnets were available in 1609 is a back-of-an-envelope notation found among the Edward Alleyn papers. Dated June 19, 1609, in an ad-hoc list of items under the heading “Howshold Stuff” a copy of “Shaksper sonets fivepence" was noted. At best, this stands as the single surviving evidence that someone bought the Sonnets in 1609. At worst it is a forgery. You see, the envelope in question was discovered by John Payne Collier, who was notorious for forging allusions to Shakespeare on convenient blank pages of Elizabethan miscellany. Modern scholars consider Collier' s discovery (of Allyn’s alleged chit) to be an out-and-out fraud. The spellings are suspect. The handwriting is quite unlike the abundant examples of Alleyn’s pen. Moreover Alleyn, who did keep expense records, always labeled then "Howshold" or "Howshold charges." The phrase, “Howshold Stuff” seems borrowed from the induction of The Taming of the Shrew! The Sonnets appear to have slipped by unremarked.

Oddly, there was no second edition in this format. Perhaps the Sonnet craze was over, or the profound sadness of the Sonnets turned readers off. Yet a big reception was anticipated by publisher Thorpe who used two different sets of booksellers (as evidenced by the title pages of the two variant editions of 1609) to make the product easily available.

There is at least one bit of early criticism of the 1609 Sonnets that survives, though the comment cannot be accurately dated. It could have been a century later. In a copy of the Sonnets quarto once held by the Rosenbach Library/Museum in Philadelphia there is a handwritten annotation following Sonnet 154. It reads, “What a heap of wretched Infidel stuff.” The word "Infidel" is capitalized and double inked. It is thought that this unknown critic found the poems scandalously homoerotic.

My colleague, Marty Hyatt, informs me that the former Rosenbach copy of the Sonnets is now held by the Bodmer Foundation Library in Geneva. Here's a photo of Marianne Faithfull examining the unique copy.

And the next version of the Sonnets to appear, in 1640, was mangled in John Benson’s version of Poems written by Wil. Shake-Speare, Gent. Benson put the sonnets in a strange new sequence and altered a few of the love references to a boy or man. Some think Benson did this to obscure a story that was being told in the original sequence.

Edward Alleyn was the leader of the Lord Admiral's Men for many years. In the early 1590s he played the title role in Titus Andronicus. Alleyn is also thought to have played Hamlet in a 1594 performance that is recorded but remains off-the-radar in standard Shakespeare studies.

Alleyn's father-in-law was Philip Henslowe, the famous Elizabethan theatrical producer. Alleyn kept a voluminous diary and records, and yet, rather amazingly, he never mentions William Shakespeare the playwright. This glaring omission was probably the motivation for Collier’s fraudulent notation. Collier liked to try to fill in these mysterious gaps in the historical record.

copyright 2009 Robert Sean Brazil

Sonnets Part Two -- Who was Master WH?

2009-05-21T13:16:00.013-04:00

Over the years many theories have been advanced as to the identity of "Mr. W.H." In early modern usage, "Mr." was "master" not "mister."

The following list covers some, but not all, of the WH theories.

1. Early naiveté - Mr WH is Mr WH --- it doesn’t matter who he was.

2. WH as William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, who would be a co-sponsor of the Shakespeare Folio in 1623. This identification has been defended by E.K. Chambers and Dover Wilson. One of the arguments often raised in all WH theories is that the dedicatee, WH, is the same person as the man who is encouraged to overcome reluctance and get married --- as featured in the first 17 sonnets.

Defenders of the William Herbert theory, though usually Stratfordians, inadvertently bump into the Oxford theory when they offer, as demonstration, the fact that William Herbert was engaged to Bridget Vere in 1597. This match was favored by Lord Burghley (Bridget’s grandfather), the 17th Earl of Oxford (Bridget’s father), and Mary Herbert, Countess Pembroke (W. Herbert’s mother). Nevertheless, William Herbert procrastinated and wormed his way out of the marriage. The Stratfordians have proposed that Mary Herbert hired Shakespeare to write sonnets to convince her son to marry. Oxfordians need not make that extra supposition. Instead, the 17-sonnet sequence may have been from a father of the bride to a potential (and wealthy) son-in-law.

3. WH as Wriothesley, Henry, the 3rd Earl of Southampton. Two earlier Shakespeare poetry publications, Venus & Adonis, and The Rape of Lucrece, were each dedicated to Southampton. This theory has supporters in all the authorship camps. Southampton had also refused a Burghley-engineered marriage with another Vere daughter, Elizabeth, in the early 1590s. If the first 17 sonnets relate to that failed engagement, Oxford again, emerges as a strong candidate. Many readers of the Sonnets see a continuous story throughout all 154 poems; I’m not one of them. Such assumptions force interpretive schemes that can be self-contradicting. For example, most Stratfordian advocates of the Southampton theory (for WH) see Henry Wriothesely as the love-object of Shakespeare’s desire, by assuming that the same man refused a marriage, seduced Shakespeare’s mistress, and then won the Bard’s undying affection. Among Oxfordians there are widely divergent Southampton theories. Joseph Sobran argues that Oxford was in love with the long-haired Southampton. Hank Whittemore presents the notion that Southampton was Oxford’s secret son.

4. In A Life of William Shakespeare, 1898, Sir Sidney Lee introduced a novel approach: WH was William Hall, a Stationer who was known for acquiring manuscripts on the sly, who had apprenticed with Anthony Munday, and who had other associations with George Eld, the printer of the 1609 Sonnets. In 1923, researcher Colonel B.R. Ward in The Mystery of Mr. W.H. amplified Sidney Lee’s theory, suggesting that the dedication’s “W.H. all” gently encodes the dedicatee’s name. Further, a William Hall was found via a marriage license as being resident in Hackney around 1609. It is not impossible that due to his proximity, he acquired a manuscript from the household of the widowed Countess Oxford (Elizabeth Trentham).

5. Oscar Wilde famously advanced the obscure idea of 18th century scholars, Thomas Tyrwhitt and Edmund Malone, that WH must have been one Willie Hughes, a supposed boy actor with whom the Bard was in love. There is no record of such a Willie Hughes; Tyrwhitt and Wilde were taken by the hews-hues puns in the Sonnets.

6. Canadian scholar Leslie Hotson suggested that WH was William Hatcliffe, who at least was a real person, but otherwise an unlikely candidate.

7. WH as a misprint for WS (William Shakespeare). Bertrand Russell, Don Foster, and others promoted this. A similar suggestion is that WH = "William Himself."

It is strange for me to remain undecided on such an important issue. But I find merit in the William Hall, William Herbert, and Henry Wriothesley theories, in that order. Much of ones decision making on this depends on how one interprets the Sonnets. The literary view tends to influence the acceptance or rejection of various possible historical contexts.

Robert Sean Brazil -- copyright 2009

More Sonnets analysis to follow!

Shake-Speares Sonnets Registered -- May 20, 1609

2009-05-20T16:23:00.006-04:00

On May 20, 1609, a book published as SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS was entered in the Stationers' Register. This is essentially the earliest known date involving the publication of one of the most mysterious books in the world, Shakespeare’s 154-sonnet sequence, which was bound with another poem, A Lover's Complaint. There may be as many theories about the Sonnets as there have been analyses of the Sermon on the Mount. We know that Shakespeare's sonnets existed in manuscript form at least eleven years before 1609. Francis Meres' 1598 book, Palladis Tamia, was a compendium of common wisdom and literary critique. In discussing English writers, Meres offered,

"As the soule of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagoras : so the sweet wittie soule of Ovid lives in mellifluous & honytongued Shakespeare, witnes his Venus and Adonis, his Lucrece, his sugred Sonnets among his private frinds, &c.”

We have no idea how many sonnets were featured in the privately-circulated edition known by Meres. But the following year, 1599, two of these Shakespearean sonnets (#138 and #144) were printed in an anthology, The Passionate Pilgrim. There is massive debate and disagreement on the question of whether or not the full-sequence of 154 sonnets had been completed by 1598, or whether it was a smaller set. Sonnet 107, with the line “The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured” and mention of “Tyrants crests and tombs of brass,” etc., is thought by many to relate to the death of Queen Elizabeth I. Many readers agree that topical allusions in the Sonnets end in 1603.

At Stationers' Hall, if you were a licensed freeman of the Guild (whether printer, publisher, bookseller, or bureaucrat), one could copyright a book, or manuscript, or even just a book-title, for a sixpence fee. By comparing the surviving entry-book records with extant books one can draw some conclusions about the process, though there are always exceptions. Sometimes manuscripts were registered in advance of publication. Often, the book was printed first, and the actual book was brought in for copyright/registration.

William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon did not bring in the Sonnets for copyright registration. He was in Stratford in 1609, involved in country matters, including a long, protracted lawsuit against the tradesman Addenbrooke. Other poets profited from their publications. Even playwrights like Ben Jonson, who may not have owned certain plays after they were sold to the companies, still could sell their poems to publishers without restriction. It is a great unsolved mystery why Shakespeare did not attempt profit from his Sonnet book. Nor did he sue to stop or recall the publication. Furthermore, it is hard to understand why the Stratford man would allow the deeply personal, romantic, and erotic content of the Sonnets, some of which can be read as sexually ambivalent, to appear in print. The dedication mentions that the poet is ever-living. “Ever-living” means deceased—a denizen of eternal heaven. These complications have led careful readers for several centuries to doubt whether the Stratford man could really have been the author. If, however, the Sonnets author was deceased (as was the Earl of Oxford in 1604) we can understand how publishers might have gotten hold of a private manuscript, were able to print it without complaint, and any potential scandal was deflected with the author being dead, as well as veiled behind a brand name.

While many scholars and bibliographers of English Renaissance printing assume that the Sonnets book was printed after the May 20 registration, that date may actually represent the culmination of the printing process, not the outset.

I'm pretty sure that in the case of the Sonnets, the book was printed before May 20.
The entry in the Stationers’ Register reads:

May 20 [1609] "Thomas Thorpe -- Entred for his copie vnder the handes of master WILSON and master LOWNES Warden, a Booke called Shakespeares sonnettes, vj."

When the entry refers to a Book and the title entered by the clerk matches the known book, the printed book may predate the copyright. In a subsequent post I will give examples of Stationers entries that refer to manuscripts and those that indicate a finished book was brought to the Hall. Elizabethan censorship was supposed to be in advance --- a thorough vetting of each potential book. In practice, this was hardly ever done. The cases of censorship we have on record almost always involve the alteration of a previously allowed book, or a recall of extant copies. However, we have copies of even banned books. In 1599 the Bishops order in London called in all books by Nashe and Harvey for destruction. Yet copies of those books still exist.

Since the Sonnets existed in manuscript before 1598 and were already in print by May 20, 1609, it is quite possible that sample copies of the Sonnets could have been seen by elite readers in spring 1609.

Enigmas of the Sonnets include:

1. Who is "Mr. W.H.," the dedicatee, and "onlie begetter" of the Sonnets?
2. Do the Sonnets tell a story of the poet's life experience?
3. If the Sonnets are autobiographical, do all 154 sonnets relate to a single story / motif or to several?
4. If one accepts certain personalities in the sequence, the beloved, the Dark Lady, the rival poet, the "fair youth" or "lovely boy," then the temptation is strong to find real people to fit the templates.

by Robert Sean Brazil copyright 2009

More Sonnets analysis to follow!

Voyage of Robert Harcourt to Guyana in search of gold

2009-05-17T14:20:00.006-04:00

Robert Harcourt (c.1574–1631) was an English merchant adventurer who traveled to Guyana in 1609 in search of gold and riches, hoping to succeed where Raleigh and Leigh had failed. He made landfall on May 17, 1609. His 1613 book related his adventure:

Harcourt was from Staffordshire, kin to some historic Harcourts and the Fitzherberts, all traditionally Catholic families. He eventually settled in Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire. Harcourt attended Oxford University and, in 1593, was admitted to the Middle Temple (law school), then dropped off the map for some years. Robert had an early marriage to an Elizabeth Fitzherbert, but they had no children and she died young.

Harcourt’s second wife is more interesting. She was Frances Vere, the daughter of Geoffrey de Vere, who was the fourth son of John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford (c. 1488–1539-40). Robert Harcourt and Frances Vere married sometime around 1600. This Frances, being the 15th Earl's grandaughter, was thus a close cousin to Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, who was also a grandson to the 15th Earl. Since the Harcourt-Vere marriage preceded the 17th Earl’s death by about four years it is reasonable to surmise that Harcourt met the poetic Earl, who was also interested in voyages of discovery to the New World. Robert and Frances Harcourt had three sons: Simon Harcourt, b. 1601, Francis, b. 1605, and Vere, b. 1606; and three daughters, Jane, Dorothy, and Margaret. By 1609 Harcourt was earning income from ironworks he developed at the manor of Chebsey, Staffordshire.

On 13 February 1609, via the patronage of his strongest supporter at court, young Prince Henry Stuart, Robert Harcourt along with ‘”freinds and Associats’” were granted a commission to pursue “many and sundrie longe journeys by Sea and Shippinge unto the South parte of America … knowne by the name of Guiana” [PRO, C66/1986]. Robert Harcourt set sail for Guyana in April 1609 with crew of 30 Englishmen and two Guyanese, (one who had been brought to England by Raleigh, another by Leigh). He kept a ship’s log/diary, which was published as a book in 1613. This is how we know the date of his arrival. Robert Harcourt made landfall at the mouth of the Wiapoco Rover on May 17, 1609.

His record relates:

“When wee came to the latitude of two degrees and a halfe, we anchored in a goodly bay, by certaine Islands, called Carripapoory I did at that time forbeare to make particular discovery of this coast, intending (if God spare me life) to make a perfect discovery of the famous river of Amazones, and of her seuerall branches, and countries bordering upon it, and of all this tract of land from the Amazones, unto the river of Wiapoco, which containeth many goodly Provinces, and Signiories, which are in this discourse, but briefely mentioned: For at this time I purpose onely to prosecute my first proiect, which hastened mee vnto another place. From hence I stood along the coast, and the seventeenth of May, I came to anchor in the Bay of Wiapoco: where the Indians came off unto vs in two or three Canoes, as well to learne of what Nation wee were, as also to trade with vs…”

Harcourt arrived in the rainy season and had to wait a few months before continuing inland. In July 1609 Harcourt and an inland chief ventured forth “in search of those Golden Mountaines, promised unto us before the beginning of our voyage.” However, no city of gold, or even goldmines were found. Facing potential mutiny among his men, Harcourt sent them all out to look for other commodities of value. Harcourt then decided, in August, to return to England. He left his brother, Michael, and a Captain Edward Harvey to command the 30 men left behind. After some mishaps, Harcourt arrived back in Bristol on December 17, 1609.

On August 28, 1613, King James granted Harcourt and descendants all the land between two key rivers in South America, nowadays comprising French Guiana, Suriname, and British Guiana: "betweene the Ryver of Amazones [Amazon] and the Ryver of Dessequebe [Essequibo]." The Harcourts were never able to make good on the grant, however!

Harcourt’s book is called: A relation of a voyage to Guiana: Describing the climat, scituation, fertilitie, prouisions and commodities of that country, containing seuen prouinces, and other signiories within that territory: together, with the manners, customes, behauiors, and dispositions of the people. Performed by Robert Harcourt, of Stanton Harcourt Esquire. The pattent for the plantation of which country, his Maiestie hath granted to the said Robert Harcourt vnder the Great Seale. At London : Printed by Iohn Beale, for W. Welby, and are to be sold at his shop in Pauls Churchyard at the signe of the Swan, 1613.

Harcourt’s final voyage was 20 years after the first, arriving in Guyana in February 1629. Searches for gold and jewels were again fruitless. Robert Harcourt died on May 20, 1631, and was buried there, along the river.

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There is apparently a painting of Robert Harcourt by Marcus Gheerardts, who also painted the Earl of Oxford, Essex, and other Court notables. I have not yet been able to trace the location of the painting to its present location. There is also a line-drawing of Harcourt, based on the painting, that appeared in a later reprint of his book. I will try to get that.

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An odd coincidence
There’s apparently only two places in the world named “Hackney” (there may be others but I haven’t found them yet). One is in the north of London, and was the final home of the 17th Earl of Oxford during the years 1593-1604. The other Hackney is in Guyana. I have not been able to discover how that Hackney, Guyana, got its name, but Harcourt’s presence in that country is the only credible explanation. In the map section below notice the names of towns to the north of Georgetown: Hackney, Marlborough, Bounty Hall. None of these names were present on Raleigh’s earlier map of the region. In the absence of further data, I think it is a reasonable hypothesis that Harcourt named Hackney, Guyana, in honor of his cousin in-law. The fact that he named one of his sons “Vere Harcourt” lends credibility to the postulate.

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Original copies of Harcourt’s book are rare and valuable.
Here’s a copy that sold for $ $25,602!

Robert Sean Brazil c. 2009

The Stationers’ Company and the Virginia Company

2009-05-10T16:52:00.001-04:00

The 1609 push for investors, sponsors, and financial “adventurers” brought in participation from aristocrats, businessmen, and even the trade guilds. The Worshipful Company of Stationers, on May 10, 1609, invested 125 pounds towards the efforts of the Virginia Plantation. Their buy-in entitled them to a proportionate share of any profits ("scale") from the agricultural output of the plantations and any discovered precious metals, etc. The wording also implies that they would own a share of any plundered commodities as well.

This close link between the Stationers and the Virginia Company adds to our understanding of the hand-in-hand relationship between the two entities. In 1609 the Virginia Company needed the participation of the publishers to produce the required propaganda pamphlets. The Stationers were also securing a foothold into the New World, which would, no doubt, soon be a growing market for books, in addition to earning returns on risk. We also may have here a path of interaction by which an early proof of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, either emerging from the Stationers' vaults or men of the Virginia Company, may have changed hands. As we will see in an upcoming entry, Men of the Virginia Company included William Herbert Earl of Pembroke and Henry Wriothesley Earl of Southampton, two of the leading contenders for the mysterious “Mr. WH.” General Horatio Vere was also a prominent member of the Virginia Company. The signer of the document below, Richard Atkinson, was the Clerk of the Virginia Company in 1609.

From the Stationers’ records:

"Here followeth the copy of the bill of Adventure under Scale, to the Stationers Company.

"Whereas the Master and keepers or Wardens and Comonalty of the Mysterie or Art of Stacioner of the city of London have paid in ready money to Sir Thomas Smythe Knight, Treasurer for Virginia the sum of one Hundred & twenty ffive pounds for their adventure towards the said Voyage. It is agreed that for the same they the said Master and keepers or Wardens and their successors (for the time being) shall have ratably according to their
adventures their full part of all such lands, tenements and hereditaments as shall from time to time be there recovered, planted and inhabited: And of all such mines & minerals of Gold Silver & other metalls or treasure, pearls, precious stones or any other Kind of Wares or merchandise, comodities or proffitte whatsoever which shall be obtained or gotten in the said Voyage according to the porcion of money by them imployed to that use
in as ample manner as any other adventurer therein shall receive for the like sum."
Written this 10th daye of Maye 1609. Richard Atkinson"

- RSB

Conversion of the Native Virginians – A sign of 'end times' – and that’s a good thing?

2009-05-07T16:56:00.002-04:00

George Benson (c.1568-1648) was another preacher loosely associated with the Virginia Company enterprise. Like Robert Gray, almost nothing is known about him. His single book is A Sermon preached at Paules Crosse the Seaventh of May MDCIX. London, 1609. In this sermon of May 7, 1609, Benson adds another tweak to the growing list of proposed reasons to emigrate, colonize, and evangelize the New World. Benson cites Revelation from the New Testament in claiming that the conversion of the American Indians is a sign of the end of the world, and kingdom come! And that’s supposedly a good thing. Here’s what Benson said:

“These signs are past and gone: when the sun will be darkened, and the moon turned into blood, we cannot tell: but for the publication of the Gospel over the world, it may be proved by many instances. One most pregnant, most fresh, is that of Virginia which now (by God grace) through our English shall hear news of Christ, the gospel of Christ shall be published, no doubt the sound of the preachers will go out into that corner of the world, and make it as a well watered garden. There were a people of the like quality (with the natural inhabitants of Virginia) poor and naked things, (I call them so, the more to indeare your affections) when they were conquered, there was that cruelty used unto them, that scandal was given unto the name of Christ, the name of Christianity grew odious unto them, by reason of that cruelty they would let it have no room in their thoughts. I hope our English are of that metall that having in their hands the key of the kingdom of God, they will not keep those weake ones out, but rather make way for the Gospel (as I hope they may) by their gentle & humane dealing.”

Again we encounter a historical phenomenon that has a modern echo. Benson warns that if the English conquer the world with cruelty, and without true Christian compassion, that such colonialism would bring scandal to the name of Christ. Today, the issue is inhumane treatment of state prisoners. In the USA, these might be suspected Muslim terrorists, or even suspected Christian-Identity “Liberty movement” American citizens. Bottom line, don’t bring the gospel with force and violence, and don’t impose “democracy” with the tools of fascism!

Just a thought.

Still, one cannot help but notice the funny paradox in Benson's logic. It's bad to evangelize by force and violence, but if conversions are done with compassion, then the glorious End of the World is Near!

RSB

Fear of Infection

2009-05-06T16:54:00.004-04:00

Does history repeat itself? Yes, endlessly. Today, anxiety about “foreign infections” causes panics, school closings, and disrupts commerce. The “plague” served a similar societal function 400 years ago. 1609 was a plague year in London; the fear, and the plague itself, affected all strata of society. Back then, the word, “plague” was something of a catch-all. Any epidemic might be called the plague.

On May 6, 1609, Richard Neile (1562-1640) Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster, wrote to Robert Cecil, the Earl of Salisbury, asking to be excused from attending King James on the following day. In the words of the official summary, “Though he and all his people stand without suspicion of infection, yet in the house of one Chaunter, who has his dwelling within the College walls, two young gentlemen who boarded with him are sick; and he is enforced by fear of the inconvenience that might ensue to the 140 or rather 160 children who have daily concourse to the School, to dismiss all the Oppidalls and to send away all the foundation scholars to the College house at Cheswicke, where they shall remain all this summer. He desires to take a week of airing, either at Cheswicke or at Bromeley, before he again attends his Majesty. At Westminster College, May 6, 1609.”

Richard Neile became Royal Chaplain to King James in July1603. On his way to the top, Neile had powerful patrons, chiefly Lord Burghley, to whom he was household chaplain in the 1590s. After Burghley’s death in 1598, Neile continued to serve as household chaplain to his son, Robert Cecil, along with Samuel Harsnet, whose book: A Declaration of egregious Popish Imposture (to with-draw the harts of her Maiesties Subiects from their allegeance, and from the truth of Christian Religion professed in England, under the pretence of casting out deuils. Pracised by Edmunds, alias Weston a Iesuit, and diuers Romish Priests his wicked associates. Whereunto are annexed the Copies of the Confessions, and Examinations of the parties themselves, taken upon oath before her Maiesties Commissioners, for causes Ecclesiasticall, James Roberts, Barbican, 1603) serves as a link between the text of King Lear, and the Hackney household of the 17th Earl of Oxford.

See: http://www.sourcetext.com/sourcebook/library/bowen/16hackney.htm

RSB

Captain Argall sets sail for Virginia

2009-05-05T18:41:00.011-04:00

Captain Samuel Argall (1580-1626) was an English merchant adventurer, naval officer, and agent of the Virginia Company. He was a cousin to Sir Thomas Smith, the scholar, and, at that time, Governor of the Virginia Company. In 1608-1609 word had arrived from the Jamestown Colony that things were not going so well. They needed supplies and more colonists. The entire financial future of the Virginia enterprise hinged on a successful plantation at Jamestown. The failure of Raleigh's Roanoke colony was still a potent memory and warning. Thus, the principal investors in the Virginia Company launched a public relations campaign in the spring of 1609 (as has been documented on this blog) to develop greater interest in investment, and to sign up English men and women to go to Virginia. Several voyages and resupply missions were planned for 1609. Argall's was the first. Captain Samuel Argall and crew set sail from Portsmouth on May 5, 1609. His orders were to sail to Jamestown by way of Barbuda and to deliver sturgeon to the colonists. In an interesting twist that has had vast repercussions in history, Argall disobeyed orders. He decided to take a chance on a different route to the New World. Instead of heading for the tropics and following the trade winds, Argall & Co. tried a new route: first to the Azores, from thence to Bermuda, and then to Virginia. This route sliced off many days of travel and kept English vessels out of the Spanish highway across the Atlantic.

Argall decided not to go fishing for sturgeon before docking at Jamestown. Instead, always the benevolent humanitarian, and finding the Jamestown colonists starving and near death, he sold them the ship's extra biscuits and wine. Then he hurried off to the Carolina Banks and caught a heap of sturgeon. Argall, smartly salvaging his reputation, gave the colonists some of the fish but kept all the caviar for private sale back in London. It's always about the money with these Merchant Adventurers! Argall wasted no time, departing back for England on August 31, 1609.

A few years later, Argall displayed his heroism and forthright dealings when he deviously arranged for the abduction of Pocahontas (1613). Inviting her to tour his vessel, Argall and his men showed their bravery by capturing the unarmed, teenage Indian girl. Pocahontas was later brought back to London where she met King James and Ben Jonson and died of fever and heartbreak just as she was about to leave to return to Virginia (1617).

Detail from The Abduction of Pocahontas by Jean Ferris, c. 1910.
Captain Samuel Argall (left) at Jamestown with Pocahontas as his captive.

By RSB copyright 2009

John Barclay gets paid by King James

2009-04-27T22:07:00.006-04:00

Author John Barclay (1582–1621) was born in France to a Scots father, William Barclay, who was a law teacher resident in the Lorraine. John Barclay was pro-Scots and an ardent booster of James Stuart, though he, apparently, never set foot in Scotland. John Barclay had a Jesuit education, but did not go into the priesthood, and he became a noted critic (carefully, through his satire) of the Jesuit order. Barclay gained early notoriety with his 1605 book, Euphormionis lusinini satyricon. This was a clever jest, modeled on Petronius's Satyricon and written in perfect Renaissance Latin. The book became quite popular and a variety of "guides" were published, each attempting to identify Barclay's characters with real-world persons. Most scholars agree that James Stuart is "Neptune" and "Acignius" personifies the Jesuit mind-set. Euphormionis, published in Europe, carried a dedication to King James. Barclay's efforts to flatter and please King James were thorough and persistent. In 1603 Barclay had published Regi Jacobo Primo, carmen gratulatorium (printed in Paris) congratulating the Stuart King on his rise to the throne of England. In 1606, the Barclay family was physically in England. Barclay published Sylvae (1606), poems to James and his top courtiers. Barclay's "courtship" was facilitated in large part by Robert Cecil, Lord Salisbury. Records show payments to Barclay for which Cecil was reimbursed by the treasury. In 1609 John Barclay edited and published a book written by his father, De potestate papae (1609). This tome argued strongly that the Pope should have no political or secular power whatsoever. Controversial, to say the least! Due to to Barclay's courage, availability, and gumption, King James hired him to work on his own 1609 publication, the Apologie... (see blog entry for April 8).

Four hundred years ago today, Barclay got paid. In the Calendar of State papers we find that on April 27, 1609, Barclay was rewarded for his translation work on the "king's book." [CSP dom., 1603–10, 506], which has been deduced to be An Apologie for the Oath of Allegiance, revised and put into English in 1609.

But all this past is merely prologue. Barclay is most famous for his fantasy novel, Argenis. Written while in Rome, Barclay's Argenis saw first publication in Paris in 1621 (just weeks after Barclay had died, perhaps of poisoning). The story focuses on princess Argenis and and her three suitors. This allegorical work has since been subsequently glossed to fit all manner of historical and mythic agendas. But it was a bestseller and is considered a classic. King James requested that Ben Jonson translate Argenis from the Latin into English. It is now debated whether Jonson ever completed this task, including the possibility that Jonson's translation was lost in his famous fire. In any case, an English language Argenis was published in 1625, in such strikingly beautiful prose, that some think that Barclay himself must have left an unpublished English version. --[RSB, April 27, 2009]

God Wants YOU to Colonize Virginia!

2009-04-25T14:13:00.003-04:00

By RSB ---
During much of 1609, there was a "marketing" push -- by the government of England, and by the Virginia Company -- to get English persons to emigrate to the New World and help establish colonies. The Anglican Church also revved up the propaganda for colonization in 1609. Why? Because a "New World" order was on the verge of emerging. The game had previously been domination of Europe. Now there was geopolitical competition for the vast presumed wealth and potential of unknown and undiscovered countries. But would the New World be Catholic, dominated by Spain and Rome? Or Protestant, with profits returning to England and the Netherlands? In 1609 the mystique of the West Indies and America skyrocketed.

On April 25, 1609, Anglican preacher, William Symonds (1556-1616), gave a sermon of unrestrained colonialist propaganda. His message? God wants YOU to go to Virginia! The rationale? The Bible tells us so! The sermon was published shortly thereafter as:

Virginia. A sermon preached at VVhite-Chappel, in the presence of many, honourable and worshipfull, the aduenturers and planters for Virginia. 25. April. 1609 : Published for the benefit and vse of the colony, planted, and to bee planted there, and for the aduancement of their Christian purpose. By William Symonds, preahcer at Saint Sauiors in Southwarke. London : Printed by I. Windet, for Eleazar Edgar, and William Welby, and are to be sold in Paules Church-yard at the signe of the Windmill, 1609.

There are several interesting aspects to this book. One is the dedication to the Adventurers of the Virginia company. This language and these "adventurer" dedications became popular in 1609. The most famous is found in the dedication to Shake-Speares Sonnets, 1609. [...THE . WELL-WISHING. ADVENTVRER . IN . SETTING. FORTH .]

above, the dedication in Symonds Sermon.

Symonds also signs the dedication, "W. S." But those were his initials, so it's just a coincidence. The argument of the sermon is that God told Abraham to go to another country to do God's work, where Abe would be richly rewarded for his service.

Later, Symonds analogizes the reward:

"the strong old bees do beat out the younger, to swarm and hive themselves elsewhere. Take the opportunity, good honest labourers, which indeed bring all the honey to the hive; God may so bless you that the proverb may be true of you, that a May swarm is worth a king's ransom."

One of Symonds' sponsors and patrons was Robert Bertie, Lord Willoughby, who also sponsored Captain John Smith. Symonds was instrumental in getting Smith's map published in 1612. Robert Bertie, 1st Earl of Lindsey was the son of Peregrine Bertie (13th Willoughby de Eresby). His mother was Mary de Vere (daughter of John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford). Thus, Robert Bertie, colonial sponsor, was nephew to the 17th Earl of Oxford.

Robert Bertie was, perhaps, the second most noted chrome-dome of his era.

Two Cookes Leave the Kitchen

2009-04-23T19:41:00.006-04:00

Elizabeth Cooke Hoby Russell

In April and May of 1609, two sisters of Mildred Cooke (Lady Burghley) died. [Mildred had died in 1589.]

On April 23, 1609, Katherine Cooke died. On the very same day her sister, Elizabeth Cooke Hoby Russell, apparently alarmed at the news, wrote her will, and died a few weeks later.

These were just two of the many children of Sir Anthony Cooke (b. 1504, Gidea Hall, Essex; d. June 11, 1576) and his wife, Ann Fitzwilliam (d. 1588))

Children of Sir Anthony Cooke and Ann Fitzwilliam are:

1. Mildred Cooke (1524-1589), wife of Lord Burghley
2. Katherine Cooke (1526- April 23, 1609), wife of Henry Killigrew
3. Elizabeth Cooke (1528-May 1609) married first, Sir Thomas Hoby the translator (of The Courtier), then Baron John Russell. She was the mother of the famous Sir Edward Hoby, diplomat. (Her will is dated April 23, 1609.) Her ghost apparently still haunts Bisham Abbey (link below)
4. Richard Cooke (c1530-1579)
5. Anne Cooke (1533-1610) married Sir Nicholas Bacon.
Mother of Francis Bacon
6. Anthony Cooke (b. 1535 - ), b. 1531,
7. William Cooke (1537-1589)
8. Edward Cooke (1539-1557)
9. Margaret Cooke (b. 1541)

Read about the Ghost of Elizabeth (Cooke) Hoby
http://www.berkshirehistory.com/legends/bisham01.html

A Curious Coincidence

Mildred Cooke Cecil, Lady Burghley, was the mother of Anne Cecil and the mother-in-law of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Among the theories of the Shakespeare Authorship, De Vere is, hands down, the leading candidate, with volumes of documentary evidence pointing to his role in transforming drama in Elizabethan England.

Anne Cooke, Lady Bacon, was the mother of Francis Bacon, who was widely thought (in the 19th century) to be the man behind the Shakespeare name.

Katherine Cooke, wife of Henry Killigrew, was the mother-in-law of Henry Neville, an obscure government man who knew Southampton and is believed (by perhaps a dozen people) to have been the Shakespeare author.

What this suggests to me (on this, the ersatz 445th birthday of Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon) is that if "Shakespeare" was a pen-name, then the Cookes and Bughleys probably knew the man behind that name.

Thomas Bodley Endows his Library

2009-04-20T20:04:00.001-04:00

Thomas Bodley's gift to humanity is incalculable. His collection became the first private, perpertually-funded library open to the public and, in the process, he helped preserve a significant unique archive of English history and literature. Thomas Bodley (1545-1613) came from a Protestant merchant family and was born while Henry VIII was still alive (just barely). When Mary I ruled England, the Bodleys moved to Geneva, with Nicholas Hilliard, the artist, in their household. Bodley came to know Calvin, Knox and Beza, attending their lectures and services. He mastered Greek and Hebrew. The family returned to England; Thomas graduated Oxford in 1563, where he stayed as lecturer in languages. The University asked him to restore an old library in 1598. In 1600 he started acquiring books en masse, using his wife's ample fortune. His library opened on November 8, 1602, at that time having about 2,500+ books. James I visited the Bodleian in May 1605 and was astounded, proclaiming that if he wasn't burdened with being king, he would gladly live in the Bodleian and just read. At the core of the collection was the inherited libary of Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester (brother of Henry V), a unique, priceless archive of 281+ manuscripts.

On April 20, 1609, Bodley granted to his trustees certain lands and income-producers in Berkshire and London to create a permanent endowment for the Bodleian Library. That endowment continues to the present day. In 1610 an arrangement was made between the Bodleian and The Worshipful Company of Stationers -- whereby the Stationers would secure one copy of every book they printed to the Bodleian for safe keeping and reference, with the proviso that they could always borrow a copy back to serve as fair copy for a reprint. This set the model for copyright procedure in America and the use of the Library of Congress as repository for all domestically printed books.

RSB

Liber Famelicus of Sir James Whitelocke

2009-04-18T14:05:00.006-04:00

Sir James Whitelocke
Judge of the Court of King's Bench

Justice James Whitelocke 1570-1632 (also spelled Whitelock and Whitlock) rose slowly through the ranks, becoming Justice of the Court of King's Bench in 1624. He was an antiquarian and scholar. On April 18, 1609, Whitelocke began writing his family history, Liber Famelicus, which records that start date (quote below). What interests me is James' testimony about his older brother, Captain Edmund Whitelocke, which has been re-used in subsequent histories of that era. Edmund was a traveler to the Contininent, a bon vivant and spendthrift, and a noted multi-linguist. He became bosom buddies with Roger Manners, the Earl of Rutland. Because of that association, Edmund Whitelocke was caught up in the Essex Rebellion events of 1601 and was jailed for a time. A few years later he got implicated in the Gunpowder Plot. He was released to his late-life patron, the Earl of Northumberland. Justice Whitelocke's Liber Famelicus relates also the obscure episode of a "great quarrel" between Northumberland and Sir Francis Vere (d. Aug. 28, 1609). One can read about this quarrel in great detail in The Fighting Veres by Clements Robert Markham (p. 333 and forward). What follows is Justice James' introduction, and his remembrance of his brother Edmund, also written on or about April 18, 1609 (the passage appears at the beginning of the dated manuscript). RSB

"THIS book I began to write in, the 18 April 1609, anno 7 Jacobi regni sui Angliae, et Scotiae. In it I entend to set downe memorialls for my posterity of thinges most properly concerning myself and my familye. Oculis in solem, alls in coelum. Motto de cognisance.
Vive diu Whitlocke, tuis sic utere fatis
Ut referent sensus alba nee atra tuos."

EDMUND, my eldest brother, was broughte up at school under Mr. Richard Mulcaster, in the famous school of the Marchantaylors in London, and from thence was sent to Cambridge to Ohristes colledge, whear having been well grownded in the liberall sciences, and mutche farthered in his knoledge of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew tongues, in whiche he was well instructed in the grammer school, he left the universitye and came to Lincolnes In to study the common law, whear, having spent his time among to good cumpanions, he betoke himself to travail into foreyne kingdoms, by study and experience to redeem his mispent time ; and to that purpose toke shipping from London about Whitsuntide 1587, and having bestowed mutche time in forein universities of Rostock, "Witenberg, Prage, Rome, and other places in Italy, Paris, and other universities in Fraunce, and having traversed over almost all countries in Christendom, he fell into the good liking of mounsieur Desguieres, governor of Provance in Fraunce, and by him was put into the charge of a band of footmen, and in that service remayned captayne of that band at Massiles and Grenoble so long as those wars continued, and afterward came to visit his frends in England, after his absence out of the realm for the space of almost a dozen yeares, without heering of him whether he wear alive or not, and being out of hope ever to see him.

After his retorn into England, by reason of his experience in foreyne affayres, his knoledge in the tongs, and pleasant behaviour, and great liber tye of his wit in his conversation, according to the Frenche fashion, he grew into great goodliking of many Englishe noblemen and gentlemen, but especially of Roger erl of Rutland withe whome he lived and conversed a good while, and by his acquayntance withe him fell into an infortunate mischance, for, on the 8 of February 1601, Elizabeth, when the braine-sick meeting was of the noblemen withe the erl of Essex at Essex House, the earl of Rutland, that had maryed the daughter of the countesse of Essex by her first husband sir Philip Sydney, being sent for by the earl to cum to him, met capteyne Whitelock in the street, and toke him along withe him to Essex House, and so from thence into the towne in the foolislie mutiny e, and for his being in that companye, althoughe he retorned not back to Essex House, nor made resistance withe the rest, yet he was had in sutche suspition, by reason that he was knowen to be pragmaticall and martiall, as that he was clapt up in Newgate, then sent to the Marshalsea, and from thence broughte to the King's Benche bar, to have been arraigned of highe treason, of whiche he was endited, but being broughte in to the court of King's Benche was" sent back againe, and afterward by privie seal, directed to justice Gawdye, was among others committed to free custody, he to me, and others to thear frends, and so continued untill he was quite discharged, whiche was shortly after.

This miserye, thoughe it had been bothe dangerous to his life and verye damageable to himself, and to me above all his frends, yet was not it an expiation of all his calamities : for, after king James came to the crowne, in the Parliament time, when the powder treason sholde have been executed, it was his ill hap to dine togeather withe the erl of Northumberland and Persey, the principall agent in that treason, the day before it sholde have been executed, and by reason thearof grew into great suspition withe the counsell, and by them was first sent to the Tower, after to the Fleet, but, after long imprisonment, was delivered, nothing appeering by any examinations that he was acquaynted withe the businesse. After his deliverance out of prison he lived with most dependancye upon the earl of Northumberland,* and had licence to resort unto him in the Tower, after his imprisonment thear upon the censure in the Starchamber, and so passed his time in mirtheand good companye untill he dyed, whiche was of a surfeit, by distemper of the weather, about Bartholmew tide 1608. He was then at Newhall in Essex, withe the erl of Sussex, and fell into suche a distemper of body by the unseasonableness of the weather, being extream hot, and by his overcarelessnesse in the ordering of himself, that he was taken withe an extraordinarye loosenesse of bodye, whiche weakened him verye mutche, and upon it was let blud, and not long after went away quietly as in a slumber. He was honorably buryed by the earl of Sussex in the chappell of his ancetors, and was attended to the buryall by the earl himself. He was well grownded in lerning, bothe philosophye and all other humanitye, and well seen in the tounges, bothe lerned and ordinarie, as the Frenche, Italian, Dutche, Spanishe, but especially in the Frenche, whiche he acted so naturally as he was taken for a Frencheman whear he was not knowen. He was exceeding pleasant in his conceit, and so good a companion that he was mutche esteemed of for that by divers great men. He was extream prodigall and wastefull in his expence, verye valiant, as was reported by those that knew his demeanor in forein country es, and by that he did heer at home ; for, in the great quarrell between the earl of Northumberland and sir Frauncis Vere, he caryed the challenge from the erl to sir Frauncis into his owne lodging, and ther delivered it unto him, and having afterward herd of sum shamefull speeches given against him by the knight, meeting sir Frauncis in his coatche on morning, cumming from Wilton, whear the king lay, unto Salisbury, lie stayed his coatche, and came to the side of it, and provoked sir Frauncis to fighte withe him, but he answeared he was not provided for sutche a businesse. Thearupon the capteyne drew out his sword, and offered it to sir Frauncis, and tolde him he wolde furnishe him, and toke another from his boy, but the sage knight put him of, and was content to part rather withe a disgracefull word then a blow, but thes being herd of at the court, warrants wear sent out for him by the counsell, so that he was fayne for a good while to hide himself; and this was in Michaelmas term 1 Jacobi, when by reason of the siknesse the term was kept at Winchester. "

The above text was obtained (and I've cleaned up some of the transcription errors) from:
http://www.archive.org/stream/liberfamelicus00camduoft/liberfamelicus00camduoft_djvu.txt

Read a little about Justice Whitelocke here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Whitelocke

Queen Anne's Men

2009-04-15T21:51:00.004-04:00

Queen Anne's Men re-licensed -- April 15, 1609

Queen Anne's Men -- or, simply, The Queen's Men, came into being when James I was crowned in 1603. Its patron was Anne of Denmark, queen consort to James. The company was formed out of the personnel of two previous companies, Oxford's Men and Worcester's Men. [see F. E. Halliday, A Shakespeare Companion 1564–1964 pp. 535-6] Near the end of the reign of Elizabeth, the short-lived duopoly of the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the Admiral's Men was supplemented by a license (March 31, 1602) for Oxford's Men combined with Worcester's Men to play the Boars Head theater. Later that year they started playing at the Rose as well. The remnants of this combined troupe became the Jacobean-era Queen's Men. On April 15, 1609, the company was formally licensed. - RSB

1609, April 15. Licence for Queen Anne's players (P. R. 7 Jac. 7, pt. 39). also found in T. E. Tomlins, the Shakespeare Society's Papers, iv (1849)

D* con' licen lames by the grace of God &c' To all Thome Greene lusticj Mayors Sheriff Baylieffy Constables et al headborrowes and other our Officers and lovinge Subiectj Greetinge knowe yee that wee of our especiall grace c'tayne knowledge and meere mocon have lycenced and aucthorised and by these p'senty doe lycence and aucthorize Thomas Greene Christofer Beeston Thomas haywood Richard Pirkyns Richard Pallant Thomas Swinn'ton lohn Duke Rofot lee lames haulte and Roftte Beeston Servant^ to our moste deerely beloved wiefe Queene Anne and the reste of theire Associatj to vse and ex'cise the arte and faculty of playinge Comedies Tragedies historyes Enterludj Morally Pastorally Stageplayes and suche other like as they have already studied or heareafter shall vse or studye aswell for the recreacon of our loving Subiectj as for our solace and pleasure when wee shall thinke good to see them during our pleasure. And the said Comedies Tragedies histories Ent'ludes Morallj Pastorallj Stageplayes and suche like to shewe and ex'cise publiquely and openly to theire beste comoditye aswell within theire nowe vsuall houses called the Redd Bull in Clarkenwell and the Curtayne in hallowell as alsoe within anye Towne hallj Mouthally and other convenient placy within the lifrtye and freedome of any other Citty vniu'sitye Towne or Boroughe whatsoever within our Realmes and Domynions willing and Comaundinge you and every of you as you tender our pleasure not only to pmitt and suffer them herein without any your letty hinderancy or molestacons during our said pleasure but alsoe to be aydinge assistinge vnto them yf anye wronge be to them offered and to allowe them suche former curtesies as hath byn given to men of theire place and qualitye and alsoe what favoure you shall shewe to them for our sake wee shall take kyndly at your hand$ Prouided alwaies and our will and pleasure is that all aucthoritye power priuiledgj and pfytty whatsoeu' belonginge and pply apptayninge to Master of Revelly in respecte of his Office and everye Cause Article or graunte contayned within the fres Patentj or Comission which have byn heretofore graunted or directed by the late Queene Elizabeth our deere Sister or by our selues to our welbeloued Servant Edmond Tylney Master of the Office of our said Revelly or to Sir George Bucke knighte or to eyther of them in possession or revercon shalbe remayne and abyde entyer and full in effecte force estate and v'tue as ample sorte as if this our Comission had never byn made In witnes wherof &c' witnes our selfe at westm the fifteenth daye of Aprill. p fore de priuato sigillo &c'/ ex

Pimlyco and the date of Pericles

2009-04-15T15:46:00.000-04:00

On April 15, 1609, a small pamphlet was registered at the Stationers' Company called Pimlyco. Or, Runne Red-cap. Tis a mad world at Hogsdon. It was probably published before or near that date. "Pimlyco" or "Pimlico" is a nut-brown ale made and served in Hogsdon, also spelled Hogsden or Hoxden. In the curious pamphlet, the Anonymous writer states that the beer was so popular that several theaters found themselves empty in the afternoons, having lost their crowds to the Hogsdon public houses. The relevant quote that helps set the date of Pericles performances reads:

"(As at a New-play) all the Roomes
Did swarme with Gentiles mix'd with Groomes.
So that I truly thought, all these
Came to see Shore, or Pericles."

A. H. Bullen, who may have been the first to notice the reference, thought that the "Shore" play was probably Heywood's Edward IV. Shakespeare's Pericles was registered in 1608 but early performance dates from other sources are somewhat vague. Yet, a showing of Pericles witnessed by the Venetian and French ambassadors has been dated to between April 1607 and November 1608. If Pericles was performed as early as 1607, the claim that it was influenced by Wilkins' Patterne of Paineful Adventures, 1608, falls apart. (Actually the claim falls apart for other reasons, too.) And even though the 1609 printing of Pericles is agreed to be a "corrupt" and incomplete copy, the testimony of Pimlyco is that Pericles was very popular -- prior to April 15, 1609. So, presumably, the players had a good copy. The 1609 first quarto advertises that Pericles had been ‘diuers and sundry times acted by his Maiesties seruants, at the Globe’. Also that it was a "much admired play."

Jonson and Ostler get paid. Where’s Shakespeare?

2009-04-14T19:29:00.010-04:00

Two Bills and Two Suits.
The William Ostler problem and the William Shakespeare problem
by Robert Sean Brazil
April 14, 2009
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From Robert Cecil’s accounts.

April 14, 1609 — Bill of expenses for entertainment at Britain's
Burse when the King was present. Inter alia :

To John Taillor upon a bill for divers Indyan toyes bought of him. 15:13:6
To Henry Elmes for the like upon a bill. 9:13:0
To Inygoe Johnes upon a bill. 9:12:0
To Johnson the poyett. 13:6:8
To Ostler the player. 5:0:0
Tohisboye. 2:0:0
To Feild the key keeper. 4:0:0

Endorsed: "April 14, 1609. Chardges of preparations made at
the new buildings in Durhame Howse for the King."
From: CALENDAR OF THE MANUSCRIPTS OF THE MOST HONOURABLE THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY PRESERVED AT HATFIELD HOUSE, HERTFORDSHIRE, Part XXIV, Addenda 1605-1668
http://www.archive.org/stream/calendarofmanusc24grea/calendarofmanusc24grea_djvu.txt

Significance of the above
In the April 11 entry I discussed the entertainment held at the dedication of the New Exchange or “Britain’s Bourse.” Three days later payments were made, as recorded in Cecil’s account books.

Note that “Johnson the poyet” (Ben Jonson, poet) got paid 13 pounds, six shillings and eightpence for writing (and we assume) producing the entertainment. William Ostler was a boy player from the Children of the Chapel who, now of age, was being brought in to the King’s Men. He received a whopping five pounds! Ostler’s “boy” or assistant received two pounds. Inigo Jones got nine pounds and change. This cannot be for his architecture work on the New Exchange -- that fee would clearly be much more. Presumably he built or designed special sets for the entertainment. It is fascinating that Jonson got paid more than the famous architect. “Field the key keeper” is Nathan Field, another young actor in the King’s Men.

So where was Shakespeare in all of this? He was back home in Stratford-upon-Avon, biographers tell us, involved in a protracted lawsuit. Shakespeare vs. Addenbrooke (a tradesman) was a contract dispute in Stratford that dragged on from August 1608 to June 1609. At the end of the series of hearings, the court awarded Shakespeare 6 pounds & 24 shillings, simply because Addenbrooke missed the final hearing. It is not recorded if Shakespeare ever collected the 6 pounds/24. Shakespeare was apparently in Stratford the entire time, missing key performances by the King’s Men, the publication of the Sonnets, and opportunities like the state entertainment that netted Ben Jonson 10 pounds. Yet, we are assuredly told that Shakespeare was the preeminent Jacobean playwright and the leader of the King’s Men. Evidence suggests that such stories are fictions, not facts. Why fight in rural court for ten months for a mere six pounds when the newest actor in the King’s Men, Ostler, got paid five pounds for one night’s work?

Adding to the strangeness, after Ostler’s death his widow sued Heminges for Ostler’s theatrical shares (October 1615), and declared, under oath, that the Shakespeare of the Globe (and other actors) were dead -- "generosis defunctis" -- and could not appear as witnesses! (The standard story is the Stratford man lived "until his last birthday," April 23, 1616).

Let’s look deeper at Mr. Ostler:

William Ostler (d. 1614) was a boy actor who became a member of the King's Men around 1608.

Ostler began in the Children of the Chapel, in Jonson's Poetaster, 1601, with Nathan Field and John Underwood, two boys who would also be called up to the Kings Men. Ostler performed in Jonson's Alchemist 1610, and played Antonio in Webster's Duchess of Malfi.

He was noted contemporaneously as a fine actor; John Davies, in Scourge of Folly, 1610, called Ostler, "the Roscius of these times." At some point, Ostler became a shareholder, or "householder" in the Globe and Blackfriars (both used by the King's Men.) Of the Blackfriars shares, Ostler apparently held one of seven portions. Shakespeare is said to have held one of seven as well, but these shares do not appear in Shakespeare’s will and there is no record that he ever sold them. His daughters did not inherit them. Thus it is possible that Shakespeare’s shares in the Blackfriars, at least, were imaginary, or he was a placeholder or straw-man for someone else.

Ostler married Thomasina Heminges (1611), who was a daughter of John Heminges (King's Men). Ostler died (1614), without a will. While his property should have gone to wife, Thomasina, Heminges took control of Ostler’s Blackfriars and Globe shares. Thomasina sued her own dad (for 600 pounds) but Heminges retained control of the shares.

This suit (1614-1615) is fascinating because of the testimony regarding Shakespeare.

The Ostler case was discovered by Dr. C. W. Wallace, and described by him in The Times (London) for Oct. 2 and Oct. 4, 1909; the plaintiff's complete plea was printed by Dr. Wallace in the original Latin in a privately circulated pamphlet. This item is exceedingly rare. EK Chambers gives the Latin, but no translation and no comment about the statement that the following potential witnesses were all dead, as of October 9, 1615: Augustine Phillips, William Shakespeare, Thomas Pope, and William Kempe. [We know Phillips died 1605, Pope in 1603, and Kempe circa 1603. Why would Thomasina Heminges Ostler be right about those men and wrong about Shakespeare? Most Shakespeare biographers run away from this material, focusing instead on Thomasina’s testimony about the value of the Globe and Blackfriars shares. [You can see a portion of the Latin document transcription in Ruth Miller's excellent article on the subject in Oxfordian Vistas Vol II p. 280-3.

The following is an excerpt from the DNB on Ostler. They do NOT mention the Shakespeare problem.

Ostler, William (d. 1614), actor, had a brief but notable career among the King's Men early in the seventeenth century. He first appears as a boy actor among the children of the Chapel Royal who performed Jonson's Poetaster at the Blackfriars playhouse in 1601. He was probably also a chorister, since he is not one of the seven chapel boys mentioned in December 1601 as actors not musicians. He next appears on 11 April 1609 as the first of three players, all recently or still belonging to the Chapel Royal, who performed a hastily arranged entertainment (published by J. Knowles in Butler, 1999), written by Jonson, mounted by Inigo Jones, and played before the king and the royal family at the opening of the New Exchange in the Strand. He played a shopkeeper and was by this time an adult, for he had a servant, Giles Gary, who played the boy in the shop (the other actor was Nathan Field, who played the key keeper). Probably later in that year Ostler was one of the players from the Chapel Royal whom the King's Men took on as adults ‘to strengthen the Kings service’ when the King's Men began to use the Blackfriars playhouse as well as the Globe.

Ostler soon became a principal member of the King's Men. He appears in the cast lists of six of the company's plays: Jonson's Alchemist (1610) and Catiline (1611); Beaumont and Fletcher's Captain (c.1609–12), Boudica (c.1609–14), and Valentinian (c.1610–14); and Webster's Duchess of Malfi (c.1612–14). In this last play he played Antonio, a virtuous hero surrounded by corruption, the only part he is known to have played in a regular play. In celebrating a brawl in which Ostler came off badly, John Davies called him in 1611, perhaps ironically, ‘the Roscius of these times’ and ‘Sole King of Actors’ (Davies, epigram 205). Ostler acquired the lease of a share in the Blackfriars playhouse on 20 May 1611, and he bought one in the Globe on 20 February 1612, so that he held a seventh of one playhouse and a fourteenth of the other, both leases to expire in 1629.

Ostler married Thomasin, daughter of the actor John Heminges, who was the company's treasurer, about 1611, when she would have been sixteen. The Ostlers' child, Beaumont (named presumably for the playwright), was baptized on 18 May 1612 at St Mary Aldermanbury, London, where Heminges lived and Thomasin had been baptized on 15 January 1595. Ostler died intestate, apparently in his twenties, on 16 December 1614, leaving to his widow (who became his administratrix six days later) only his two shares ‘for her relief and maintenance’ along with debts of ‘a very great value’ . She gave the shares to her father in trust and in 1615 brought a famous lawsuit against him when he would not return them or give her the income from them.

In summary: The first mystery is why Shakespeare-of-Stratford preferred pointless, profitless lawsuits in the country to earning fast cash entertaining King James. Then, how did Ostler, a talented actor, go from obscurity to a five-pound payday overnight? The next mystery is why did Ostler die so young, to have his father-in-law grab all his properties and shares, denying all to his (Heminges') daughter, the widow Ostler? Further, why does her sworn testimony of October 1615 include the seemingly uncontested fact that all parties believed Shakespeare, whomever he had been, was dead and gone? Did the man from Stratford die earlier than we know, necessitating various posthumous legal frauds? Or was he simply so long gone from the London scene that no one even knew where he was anymore? Did Thomasina Ostler perhaps remember stories that "Shakespeare" was a name on a contract and referred to another man, also dead?

UPDATE #1 - Here's an interesting presentation of Shakespeare vs. Addenbrooke 1608-09. Click the sequential stories one at a time starting with "August," then use the provided yellow triangle to go back to the Addenbrooke portal each time:
http://www.windowsonwarwickshire.org.uk/spotlights/shakespeare_stratford/addenbrookemain.htm

Letters from the Robert Cecil collection

2009-04-13T15:39:00.005-04:00

The Earl of Northumberland to the Earl of Salisbury [1609] April 13. —
There are some things in question which come under your direction, too long to particularise by writing; therefore I pray you give this officer of mine hearing for me. 13 April. Holograph Endorsed: '1609.'

Sir Edward Wyntour to the Earl of Salisbury
1609, April 13. — You will be well pleased to understand what has been done in this country about the appeasing of such great disorders and dangerous tumults as have happened here of late. As it cannot be done by letters, I will come up myself. All matters here remain now very quiet, the people much ashamed and, as it should seem, very sorry of the vanity and rashness that without any just cause sent them into so high a contempt of his Majesty's authority. They promise all future obedience. My poor house of Lydney, 13 April, 1609.

RSB: I'm not exactly sure which great disorders Wyntour is talking about, or why the people are "ashamed.," or in what way they showed contempt for King James. I'm endeavoring to find out.

Sir Thomas Edmondes to the Earl of Salisbury (Summary)
1609, April 13. — Treaty with the Infanta, the Archduke and the President concerning Hoens. The truce published. Discourses upon the truce, as if the conditions were all to the Archduke's advantage. Desire to have the unnatural subjects, which remain on that side and are as firebrands to his Majesty's estate, removed. Touching the presents of the Commissioners.

RSB: the above entry shows that the political ramifications of the Truce (between Spain and the Netherlands) , published in England around April 13, 1609, were being widely discussed.

John Lumley, First Baron Lumley, dies

2009-04-11T14:43:00.007-04:00

John Lumley, First Baron Lumley, dies April 11, 1609

Sometimes cited as the "seventh Lord Lumley," there were several creations of that title; the John Lumley of the 16th century is properly remembered as First Baron Lumley.

Lumley (1534-April 11,1609) was a fascinating man. He was caught intriguing to help Mary Queen of Scots gain the throne, and found himself jailed in 1570 along with his father-in-law, the Earl of Arundel. He apparently "came around" as he gradually regained favor at Court. He sat as one of the jurors (alongside the Earl of Oxford), in October 1586, at the trial of Mary Queen of Scots. He also sat in judgment of the Earl of Essex in 1602.

Known as a scholar, art- and book-collector, Lumley has even been proposed as the author of The Arte of English Poesy, 1589, more often credited to Puttenham. The catalog of Lumley's library was published as: THE LUMLEY LIBRARY THE CATALOGUE OF 1609, edited by S. Jayne and F. Johnson., London : Trustees of the British Museum 1956. A description follows:

"The library of John, Baron Lumley (1534?-1609), consisted in part of works from the Cranmer library, obtained by way of Lord Arundel, and was in turn acquired, after Lumley had tripled its size, by Prince Henry, later incorporated into the royal library and eventually into the British Museum. An introduction discussing Lumley, the collection and the catalogue is followed by a typographic transcript of the 1609 library catalogue (about 3,000 items) made after Lumley's death for Prince Henry."

After Lumley's death, on April 11, 1609 the book collection was purchased by King James and became the basis for the "Royal Library." A musical tribute to Lumley, by John Bull, is found in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book.

LUMLEY and the 17th Earl of Oxford

In June 1583, Oxford wrote to Burghley on Lumley's behalf:

"I have bene an ernest suitor unto your Lordship, for my Lord Lumley, that it would please you for my sake to stand his good lord and friend whiche as I perceive your Lordship hathe alreadie very honorable ... for the which I am in a number of thinges more then I can reckon bound unto your lordship so am I in this likewise especially. for he hath matched with a near kinswoman of mine, to whose father I alwayes was behoulding unto, for his assured and kind disposition unto me. Further among all the rest of my blood, this only remaynes in account ether of me or else of them, as youre lordship dothe knowe very well, the rest havinge imbraced further alliances, to leave their nearer consanguinite...." Edward Oxenford
To the ryght honorable and his very good lord my lord Thresorer of England giue thes. [seal]
Erl of oxford for ye Lord Lumly

We can detect a close relationship between Baron Lumley and the 17th Earl of Oxford. First of all, they were related by marriage, as in the letter excerpted above. In 1582, Lumley married his second wife, Elizabeth Darcy, whose grandmother, Elizabeth de Vere, was Edward de Vere's aunt. [see also Nelson, Monstrous Adversary, p. 292; Miller, Oxfordian Vistas, p. 562. ). Lumley is listed as one of the mourners at Anne Ceil Oxford's funeral in 1588. (Nelson, p. 309] An early Oxford biographer, BM Ward, believed that Lumley wrote Arte of English Poesy (which has a praise of Oxford's literary skill). This was noted again, briefly, by the senior Ogburns (This Star of England, p. 777) and in Miller, op. cit.

RSB

Festivities at the opening of the New Exchange

2009-04-11T14:36:00.003-04:00

Festivities at the opening of the New Exchange, April 11, 1609

By RSB:

The first Royal Exchange was built in 1567, located in the center of the City of London. It was designed by Thomas Gresham, who modeled the retail/wholesale center or shopping mall after the famous Bourse in Antwerp.

The New Exchange was constructed under the patronage of Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, in the west of London. Designed by Inigo Jones, it was completed in 1609.

On April 11, 1609, a grand dedication ceremony was held at the New Exchange, often referred to as “Britain’s Bourse” or Burse. Ben Jonson wrote and produced a special entertainment for the event. The text of this was lost for centuries until it was discovered by James Knowles in the State Papers in 1996. Jonson’s “Entertainment at Britain's Burse” was published in Re-Presenting Ben Jonson - Text, History, Performance, edited by Martin Butler, 1999.

The New Exchange

The following linked page describes the old and new London Exchanges and has a nice map showing the locations.

http://instruct.uwo.ca/english/234e/site/bckgrnds/maps/lndnmpexchng.html

Treaty of Antwerp

2009-04-09T15:39:00.003-04:00

Peace between Spain and The Netherlands (and Spain expels the Moriscos)

by RSB:
The Treaty of Antwerp, signed in Antwerp on April 9, 1609, between Spain and the Netherlands, was a peace agreement that brought about a 12-year truce. The war between Spain and the breakaway Netherlands (the Eighty Years War, 1568–1648), had brought unbelievable carnage and loss of life in the Low Countries. Many heroes of England fought there and many died there. Philip Sidney was killed there in a skirmish in 1586.

The Dutch Republic (1581-1795), often called the United States, was an inspiration for the formation of the United States of America, whose revolution came approximately two centuries after the Dutch broke with Spain.

Spain also ordered the expulsion of all Muslims on April 9, 1609.

I must point out that England and Europe used different calendars after 1582, with Catholic Europe going with the Gregorian reform and England refusing until 1752. During that time there was a ten-day discrepancy between the two systems. Thus, these April 9 dates involving Spain are probably on the Gregorian calendar and would correspond to March 30, 1609, in England.

Here’s an explanation about the calendar problem I wrote in another context:

A curious aspect of all late 16th Century dates is tied to the Gregorian calendar reform of 1582. Because of a technical error in the Julian calendar, the seasons were gradually slipping away from calendric expectations. This was putting Easter out of synch with the actual occurrence of spring, and forced the church to issue a correction. Ten days were added in the Catholic countries, in October 1582, to re-synchronize the church calendar and restore Easter to its rightful time. The Julian problem and its solution involved the question of how many leap years should be counted in a century. From the adoption of the Julian calendar in 46 B.C. to the 16th Century, the slippage and error had added up to ten days.   By official decree of Pope Gregory XIII, October 4, 1582 was followed immediately by Oct. 15, 1582. Was that adding 10 days or stealing 10 days? England noted the change with skepticism and laughter. All of the Protestant countries, including England and Germany, and Russia (which kept the old Orthodox calendar), ignored, mistrusted, and refused to enact the 1582 correction and only came to their senses one by one, centuries later.   When "correcting" dates from the past there is a sliding scale, not a static formula. English dates from 1582-1700 require a ten day correction. Dates from 1700-1752 require an eleven day correction; 1752 is the year Great Britain and her colonies fixed their system. Russia however, didn't correct its calendar until the Bolshevik revolution. So for Russian dates between 1700-1800 there's an 11 day correction, for 1800-1900 a 12 day correction, and from 1900-1920 a 13 day correction.
From:
http://www.elizabethanauthors.com/oxfordsbirth.htm

Other web locations:

Treaty of Antwerp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Antwerp_(1609)

Expulsion of the Moriscos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_the_Moriscos

Eighty Years' War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighty_Years_War

King James' Oath of Allegiance

2009-04-08T15:38:00.009-04:00

King James' Oath of Allegiance Published in English

By RSB:

Shortly after the 1605 Gunpowder Plot imploded, Parliament passed a new law that required Catholics in England to take an Oath of Allegiance to King James and, simultaneously, to publicly deny the Pope's international political power--specifically the pontiff's "right" to depose Kings. Pope Paul V immediately condemned the English law, and sent letters to James demanding satisfaction. Instead of giving the task to a cleric or functionary, James decided to write a reply--an "apology" (an explanation) himself. This tract was printed in February 1608 as Triplici Nodo Triplex Cuneus, anonymously, and in Latin.

On April 8, 1609 (date on the title page) the book was revised and re-issued in English giving King James credit for the book publicly.

"An Apologie for the Oath of Allegiance, first set foorth without a name : And now acknowledged by the Author, the Right High and Mightie Prince James. Together with a Premonition of his Maiesties, to all most Mightie Monarches, Kings, free Princes and States of Christendome. Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majestie April 8, ANNO 1609."

Also new in the 1609 edition was James' Premonition -- an appeal to other Protestant princes and kings. He refers to the Gunpowder Plot as the "Powder Treason."

It is odd that Shakespeare did not deal with Gunpowder Plot allusively -- unless he did. Garry Wills' 1995 Witches and Jesuits [Shakespeare's Macbeth] argues that Macbeth allegorizes the Gunpowder plot. This is still controversial. Many Shakespeare scholars do not accept Wills' thesis. I don't.

If you're curious, here's a review of Wills' book and theory:
http://www.gunpowder-plot.org/news/1998_04/macbeth.htm

And here's the wiki page on the Plot:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder_Plot

Cecil's fees, Brits taste Coffee, Thomas Taylor

2009-04-07T16:54:00.003-04:00

Robert Cecil has a fit about non-payment of import fees

"Whitehall, April 7, 1609: the Earl of Salisbury (Robert Cecil, High Steward of Exeter) informs the Mayor that His Majesty's Grocer has complained that the merchants of Exeter bringing fruits and other grocery wares into the port and creeks therunto adjoining do refuse to pay for these commodities that composition which is due to His Majesty for the provision and service of his household. He therefore desires the Mayor to enquire into the matter and report to him the names of those who persist in refusing."

The city of Exeter Letters and other papers
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=67118

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Englishmen of the East India Company encounter Coffee

"On the evening of April 7, 1609 the first British ship ever to visit Yemen came to anchor outside the port of Aden. Of course the English had heard stories of this great port, thick with freighters and junks which tramped the coasts of India bringing exotic goods from the East to be exchanged for European commodities like woollens, leathers, tin and iron, brought down from Suez by ship or caravan. But, to the surprise of the men aboard the Ascension, the historic harbour of Aden was curiously deserted, except for a few Gujarati vessels; and the city, itself, what they could see of it, seemed run-down and seedy as if the businessmen had all gone elsewhere and the place had been left to rot.

The following day, the ship's cargo of cloth and metal was purchased for the Pasha and brought to shore accompanied by several of the ship's merchant representatives, two men named Jourdain and Revett, who were sent to settle the accounts.

Anxious to find out about the nature of this thriving commerce, Jourdain - adept in the art of commercial espionage - quickly located some likely informants and exchanged a few worthless goods for information. He was told that the mountain was named Nasmarde and that it was a very special place. For on this mountain grew most of the qahwa (which Jourdain heard as "cohoo") that was shipped throughout all the lands controlled by the Turks and to the far reaches of the Indies.

What Jourdain and Revett had stumbled upon that day was Yemen's coffee mountain - the produce of which, by then, had become more valuable than gold (at least for those who had been seduced by this exotic substance). Though coffee had yet to make its entry into Europe, by 1610, the year these stalwarts from the East India Company arrived, it had become one of the most important commodities in the Turkish Empire.

http://www.cafemagazine.co.uk/blackapollo01.html

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Thomas Taylor's Beauties of Bethel

Taylor, Thomas, 1576-1632.
"The beavvties of Beth-el. Containing: sundry reasons why euery Christian ought to account one day in the courtes of God, better then a thousand besides. Preached in Cambridge, and now published especially for the benefite of those that were the hearers."
At London : Printed by G. Eld, for Thomas Man, and are to be sold at his shop in Pater-noster-row, at the signe of the Talbot, 1609.
Stationer’s Register: Entered to T. Man, sen., and J. Man April 7, 1609"

George Eld would go on to print Shake-speare's Sonnets a month later.

Henry Hudson sets sail

2009-04-06T23:36:00.000-04:00

April 6, 1609

"Henry Hudson sailed from Holland in the “Half Moon” on April 6, 1609. When head winds and storms forced him to abandon his northeast voyage, he ignored his agreement and proposed to the crew that they should instead seek the Northwest Passage. Given their choice between returning home or continuing, the crew elected to follow up Smith’s suggestion and seek the Northwest Passage around 40° N. While cruising along the Atlantic seaboard, Hudson put into the majestic river that was discovered by the Florentine navigator Giovanni da Verrazano in 1524 but that was thenceforth to be known as the Hudson. After ascending it for about 150 miles (240 kilometres) to the vicinity of what is now Albany, N.Y., Hudson concluded that the river did not lead to the Pacific."

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/274681/Henry-Hudson

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William Shakespeare assessed for poor rate (likely a modern forgery)
April 6, 1609
List of persons assessed for poor rate in Southwark, April 6, 1609, in which Shakespeare's name appears.
First printed in Collier's 'Memoirs of Edward Alleyn,' 1841, p. 91. The forged paper is at Dulwich. {369b}

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23464/23464.txt

Heminges takes payment (as usual)

2009-04-06T00:18:00.000-04:00

April 5, 1609 -- Heminges takes payment (as usual) for King's Men

"Other narratives would have the King's Servants acting in Blackfriars during these plague periods because of recorded payments by the royal court to them for "private practice" (not in a particular location) during plague. John Heminges, who had annually collected the court moneys due the company from holiday performances since the beginning of James's reign, picked up payment at Whitehall on April 5, 1609, in Lent, for twelve plays presented at court during the preceding winter holidays. Then, twenty days later, Heminges was allotted an extra 40 [pounds sterling], a gratuity described as "his Majesty's reward for their private practice in the time of infection that thereby they might be enabled to perform their service before his Majesty in Christmas holidays [1608-] 1609." The reference here to "private" play would resurface a year later in a similar warrant for a royal gratuity to the King's Servants. This time Heminges picked up 30 [pounds sterling] for the King's Servants "being restrained from public playing within the City of London in the time of infection during the space of six weeks in which time they practiced privately for his Majesty's service."
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5322413/Shakespeare-and-the-second-Blackfriars.html

PIRATES! - April 1609

2009-04-01T16:06:00.000-04:00

Ward and Danseker tvvo notorious pyrates, Ward an Englishman, and Danseker a Dutchman. VVith a true relation of all or the mo[st] piraces by them committed vnto the first of Aprill. 1609. , Printed at London : [By E. Allde] for N. Butter and a[re] to be sold at his shop, at the signe of the Pide Bull, 1609.

2009-01-02T00:25:00.000-05:00

This is a test to see if I can post with retroactive dates