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The Life of
Henry, Third Earl of Southampton, Shakespeare's Patron
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The Life of
Henry, Third Earl of Southampton, Shakespeare's Patron
BY
CHARLOTTE CARMICHAEL STOPES
Author of The Bacon-Shakespeare Question Answered, British Freeivomen, Shakespeare's Family, Shakespeare's Warwickshire Contemporaries, William Hunnis and the Revels of the Chapel Royal, Burbage and Shakespeare's Stage, Shakespeare's Environ- ment, Shakespeare's Industry, Editor of Shakespeare's Sonnets, etc.
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1922
PREFACE
IT would have been more correct to have called this volume a collection of materials towards a Life. For anything approaching a real life can only be written by the subject himself, by an intimate friend, such as Fulke Greville was to Philip Sidney, or by one who has the command of a long series of private letters, heart-revealing writings, and contemporary information, such as Spedding had of Francis Bacon. Southampton kept no diaries, he did not pour forth his heart readily in effusive letters, he wrote no signed poems or papers, and few of his correspondents kept his epistles. The best that could be done was to arrange the facts concerning him in chrono- logical order and set these in his natural surroundings, so that the work at best gives but a mosaic with many lacunae. I have not attempted to fill in the blanks as if with oil colours to make a complete "portrait"; I have attempted no oratory to move the feelings of others to judge him as I do. It is "but a plain blunt tale," but it was necessary to tell it as a background to that of Shakespeare and to help forward the writing of the Life of the Earl of Essex, which awaits some eager student.
From a plain statement of facts, however, we may sometimes secure legitimate inferences. Hence I dwelt, some may think unduly, on his work in the Virginia Company. We find him there, always in the van, among all his anxieties. A troublesome minority made so much noise that the king crushed it "because of the disagreement among themselves," but Southampton could have pulled it through had he been let alone. And from what we know of his actions there, we may argue back to the other "brawls" with which he has been credited, feeling sure he would always be on the side which he thought was right.
I must confess that I did not start this work for his sake, but in the hope that I might find more about Shakespeare, which hope has not been satisfied. In my earlier Shakespearean work, of course, I had read Drake, Malone, Gerald Massey, and Halliwell- Phillipps, and had collected a few new facts, but the person who impelled me to do this work in a thorough way was Mr Thomas Tylor. He first brought out the hypothesis which has been called
vi PREFACE
"the Herbert-Fitton theory" in a paper read at a meeting of the New Shakespeare Society in 1 890. Everybody present (which does not mean all the members of the society) was in sympathetic ad- miration of such a neatly fitted group of interesting facts, supposed to be connected with each other, and they all, including Dr Furni- vall, accepted it. As I said good-bye to Mr Tylor, I said " I hope I may live long enough to be able to contradict you!" "No, you won't, for my theory is going down Time!" "Not if I live long enough," said I, in full faith that evidence must be forthcoming to confute a theory so injurious to the good name of Shakespeare. Another relevant incident which I must relate happened some time afterwards (I forget how long). A small portrait, asserted to be con- temporary, of the 3rd Earl of Pembroke had been offered to the then-existing holder of the title, for sale at a reasonable price. On the back a slip of paper was pasted containing the quotation from Sonnet LXXXI:
Your monument shall be my gentle verse Which [eyes not yet created shall o'er -read].
The Earl of Pembroke invited certain leaders in art, literature, and criticism to meet at his house and give him their opinion. Dr Furnivall, having a card for himself and friend, took me as his "friend." The portrait was handed round, examined, and accepted by all as genuine and worth buying. It was handed round for a second time, in regard to the inscription. I do not remember the remarks made. I was last, and when it reached me I said, "The ink which wrote that was made in 1832!" thinking of the publica- tion of Boaden's theory. This caused a commotion; Dr Furnivall laughingly cried " I forgot ! Turn her out, turn her out. She is a Southamptonite. We are all Pembrochians here!" This made me go on all the more eagerly in my research and attempts to convert Dr Furnivall, which I eventually did, chiefly through two articles in The Athenaum, March, 1898, on "The Date of the Sonnets," and another in August, 1900, "Who was Mr W. H.?"
In the collection of my materials I have many to thank. The officers of the British Museum and the Record Office have been unfailingly helpful and considerately patient with my troublesome enquiries. The Librarians of the Bodleian have been as good, though I troubled them on fewer occasions.
PREFACE vii
I have to thank the Marquis of Salisbury for courteously allowing me to see his historical manuscripts, and his private secretary, Mr Gunton, who generously aided me in my search; the Duke of Portland for leave to include the Welbeck Abbey portraits; the Walpole Society for the loan of blocks used in the article on Wriothesley Portraits, by Mr R. W. Goulding, in their eighth volume; also Mrs Holman Hunt for the copyright of her treasured "Rubens portrait" of the Earl of Southampton. The Rev. Mr Matthews, formerly of Titch field Church, not only admitted me to the Registers, but laid all his notes and photographs out before me that I might choose. Thanks are also due to Captain Charles Cottrell- Dormer of Rousham, Oxfordshire, for allowing me to spend a whole day among his manuscripts and to transcribe those concerning the Countess of Southampton. The Town Clerk of Southampton also cheerfully opened his Town-books, and Mr Chitty and Mr Jaggard sent me notes from Winchester. I have also to thank Mr R. F. Scott, Master of St John's College, Cambridge, for telling me where Thomas, the second son (and heir) of Southampton, was born, for the reprints of his articles in The Eagle^ and for permission to use the College portrait of the Earl. Mr Previte Orton, the Librarian of the College, and his assistant were most kind to me in trying to solve the puzzles of the donation of books to the Library.
CHARLOTTE CARMICHAEL STOPES.
HAMPSTEAD,
April z^rd, 1921.
HINTS TO READERS
1. All MSS. not referred to any other collection are to be found in the British Museum.
2. All legal cases, State Papers, etc., are in the Public Record Office.
3. All wills, unless otherwise noted, are in Somerset House.
4. P.C.C. means Prerogative Court of Canterbury; P.C.R., the Privy Council Register; L.C., Lord Chamberlain's Papers.
5. The Cecil Papers and Salisbury Papers are the same, all being at Hatfield. But the former are the originals, the latter the printed Calendars, where the same articles appear as abstracts in greater or less degree.
Before 1906 I did my work at Hatfield, where I have secured many originals, some of which, however, have been contracted by Mr Gunton or myself. Several volumes of the Calendar have come out since then; hence occasionally I give both references.
6. Many statements could have been referred back to several sources, but as I have lost so much of my work through the failure of my eyes and their inability to read even my own writing in pencil (which is used compulsorily in the Record Office), I have been unable to check various authorities, and have been forced to be contented occasionally with the one I could best secure.
7. My work strives to be accurate, above all things, but where, through long study and logical inference, I have used my imagina- tion to fill up gaps, I always putsuch suggestions in large parentheses, to shew that I am aware that these passages contain an element of uncertainty, and are frequently controversial.
8. The limits of space have prevented my including many minor facts and allusions to the 3rd Earl of Southampton and his friends, as of course, I had to choose for publication the most significant.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE . . . . . .: . , v
CHAP. HINTS TO READERS . . , **. . . viii
I LORD WRIOTHESLEY'S INFANCY . . i
II THE BOYHOOD OF THE EARL 7
III THE EARL'S FIRST ASSOCIATION WITH ST JOHN'S
COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE . . .24
IV PROPOSALS FOR MARRIAGE . . . '.34
V THE PATRON -49
VI THE EARL'S MAJORITY 62
VII CAUSES OF GOSSIP . > . . . 79
VIII SEA DREAMS AND ACTIONS, 1596-7 . . . 96 IX THE Two COUNTESSES OF SOUTHAMPTON . .114
X THE IRISH CAMPAIGN . . . . .139
XI THE QUARREL BETWEEN LORD GREY OF WIL-
TON AND THE EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, 1 599- 1604 , '. * . . . .163
XII THE PERILS OF "CONTEMPT," 1599-1600 . 172
XIII THE CONSPIRACY, 1600-1 . . . .186
XIV JUDGMENTS . . . . ... 206
XV CLEARING UP ..;... 223
XVI A LAMPOON OF THE DAY, 1601 . . . 235
XVII THE PASSING OF THE TUDORS . . . 243
XVIII THE COMING OF THE KING . . -. . 255 XIX FESTIVITIES, 1604-5 . . . . . 279
XX THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER 299
x CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
XXI "SOME TO DISCOVER ISLANDS FAR AWAY" . .314
XXII THE OCCURRENTS IN ENGLAND . . . 334
XXIII A NOBLE GIFT TO ST JOHN'S COLLEGE LIBRARY 356
XXIV A LONG PROGRESS . ... 377
XXV WORK IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS . . . 397
XXVI "VIRGINIA BRITANNICA" . . . .416
XXVII THE FIFTY-SECOND YEAR .... 447
XXVIII "HENCE THESE TEARS" ..... 461 XXIX THE HEIR OF ALL . . . . 473
ADDENDA
I THE PATERNAL ANCESTORS .... 485
II THE MATERNAL ANCESTORS . . . 487
III THE SECOND EARL AND COUNTESS OF SOUTH-
AMPTON ....... 499
IV SOUTHAMPTON'S CONTEMPORARIES IN ST JOHN'S
COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE . . . . 528
NOTE TO CHAPTER XXI .'..'. . . 529
INDEX . . . .... . . 530
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE SOUTHAMPTON MONUMENT, TITCHFIELD
CHURCH ...... TO FACE PAGE 6
THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON AS A BOY . „ 16 (From the monument in Titchfield Church)
THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON IN A SUIT OF
WHITE, WITH ARMOUR ..... ,,94 (At Welbeck Abbey)
ELIZABETH VERNON, MAID OF HONOUR TO QUEEN
ELIZABETH . . . . . . . ,,114
(At Hodnet Hall)
THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, WHILE A
PRISONER IN THE TOWER .... „ 252
(At Welbeck Abbey)
THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON IN HIS PRIME „ 362
(Attributed to Rubens; Mrs Holman-Hunt's collection)
ELIZABETH VERNON, COUNTESS OF SOUTHAMPTON. „ 378
(At Welbeck Abbey)
THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON . . „ 449
(At St John's College, Cambridge)
CHAPTER I
LORD WRIOTHESLEY'S INFANCY1
HENRY, LORD WRIOTHESLEY, second of the Christian name and third of the title, came as the Son of Consolation to his parents on the 6th of October, 1573. His father, the second Earl of Southampton, a noted recusant, had suffered much discomfort and a very severe illness through his imprisonment in the Tower for the matter of the Duke of Norfolk. His mother Mary, daughter of Sir Anthony Browne, first Viscount Montague, had suffered nearly as much, through her intense sympathy, constant anxiety, and never-resting efforts on his behalf to move the Queen to mercy. At last the tide turned in his favour. On the ist of May, 1573, Southampton was allowed to go forth from the Tower to the comparatively com- fortable house of Sir William More in Loseley, where he had pre- viously been detained. There he still fretted against captivity, and his petitions were strengthened by Sir William More, who found the office of jailor incompatible with his other public duties. In July the disconsolate Earl was suddenly permitted to rejoin his wife and friends, under the hospitable roof of his father-in-law, where he was subject to no further supervision than that of Lord Montague, and was permitted even to go and see his building operations at Dogmars- field2, if he made sure he never spent more than one night out of Cowdray. The kindness of Lady More to the captive had roused the gratitude of Lady Southampton, and the relations of Sir William More to his charge had always been friendly. Thus it was first to Loseley that the great news went forth post, on the 6th of October, " Yt has so hapned by the sudden seizing of my wife today, we could not by possibility have your wife present, as we desired. Yet have I thought goode to imparte unto you such comforte as God hath sente me after all my longe troubles, which is that this present morning at three of the clock, my wife was delivered of a goodly boy (God bless him.)... Yf your wife will take the paynes to visit her, we shall be mighty glad of her company. From Cowdray this present Tuesday 1 As to ancestral matters, see also Addenda. * Loseley Papers, iv. 16. s. s. i
2 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
1573. Your assured frend H. Southampton."1 Thus was the only son2 of the second Earl of Southampton born, not at Titch field, but at Cowdray, the house of his mother's people. This "goodly boy" was the first grandson born to the Viscount Montague, and it is certain that he had as much attention and care as was good for him. Besides all that the loving care of his mother could shower upon him, there was the experience of her stepmother, the Viscountess Montague3, a notable authority in the bringing up of children. It is strange that there has been preserved no record of his baptism. He must have been "made a Christian" in a much more modest way than his father was, who had a King and a Queen as sponsors; but there appears to be no later allusion to the godparents of the young Lord. It must be taken for granted that the ceremony was per- formed after the ritual of the Catholic church, and that his sponsors were chosen from among his father's friends, rather for his spiritual strengthening than his worldly advancement. The Registers of Titch field for that period are not extant. We know very little about the young Lord's childhood; but the first event that could have at all affected him was the visit of his parents to London. Whether the Earl of Southampton had been summoned to Court to be admonished and finally forgiven, or whether he had received permission to visit his mother, the Lady Jane, we know not. But we know that he went, and meant to make it a happy pilgrimage by inviting his father-in-law and his brother-in-law to accompany him, probably leaving the child, at that early age, under the kind supervision of the Viscountess Montague. He wrote to Sir William More, " Although I have lately divers wayes pestered your howse yet sins your request is so, I mynd, God willing, with my wife, to be with you in our journey towards London on Tuesday even sennight and my brother Anthony Browne and his wiffe in my company. My Lord Montague upon this occasion is not coming, ist November, I573-"4 The young people would go to London together, but would probably separate at London Bridge, the
1 Loseley Papers, iv. 18.
1 It has always been said he was "the second son," but there is no authority for that. The error must have begun in confusing the second with the first Henry.
3 See her Life by the Rev. Richard Smith.
4 Loseley Papers, iv. 21 and x. 51.
i] LORD WRIOTHESLEY'S INFANCY 3
Brownes going to their town house, St Mary Overies, the Wriothesleys to Southampton House in Holborn.
Anthony Browne was the eldest son and heir-apparent of Cow- dray by Viscount Montague's first marriage to Jane, daughter of Robert, Earl of Sussex, and he was the only full-brother of the Lady Mary, Countess of Southampton. The Southamptons seem to have returned and spent some time longer at Cowdray, where, four months afterwards, another grandson came to the Viscount. Anthony Browne had married, the year before, Mary, the daughter of Sir William Dormer, and lived in Riverbank House, a dwelling which had been built for their use in Cowdray Park. There was born in March 1574 Anthony Maria Browne — afterwards heir. We may imagine the meeting of the two babes, when the new-comer at Riverbank was first brought over to his inheritance at Cowdray, their staring at each other with dim sub-conscious intelligence. The Wriothesley interloper had the advantage of four months, a period long enough to instil into the infant's mind a sense of posses- sion and a scorn of new-comers smaller than himself. Four months gives a great precedence in the first year of life.
I have been able to find only two MS. references to the Wrio- thesley baby during his whole childhood. The first is in the will of his grandmother, the Lady Jane, 26th July, I5741. By it she left various bequests "to my Son's son, Harrye, Lord Wriothesley." That gives us at least the clue to his baby-name, and a reference to his baby "expectations." We know nothing, except by its results, of the child's education up to a certain date, save that it must have been equal to his rank and conducted on strictly Catholic lines.
The other allusion to the child is made in relation to a painful episode in the family history. The Earl of Southampton was taken into favour again and was given certain county offices to perform, which, with his own interests in house-building and farming, seem to have placidly filled his time. He and his wife seem to have continued on affectionate terms until about 1577, and then some misunderstanding arose, fostered by constant mischief-making through the Earl's gentleman servants, the chief of whom was Thomas Dymock. The Earl secluded himself more and more among his followers and estranged himself from his wife; he would
1 Martyn, 43.
I — 2
4 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
have no communication with her, except verbally through the servants who had been the cause of the continuance, if not of the initiation, of the Earl's bad feeling. The friends of the Countess became anxious; her father wrote her a long letter asking her to explain fully her position and confess to what degree she was to blame. Unfortunately that letter has disappeared. But the full and frank reply of the poor wife has been preserved, which must be read in full to be understood in so far as she was concerned. The postscript mentions the child1. "That yowr Lordship shalbe witnes of my desier to wyn my Lorde by all such meanes as resteth in me, I have sent yowe what I sent him by my little boye. Butt his harte was too greate to bestowe the reading of it, coming from me. Yett will I do my parte so longe as I am with him, but good my Lorde, procure so soone as conveniently yowe may, some end to my miserie for I am tyred with this life." It is to be regretted that the enclosed letter has not been preserved.
By later correspondence we learn that she never saw her boy again during the life-time of his father, who kept him with himself and his servants.
This letter forces the reader to sympathise with the Countess, to long to hear how the Earl could explain his conduct, and to wonder if he could possibly put himself in the right. He leaves nothing further than his will, and that only puts him still further in the wrong. It is dated the 24th of June, 1581, and is very long2.
In it he describes himself as in "health and perfect memory,'* though its contents belie this statement, for they shew him to have disregarded time, place, circumstances, and the amount available to be distributed. The uses of the money are limited by an indenture made on loth May, 1568, between the testator and the Viscount Montague and others deceased, " until the issue male of the testator should come to the age of 21 years."
One thousand pounds were to be devoted to monuments, one of his father and mother and the other of himself. His funeral was not to cost more than another thousand. A liberal allowance to the poor was to be paid as promptly as possible, that they might pray for his soul and the souls of his ancestors. He left a ring to the Queen;
1 Cotton MS., Titus, bk. n. art. 174, f. 366.
2 Rowe, 45.
i] LORD WRIOTHESLEY'S INFANCY 5
"beseeching her to be good to my little infants, whom I hope to be good servants and subjects of her Majesty and of the State."1 He left liberal allowances to servants and friends, and to his daughter Mary £2000, if she obeys his executors and does not live in the same house as her mother.
As an afterthought, he remembered the father-in-law to whom he owed so much, by leaving him a George and a Garter, which could not have been his own, as he never had been made Knight of the Order, and it could not have been his father's, as the first Earl left his to Sir William Pembroke. He left as executors Charles Paget, brother to Lord Paget, Edward Gage of Bartley Co. Sussex, Gilberd Wells of Brainebridge Co. Southampton, Ralph Hare, bencher of the Inner Temple, and "lastly my good and faithful servant Thomas Dymock, Gent." For "overseers" he appointed " Henry Earl Northumberland, my Lord Thomas Paget and my loving brother Thomas Cornwallis."
Of course, the bulk of the property was to come to his son Henry. The will also gives information as to his relatives on his father's side — his sister Katharine, Lady Cornwallis, his sister Mabel Sandys, his aunts Lawrence, Pound, and Clerke, his cousin John Savage, son of Sir John Savage, and others.
From a fulsome panegyric on the Earl of Southampton by John Phillipps, called an "Epitaph,"2 we learn that both of his children were with him at the last, that he lovingly blessed them, and that they wept and wailed at his death. The account was evidently intended to pass by the wife, though "In wedlock hee observed the vow that hee had made."
The Earl of Southampton died at Itchell, a house of his not far from Titchfield, on 4th October, 1581, when his son and heir was two days short of completing his eighth year. He was buried on 3Oth November in Titchfield Church beside his mother Jane, the first Countess of Southampton of that creation.
Little public notice was taken of his departure. Camden even mistakes the year in which he died; Dugdale says, "His well wishes towards the marriage of the Duke of Norfolk and Mary Queen of Scots, to whom and to whose religion he stood not a little affected, occasioned him no little trouble." Once he is mentioned 1 Addenda. * Huth Ballads, 58.
6 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH. i
with flattery in literature. In that strange book1 Honour in its perfection the notice of the third Earl is prefaced by an account of the first Earl, his grandfather. "After this noble Prince succeeded his sonne Henry Earle of Southampton, a man of no lesse vertue, promesse and wisedom, ever beloved and favoured of his Prince, highly reverenced and favoured of all that were in his own ranke, and bravely attended and served by the best gentlemen of those countries wherein he lived; his muster roll never consisted of foure lackeys and a coachman, but of a whole troupe of at least a hundred well-mounted gentlemen and yeomen. He was not known in the streets by guarded liveries, but by gold chains, not by painted butterflies ever runing as if some monster pursued them, but by tall goodly fellowes that kept a constant pace, both to guard his person, and to admit any man to their Lord which had serious business. This Prince could not steale or drop into an ignoble place, neither might doe anythinge unworthy of his great calling, for he ever had a world of testimonies about him. When it pleased the divine goodnesse to take to his mercy this great Earle he left behinde to succeede him Henry Earle of Southampton his sonne, being then a child."2
1 By Gervase Markham.
2 The Earl of Southampton was summoned to repair the roads in St Andrew's, Holborn, near his own house in 1578 (Coram Rege Roll, Hilary 20 Eliz. f. 119) and 1580. The summons was repeated again and again to his heir (Controlment Rolls, Trin. 22-23 Eliz. f. 94, et seq.).
A later reference should be given here to throw some light upon the beginning of Lady Southampton's troubles. A Catholic in Brussels, writing to a friend, warns him against Charles Paget, who is still "tampering in broils and practices between friend and friend, man and wife, Prince and Prince ... I will overpass his youthful crimes, as the unquietness he caused betwixt the late Earl of Southampton and his wife, yet living." (D S.S.P. Eliz. CCLXXI. 74, July 4-14, 1599, et seq.).
PLATE I
THE SOUTHAMPTON MONUMENT, TITCHFIELD CHURCH
CHAPTER II THE BOYHOOD OF THE EARL
IT is never an easy thing to step into a great estate, and in the sixteenth century the difficulties were much increased for those under age. Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton, would become in due order a Royal Ward; but the Queen would either sell his Wardship and Marriage, or bestow it as a gift on some of her favourites. It was probably as such that she bestowed it on Lord Charles Howard, Lord High Admiral.
Then began arithmetical calculations of an abstruse nature, dull enough for readers even after the details have been mastered, but still necessary to consider, as they have a direct bearing on the future career of the minor.
It is a little difficult to estimate the true character of the Thomas Dymock who had so bewitched his master that he was practically left, at the Earl's death, "the man in possession." He might have been a man of good intentions, confused only by a blind devotion to his master and obedience to his wishes, instead of the evil spirit that Lady Southampton and others described. Whatever he really was, he took the first step towards settlement. Without consulting his fellow executors, Lord Montague the next of kin, or Lord Paget the "overseer," he set off alone to prove the will in which he was so much personally concerned. It might be that he inno- cently needed ready money to keep the house going, to prepare for the funeral, and to pay at once for the volumes of prayers necessary to free his master's soul, as soon as possible, from pur- gatorial fires. It might have been, on the other side, a feverish haste to get his own affairs and those of his favourites settled, for he knew well there would not be sufficient assets to cover all, for years to come.
It was a good lesson for him, and a great advantage for the other legatees, that the Registrar in Chief then refused to allow him to prove the will.
8 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
The widowed lady whom he had so deeply wronged had at last bestirred herself in earnest. She was no longer held back from publicity by the lingering ties of old affection, no longer afraid to befoul her own nest, to help her own children. She had no fear of fighting the "dead hand" which tried to dominate and humiliate her.
She had many personal friends; so had her father. With her acute intelligence the Countess saw that nothing could be done now for herself, but that a very great deal could yet be done for her children. This could only be done by or through the Queen herself. The Crown had a right to protect the person of the heir and to super- intend the settlement of his property, and in face of such a flagrant defiance of justice and precedent as the late Earl's will the Crown, and the Crown alone, could ignore in certain points the wishes of the testator. But the Crown had to be dealt with warily. In spite of his own offensive marriage, and of the Queen's French suitors, the Earl of Leicester was still the man best able to do this successfully. He could carry the Council with him; he was doubly related to Lady Southampton's family, he had helped her husband before, at her request, and he had offered again to help her if need be now; so he would be sure to do the best he could for her. She made up her mind to write first to the Earl of Leicester1. He liked to be con- sulted first, Burleigh could bide his time.
She wrote, accordingly2, as early as she could reasonably have done so, only ten days after the death of her husband.
1 The knowledge of how she did so came into my hands in this way. Searching as I did for everything concerning the name, I found in the Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission a reference to letters written by the Countess of Southampton to the Earl of Leicester in 1592. Knowing that she could not have written them then, or at least that he could not have received them, I applied to the owner of the letters, Capt. Charles Cottrell-Dormer of Rousham, to let me see them, and was kindly allowed to go down and copy them for myself. I cannot understand how these letters got to Rousham; neither does the present possessor. The Countess of Southampton's brother Anthony had married Mary, daughter of Sir William Dormer ; her step-sister Elizabeth married Sir Robert Dormer, afterwards Baron Dormer of Wing. The Dormer family were also related to Lord Leicester, but it is difficult to account for these special letters travelling from the Earl of Leicester's study to the possession of the Dormers.
* I found, as I expected, that the secretary had committed an error in date. Apparently the first of the Countess's letters dated " i4th October," and endorsed "1582," must have been written in 1581.
ii] THE EARL'S BOYHOOD 9
My Lord, as ever I helde myself greatly beholding unto you, for your favour and well wyshing of me, so that yt pleased yor Lordship, now in the tyme of my greatest dyscomfort and neede of assestance to offer so honourably of yor owen mocion your helpe to raise my greved mynd and defende me from the mallis of those that my unkynd Lord (God forgeve him) hath left in over great trust behynd hym. I acknowledg myself most bownd, besechynge yor Lordship to show that favor towards me at this tyme as you have often promysed and I have assured myself to fynd when inded I should have cause to crave the same with effecte. That my boye is past yor hande I can but sorrow, not remedy but that the holl stat of this erldom he is of trust to injoy should rest in the hands of so unworthy a person as gentell Mr Dymocke voyde of either wytte, abelity, or honesty to dischardg the same doth so vexe me as in troth my Lord I am not able to expresse. How to better yt I knowe no menes but by yor menes to her Majestic to have consideracion of the man, and great matters that resteth in his hands un- accomptable but by Her prerogative, which I trust by yor Lordships menes to procure for the good of the child. Mr Dymock proved the wyll the next day after my Lord his death, by his owen bare othe without the knowledge of any of the rest of the executors, such worthy persons as are not in stat to undertake yt, which makes me hope that the wyll is not of such force as he would have yt either in substance or surcomstance, that I intend to put to the (Dr Drury's) tryall, not to undo any resonable matter my Lord hath don herin, but to defend my chyldern and my selfe from ther fingers that mynd no good to either of us. Yor Lordship's ayde and assestance I desyre herein, that yor credytt may be used for my releife cheflye with her Majestic and that it wyll plese you to bestow yor breth to Doctor Drury (befor whom the probatt is to be made) to show all the favor he may to make yt voyd, and thereby the admynistration to be granted to me, upon such sufficient assurance for the honorable dyschardge thereof as shalbe to the content of all parties. That his Lordship contynewed his hard mynd towards me till his last, I greeve more for his sowll than any harme he hathe don to me therein, for my assurance of lyving rested not in his hands to bare. For the rest I way not, but by my troth am rather glad he hath gevyn me so just cawse to forgett him that otherwyse I should have caryed my rememberance with grefe more then enoughe to my last howere.
Ten thousand tymes have I remembered yor speches to me full often touching the dyspocion of the man. I think I shall hold you for more then half a profiyt, that I wyshe sholde not prophecy in the worste parte of me. Well my Lord, I am now free, and be you sure, to the graitest prince that lyveth wyll I not put myself in the lyke condicyon nether for my quyett nor welth. Yor helping hand put to, good Lord, 'with so much good wyll as my affection towards yourself ever hath deserved, the matter is honorable and as resonable to be granted by yor menes whose credytt I hope shall ever be able to incounter Mr Dymocke, although my Lord of nowt made him,
io THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
and many mo. I wold not tyer you with many lines....! rest you to God, and myself to your Lordships affectionate rememberance, from Battell this 1 4th of October, Your Lordships most assured poure frend and cosyn,
M. SOUTHAMPTON.
Good my Lord, borne this and tak no knowladge of my wryting for this tyme, for I have not made any cretur prevy to yt, but cold not be quyett tyll I had don, nether shalbe tyll I here from you1.
The Earl of Leicester's answer to this impulsive and perhaps slightly imprudent letter may be inferred from her next letter dated clearly 25th October, 1581.
My good Lord,
I have receyved by my Lord my father notis of your honorable care had of me, in this great extremyte that bade persons dryves me into, wherfore I acknowlege myselfe bownd unto yor Lordship praying the contynuance of yor favor so fare as consyence and honor may warant the sam. The hard delling of my Lord towards me in his lyffe was not unknowne unto your Lordship, and how he hath left me at his death is to aparant to all, makyng his sarvant his wyffe, by geving to him all and to myself nothing that he colde put from me. His only dawghter is lyttle preferred in benefytt before his man, who surly, my Lord, colde never deserve yt with awght that is in him, except with feding my Lord his humour agaynst me to incresse his owen credytt to that heytte as now (with dyshonor more then enoughe) yt is comen unto. What greffe yt is to me, I can not make known unto yor Lordship, the rather for that yt is now remedyles. Yt resteth now that by yor Lordships good menes and other my frendes ther may be that don for the good of the chyld and surty of that which his father hath left unto him that yor authoritie or credytt may afford, that his evell stat may not rest at the devocion of Dymocke, who hath sufficed in no way to dyschardge yt, and for my self my desyre is not unresolved ? but as a wyffe to be con- sydered, and so do mynd to dell as I am delt withall by them. That my lyttyle sonne refused to here (hear) service is not my fawlt that hath not seen him almost this twoo yeres. I trust yor Lordship esteemes me to have some more discrecion then to forbyd him that which his fewe yeres can not judge of. Truly my Lord, yf my self had kept him he shold in this howse have come to yt as my Lord my father and all his doth. I pray yor Lordship that he may understand this much from me to put her (Majestic) out of doubt I was not gylty of that folly. With my very herty well-wyshing unto yor Lordship I rest in assurance of your favor and assestance which I wyll deserve by all the good menes I may, from Cowdray this 25th of October yor assured frend and cosyn, , , 0 „
M. SOUTHAMPTON2.
1 Letter xvn. Cottrell-Dormer MSS. 1 Letter v. Cottrell-Dormer MSS.
n] THE EARL'S BOYHOOD n
It may have struck readers of the printed series of the Privy Council Register1 as peculiar that Edward Gage, who had been sent to prison as a stubborn recusant, should have been let out so often and so long (on his word of honour to return) in order that he should superintend the settling of the late Earl of South- ampton's affairs, though he was but one of five executors.
It is probable that the Countess, who knew each of the executors personally, had dropped a hint to the Earl of Leicester that the only executor both able and willing to counteract Dymock's influence was her own cousin Edward Gage. If he could do nothing else, he could cause delay in settlement by insisting on arithmetical exactitude in each detail. A good many sums in Proportion would of necessity have to be worked out in an over-estimated will, so that the heir should not be the sole loser.
Apparently Leicester's influence had been sufficient to do this at first, without attracting notice; to induce Dr Drury to quash Dymock's attempt to prove the will on his own account; and to urge the Queen to take things into her own high hand, with a view probably of securing the real wardship for himself. One item of the will was apparently set aside by the Queen, namely that compulsorily separating the daughter from the mother. There is unexpected corroboration of this opinion in an obscure corner of the Loseley Papers. Anthony Garnett, the confidential secretary and general manager of Lord Montague's affairs2, wrote to Sir William More on the 2Qth of November, 1581, in answer to a list of his queries about the characters of the four sons of Lady Cripps (a recusant), John, Henry, Edward, and George. Garnett said John had married Mr Roper's daughter, and lived in London, near St Mary Overies; " Henry was once my Lord's man in the household, and departed from us three years past, and since hath married Mr Culpepper's daughter of Aylesford, Kent, and dwells there." Edward formerly served the Earl of Warwick; George, the youngest "hath served in the household of the last Earl of Southampton for sundry years past, and is now one of his at Titch- field till the funeral be past — None of them have been one night
] Privy Council Registers, i3th Aug. 1580, zoth June 1581, igth Dec. 1581, nth Jan. 1582, ist April 1582. 1 Loseley Papers, x. 129.
12 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
with us for these two years saving George, yesternight, who, with others, his fellows, brought the young Lady Wresley1 to us, and departed again to Titch field." This letter was written the day before the funeral.
I know not by whose authority the daughter was brought to the mother, but there she was. It is perfectly certain that Lord Mon- tague would neglect no honour he could pay to the deceased as one of the chief mourners in the great funeral cortege of his son-in-law, and would insist on being in his due place by the side of the young heir. After the funeral the winding up of affairs would begin afresh with increased difficulty through the heavy expenses entailed by its grandeur. Unfortunately for the family, Edward Gage's time of leave from prison to attend to his relative's entangled affairs was about to expire long before the duties necessary had been overtaken. To leave things to the decision of Thomas Dymock unchecked just then was more dangerous even than it had been. So on the 1 1 th of December the Countess wrote again to the Earl of Leicester
My good Lord, as from the begynning I have rested and relyed upon the honorable promyse yt plesed you to make to ayde and asseste me and myne in all resonable cawses. So am I now ernestly to requeste yor helpe in a matter that conserns my chylde so much as his well or evell doing rests much thereupon. By my father his letter yor Lordship shall understand an agreement is past between my Lord his executors and us, to our resonable contents. Yt resteth now that yor Lordship wyll afford that favor to us, as my cosyn Gage, being the only man in casse to undertake and dyschardge this great matter of my Lord his wyll, may have furder liberty upon such resonable condicions as I trust will be well lyked of by yor Lordship and all others.
Mr Hare is a weak sykly body, and refuseth to deal in yt, except the other may be in casse to perform what he shall advyse and sett downe for the surety of the chyldern and dischardge of the wyll. Yf possibly yt may be, which truly, my Lord can never be (without over great hinderance to the chyld) except such travell and pavnes which may ever be taken for yt, as I know none can or wyll do, but he who is tyed to the chyld, both in natur and kynship. That your Lordship shall judge my Lord my father his meaning, nor myne, is not to make an undutyfull motion to her Majestic or her state. His Lordship hath travylled with him and hath drawn him to consent to
1 Mr Bray has written on the margin of the letter, against this name, "Lady Wesley." He has altered the spelling to make it into a name he knew, not realising apparently that Wresley was the phonetic spelling of Wriothesley.
n] THE EARL'S BOYHOOD 13
enter in to such band, with such condicion as in effecte was offered unto him before. Good my Lord, lett me by yor menes obtayn this resonable favor, the great nesesity of the cause reqyryng it and the good of one so nere yorself as the child is, depending upon yt. Myself wyll acknowledge myself bound unto your Lordship therfore, and myn have cause to pray for you ever, and thus my good Lord, resting in assured hope of yor favor and furderance to this my ernest request, with my hartye well-wyshing to you as to my owen self, I leve to troble yor Lordship, from Cowdray this nth of December yor Lordships most assured poure cosyn and frend,
M. SOUTHAMPTON.
I must not forget to tell your Lordship bis [Gage's] day to returne is now before Crysmas eve, and therfore must crave yor helpe for longer lybertye more speedyly as also for that as yett ther is not order takyn in any thing, nor the inventory made, neither such consideracion as they are to make unto my self perfytted which makes me with great reson the more ernest to procure his lyberty1."
Addressed "To my singuler good Lord the Earle of Leycester geve this." Endorsed "nth Decb. 1581."
It is evident that the Earl of Leicester moved the Queen and Court to agree to the writer's special pleading. Court feeling was with the Countess, the will was an infringement of class custom, and the widow had many friends and relatives in power. Her father's letter of the I4th December supports her loyally.
It may please yor Lordship tunderstand that after moch travaile and other conference with the executors of the late Erie of Southampton, we have att the last geven to a quiett resolution, so muche as maybe both honorable to the wife and surtye to the children. It falleth now out that the chardge of the will is so great, and so far surmounteth the matter appoynted to dis- chardge it, thatt without an extraordinary fidelitye, care, and attendance it is hardly possible the same may be performed without2 of the younge chylde.
Thereunto
The cheffe (and indeede the only) personne that is reputed likely and able by care and travaill to do good therein is my cousin Edward Gage, without whom Mr Hare (being indeede wise, learned and honest, yett weake and subject to extraordinarye infirmities, refuseth in effect all dealinge), my humble sute therfor to yor Lordship is that in this case so moche towching the well or evil doing of these chylderne, yor Lordship wolde vowchsafe to putt to yor helpinge hande for the liberty of the said Edward Gage, and yett
1 Letter iv. Cottrell-Dormer MSS.
* Spaces have been left where the handwriting becomes uncertain.
14 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
lothe in any wise, to seeme forgetfull eyther of his present state, or of my duty to the honor of that bonde, and I have ernestly delt with him to frame himselfe to accept of some such band as I learne hath bin before offered, and he then refused, the rather to move all your Lordships to favour this sute for his libertye.
A note of that he is unto I sende yor Lordship herewith
hoping that the same will be to your Lordships likynge. The tyme of his retorne to prison is before Crismas, and therefore I am the more bound to crave your Lordships honorable assistance and
And thus my good Lord, I doo wish unto you long and happie liffe, from my howse att Cowdraye the I4th of December 1581. Your Lordships
assured friend and kynsman, A , ,
ANTHONY MouNTAGUE1.
It would be interesting to compare the items of the will of the first Earl of Southampton, who had made the family fortune2, and that of the second Earl, who had neither earned nor gained nor been granted any new supplies, who had been appointed to no lucrative office and had not inherited anything from any one (except his mother), who had lost considerably through fines and imprisonment, and who had lived at an extravagant rate, even for his rank. He had willed in what was meant to be ready money in pounds 6830, in marks 1420, with many fees and annuities for life or periods of years, and "the Queen's Thirds." Edward Gage was to reduce the late Earl's dreams to the reality, and his liberty was extended on the 1 8th December. But Lord Montague did not use his influence, probably did not wish to do so, to shield his daughter from the search in Southampton House in Holborn ordered on the 20th December of that year.
The chief question was to find sufficient ready money for urgent needs and legacies. The heralds who conducted the funeral on 3Oth November, 1581, would not like to be kept waiting, nor the servants, who were to be retained for three months and leave with £40 apiece (some of them more), nor the poor bedeswomen ; and there were current necessary expenses. It is perfectly certain that Lord Montague in his liberality, sympathy, and family pride, would have to advance large sums to ease the burdens of the other executors, none of them men of means like himself. The monuments could
1 Letter xn. Cottrell-Dormer MSS.
2 Thevalueof the lands of Thomas, Earl of Southampton, is £1350. ios.6d. Cecil Papers, Petitions, 2138.
ii] THE EARL'S BOYHOOD 15
wait, and would have to wait; and Lord Montague was the only person concerned, who had the taste and magnificence sufficient to select and plan the design of the tomb which still survives in the little church at Titch field.
Doubtless his influence likewise helped to hasten on the Inquisi- tion Post Mortem. This was commenced on 30th May, 1582, and completed on the i8th June of same year at Alton, Hampshire, before the escheators1 Benjamin Tichbourne, Thomas Vuedale, John Snell, armigers, from the statements of the friends and servants of the deceased. The list of the manors is given — Bloomsbury in Holborn, Bugle Hall or Bull Place in Southampton, Beaulieu, Titchfield, etc.; the will of the first Earl is recalled and the indenture between the second Earl and the Viscount Montague and others to protect the interests of the Countess Mary recorded, as is the Earl's will of the i oth May 1 1 Eliz., when his daughter the Lady Jane was his heir presumptive, with instructions what was to be done when she attained her full age (a whole sheet is wanting here, at the most interesting part).
The Inquisition then deals with the Earl's will drawn up on 24th June, 1581^ The will, which was attested4 by Thomas Lord Paget and Thomas Dymock, was proved by Edward Gage, Gilberd Wells, Ralf Hare, Thomas Dymock on yth November 1582, when things were settled as well as they could be at the time2.
The contents of the office drawn after the death of Henry late Earl of Southampton3.
First the jointure of the Countess by indenture made the 10 of February anno xmo Rne. Eliz. between the said Earl of the one party and the Lord Mountegue and Symon Lowe of the other party.
Item that the said Earl after, by indenture dated xmodie Maii ao xm°Rne. Eliz. made between the said Earl of the one party and the Lord Mountegue and John Hippesley Esquere of the other party, did for the consideration therein recited covenant with the said Lord Mountague and John Hippesley, that he the said Earl and all persons &c. should stand seized of all his Lord- ship's manors lands and tenements to the use of the said Earl for term of his life natural without impeachment of waste and after his decease to the use of the Lord Mountague Raffe Scrope and John Hippesley their executors
1 Inq. P. M. Eliz. Part i. 196/46. * Rowe, 45.
8 Mr Gunton kindly checked my copy of some notes from Cecil Papers, 206. 99.
16 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
and assigns until one of the sons of the said Earl should be of the full age of 21 years, with divers remainders to his own issue and for want thereof to others upon trust that the said Lord Mountague &c. shall pay the debts and legacies of the said Earl &c. with a proviso that the said Earl may demise his manors lands and tenements aforesaid.
A proviso that the said Earl may change and alter the uses.
A proviso for leases to stand in force.
Item, the said Earl's will, That the said Earl divided and set out the third part to the Queen's Majesty and the other 2 parts to the executors for per- formance of his will.
The Queen's Majesty's third part descended to the young Earl.
The part left to the executors.
The tenures and values of the lands &c.
Endorsed "Contents of the Earl of Southampton's Office." Undated.
In a book called The Sale of Wards at the Record Office1, it is stated that the annual sum of the property by the assets had been found on the I3th day of June 1582, to be ^1097. ^ Il%d. There is no mention of a guardian.
At the beginning of the following year a tabulated report was prepared by the executors and handed in by Lord Howard2.
The yearly value of the Erie of Southampton his Lands as well in possession as in reversion. The yearely value of the Countess of Southampton her revenewe parcell of the Premises £362. 19*. o£<£
The Lands dyscended to the nowe Earle in her Majestie's hands per Annum £370. l6s. 8%d.
The Lands devysed by the late Erles last wyll to the Executors per Annum £363. us. ^\<L.
Summa total. £1097. 6s. fyd.
The yerely revenue which the said Erie shall receive at his full age Imprimis his Landes which are in her Majestie's hands because of his mynoritie, and the landes which the Executors have by the devyce of the last Erie's wylle shalbe out of lease at his full age to grant which will be yearly worth^ooo, over and above the said Countess' joynture being of the yerely value of £362. 195. o$d.
Item, there wylbe made also by a greate fyne at the least £2000.
Item the Leases of Micheldever, Estratton and West Stratton, and of the Parsonage of Tychfield with the other leases wylbe yearly worth ^400.
Sum of the said Erles yerely Revenue £4000, over and above the said Countess joynture being of the yerely rent of £362. 19^. oj</.
Item the Executors may not by the said Erles wyll lett or grant any 1 Vol. 21-30 Eliz. no. 157. z Lansdowne MS. xxxvu. 30.
PLATE II
THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON AS A BOY (From the monument in Titchfield Church)
n] THE EARL'S BOYHOOD 17
copyhold or ferine, but the same must be at the disposition of the Erie at his full age.
Item that the said Erie shall have his howses well furnishyd, and stuffed with all manner of furnyture, Armor and plate, and his grounds well stocked and stored with cattell, which the executors must performe, beside the great quantitye of woode growing uppon the said Erles lands.
Lands and Leases which presentlie oughte to be in the saide Erles posession The Manor of Ytchell, purchased in the Erie's name, of the yerely value of £100.
Item the Leases of Estratton Westratton and Mycheldever, and the parsonage of Tychfield of the yearely value of ^300. summa ^400.
Endorsed "3rd January 1582/3. Noting of the Erie of South- ampton's Leases from ye Lord Howard."
With the exception of attesting that the copy of the Earl's will made for probate was the same as that which the Earl had written, Lord Thomas Paget seems to have taken no trouble with his departed friend's testament; Charles Paget, his brother, is never heard of again and was probably absent in settling his own affairs, so that "the casting vote " on points of differences in opinion would always lie with Thomas Dymock; the Lord Admiral, finding this Wardship involved much trouble, some humiliation, and no present prospect of remuneration, seems to have resigned it into the Queen's hands, or sold it to Lord Burleigh.
In one of the Wriothesley Pedigrees in the British Museum1 the note is added " Henry Earl of Southampton, now living, under age, and the Queen's Ward." No mention is made of a guardian, but later events shew that Burleigh acted as one, for the Queen as Master of the Wards. We may have gathered that the Countess rather regretted that the Earl of Leicester had not secured the office; but Lord Burleigh was in every way a better and more suitable guardian than Leicester could have been at his best.
Burleigh seems to have taken the boy away, in the first instance, to a place where Thomas Dymock dared not follow, to his own home, with only occasional visits allowed to his mother and grand- father. Lord Burleigh was very fond of children, his wife was educated up to the highest level of women's learning of the time, and his son Robert, about 1 2 years the young Earl's senior, a model
1 Harl. MS. f. 44. See also his most ambitious Pedigree, Had. Rot. O. 12. s. s. 2
1 8 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
of industry, patience, and learning. Above all, Lord Burleigh could inculcate conformity to the Queen's will in matters of religion without undue harshness; and we may be sure that never more would the boy have the courage to refuse to be present at the reading of the English service.
Lord Burleigh also knew how to manage great estates ; we can well imagine him content that the recusant Edward Gage should be free so long as he did him such excellent service in the Office at Titch field.
We have, however, no clearer information concerning the Earl's boyish education than we have concerning his childish training, except through inferences.
His grandfather would be sure to take him to see how his various manors were being kept by care-takers or tenants. He would ere long notice that there was something wanting in all of them which he found in Cowdray — the recognition of harmony, sym- metry, and ordered art. The pictures of Cowdray themselves helped in his education. He would never weary of hearing his grandfather describe the portraits, the historical pictures, the curios, the carvings that surrounded them. One thing must have at some time or other bewildered the child. How was it that all this came through the " Earl of Southampton," and did not come to him ? We can justly imagine he asked that question, and that the grandfather kindly and wisely explained the rather mixed relations of the two. He would probably say some such words as " Long since, my boy, our family held high place. We can trace back our descent to Edward I and Edward III and John of Gaunt1. But it is enough to begin with the Nevilles. Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, and the Lady Alice Montacute were the parents of Richard, the great Earl of War- wick, called u the King-Maker "; their third son was Sir John, who was made the Marquis of Montacute (or Montague) by Edward IV. He was slain at the Battle of Barnet in 1471. His son George died childless, but he left five daughters, co-heiresses, by his wife Isabella Ingoldsthorpe ; the eldest, Anne, married Sir William Stonor; Elizabeth married Lord Scrope of Upsall and Masham ; Margaret, Sir John Mortimer ; Lucy, Sir Thomas Fitzwilliam, of Aldwark, Yorkshire ; and Isabel, William Huddleston. The fourth daughter, 1 British Archaeological Journal, xxin. p. 231.
n] THE EARL'S BOYHOOD 19
Lucy Neville, lost her husband. She had several sons, who, all but the youngest, died. With that son, William, she came to Court, married my grandfather, the first Sir Anthony, and had by him one son, my father, and two daughters. William Fitzwilliam adored his mother and her younger children. He rose in the favour of Henry VIII till he was rich enough to buy Cowdray from Sir David Owen, who had got it through his wife, the heiress of the De Bohuns. Then the King made him Earl of Southampton. That is why, when he rebuilt this place, he wrought his own arms on the fretted roof — W. S. and a trefoil — and an anchor, because he was Lord Admiral. He made a settlement on himself and wife for ///<?, then on my father and his male heirs. When he died, everybody thought the King would give my father the tide, as he had received the property — he deserved it! The King let it lapse. In the reign of Edward VI, when all the Councillors but my father gave themselves tides in the name of the young King, Lord Thomas Wriothesley, your own grandfather, was offered an Earldom, proposed to be of Winchester, afterwards of Chichester; but he chose Southampton, probably because the town was near his chief manor of Titchfield. So, when Queen Mary made me a peer, I chose my tide from my grandmother's pedigree, and was allowed. An Earl does take pre- cedence of a Viscount, boy ; but do not forget your mother comes of an older stock than your father's.
" And never forget, boy, that the chief value of nobility is as a training in virtue — 'Noblesse oblige'; and our mottoes are to help us to bear in mind the thoughts of our ancestors.
"The first Earl of Southampton's motto was 'Loyaulte se prou- uera,' your grandfather's was ' Ung par tout, tout par ung,' a good motto, which is now your own, and ours is 'Suivez Raison.'
" I feel that I bear my uncle Southampton's motto as well as my father's. Grieved am I that my father never came to his great inheritance, though he had to fulfil his brother's will. It is not that I wished Mabel Clifford, his beloved wife, to die sooner (we all loved her), but I did wish and pray that my father should have lived longer and enjoyed the fruits of his strenuous labours, which all came to me. I try to fulfil his will, and I am completing his plans for Cowdray, which my aunt in her goodwill allowed him to use as his own till the end of his life. He had high ideas, my father;
2 — 2
20 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
you can see something of his designs. I strive to complete them, for him and his memory."
The boy's cousin, younger by four months, would stand by listening open-eyed, and beg some stories of their ancestors' doings — and thus young Henry Wriothesley would hear what was expected of men of his rank and learn to dream of martial glory.
The young Earl's thoughts would also unconsciously be moulded by the events of which the news and the world's criticism came to that many-voiced "House of Rumour" where Burleigh dwelt. Robert Cecil would tell him of the university life he had led, of the characters of the men he met in his guardian's galleries, of the hopes he had for England. Altogether, even as a child, the Earl might secure a much broader outlook than could ever have been given to him in the narrow-circled haunts of his father.
Meanwhile, though probably the young Earl knew nothing of it, Lord Burleigh had been making strict enquiries about all the tenants and dwellers in the various houses belonging to the property; all the more carefully because all of them would necessarily be Catholics, so strict had been the practices of the late Earl. One paper is interesting enough to give as an illustration1.
Account of Bewley
1st. The House of Bewly occupied by Mr John Chamberlain who hath the same by Mr William Chamberlain his brother who had the same of the executors of the Earle.
And the said Mr John Chamberlain hath the personage and all the grounds within the wall, which by estimation is thought to be about fifty acres, and Mr Chamberlain pays to the Executors yearly, the some of £30. And also towards the repairing of the House yearely .£5 ; and for surveing the cure to the Minister of Bewley £12, and the said John Chamberlain paid for his brother for a fyne during the yeres of the young Erie's minoritie the sum of £200.
The names of the persons remaining there Mr John Chamberlain the eldest and his wife Mr John Chamberlain his son, and Elizabeth his wife Mrs Margaret Kingston, widow, aunt to Mr John Chamberlain the elder Elizabeth daughter to Mr John Chamberlain the elder, 4 women servants, 6 menservants. The names of the persons lately departed Mr Thomas Gifford and Cycely his wife and Mary Lyon
1 Lansdowne MS. XLIII. (63).
n] THE EARL'S BOYHOOD 21
Mr Michael Chamberlain and Elizabeth his wife Another Chambermaid with Mr Gifford, Two men of Mr Gifford's Mr Richard Chamberlain his servants, Ursula Trussell his maide Elizabeth Hussey her kinswoman, Thomas Jennings and Nicholas Lockley Item, about the Hay, Mr Chamberlain has from certain meadows called the Fulling Mill lande for which he paid for during the minority of the Earle to Mr Coxe and Mr Dudson, my Lord Chamberlain's servants £10. Mem. All these notes are set down by me John Chamberlain the Younger and Elizabeth his Mother.
8th daie of Maie 1585. (Signatures of attesting witnesses)
The Chamberlains had been well-known servants of the second Earl.
One would hardly expect to find much about the young Earl in Church Records, yet there are some references which do concern him, directly as well as indirectly. Southampton House was in the Parish of St Andrew's, Holborn, and that living was in the family gift. Ely Place, the residence of his grandfather until the days of Edward VI, stood just to the west of the church, as may be seen in the old map in the British Museum Print Room, bound up with the Cowdray pictures. His grandmother, the Countess Jane, had appointed Ralph Whytlin1 as Rector in 1558. John Proctor2, a literary man, was appointed on his death in 1578 (Humphrey Donat pro hac vice ratione advoc. ei concess. per Henry Com. Southampton), On his death in 1584 the distinguished Dr Bancroft succeeded, and remained Rector until 1597, wnen he was raised to the Bishopric of London; and the Queen had taken the Royal Privilege of nominating the successor when the Crown had promoted the in- cumbent. On raising the Rector to the Bishopric of London, she appointed John King, S.T.B., loth May, 1597. S° we may gather the character of the men who, during his life, officiated in the church which the Earl was bound to attend when he was dwelling in his Bloomsbury house.
About the appointment of Bancroft we have some information from Nicolas. Sir Christopher Hatton had written to Lord Burleigh to allow his Chaplain, Dr Richard Bancroft, to hold the Rectory of St Andrew's. Burleigh replied3:
1 Newcourt's Repertorium, i. p. 272.
J He wrote the story of Wyat's rebellion.
* Nicolas, Life of Sir Christopher Hatton, p. 384.
22 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
I perceive by your courteous letters, your desire to procure your Chaplain Mr Bancroft to succeed in the place of the parson of St Andrews, lately deceased, the patronage of which belonging to the Earl of Southampton now in Wardship and so as you suppose, to be disposed of by us. Herein I am very willing, both for your own sake, and for Mr Bancroft, being very meet for the place, to do what in me lieth. The doubt I have is that the patronage appertaineth to the Earl in right of his house in Holborn, that was aforetime the Bishop of Lincoln's, and then the right of presentation belongs to the executors, whereof one of the heirs is principal, and Edward Gage another, and one Wells another, with whom you may do well to deal; and if it be not in them, you shall have my assent. And for the better knowledge thereof, I have given your chaplain my letter to the Auditor of the Wards, who can best inform you whether it remains to the Queen or to the Executors. From my house at Theobald's the 6th of August 1584 Yours assuredly as any
W. BURLEIGH.
Backed by Sir Christopher Hatton and Lord Burleigh, Dr Ban- croft was bound to succeed with the executors, even if it were in their gift; and Newcourt says it was. Bancroft was appointed I4th September 1584. Something else happened in St Andrew's Church, in the following year, very much more interesting to the young Earl. We find from the Bishop of London's Marriage Licences1 that his only sister Mary was married there in June 1585. Though the Bishop of London was quite sure about the bride, he (or his clerk), for he was but a new-made Bishop, was not quite so sure about the bridegroom. He said he was "Sir Matthew Arundle Knt.," whereas the name should have read "Mr Thomas, son of Sir Matthew Arundle Knt." (It is pleasant to note this flagrant error, as so many have tried to fix scandal upon Shakespeare 2 by a clerk's error in his marriage licence at Worcester.) Taken in full the entry should have read — "Mr Thomas Arundel son of Sir Matthew Arundel Knight and Mary Wrisley (Wriothesley) spinster, daughter of Henry, late Earl of Southampton, to marry in the Chapel of Mary Countess of Southampton in St Andrew's, Holborn." We do not know who married them, as they were both Catholics and probably would have a private marriage first. Here was the very thing the young Earl would delight in — a real brother-in-law, all
1 Harleian Publications, vol. xxv. 140.
1 See my Shakespeare's Family, p. 62, and Shakespeare's Environment, p. 92.
n] THE EARL'S BOYHOOD 23
his own, young, and yet old enough in his thirteen extra years of life to have travelled, to have been imprisoned for his faith (in 1580), to have had military training and service so thorough that he had been designated "the Valiant"; a man who could fill the young Earl's soul with the stories that he most desired, of war and foreign fields and glory. Burleigh and his son Robert were too pacific to stimulate that side of their ward's nature. This Thomas was the son of Sir Matthew, by Margaret, daughter of Sir Henry Willoughby1 of Wollaton, Notts, known to gossip as a shrew.
The lady would be a mother-in-law that her son's wife must have somewhat dreaded. The Wriothesleys were of the new nobility, the Arundels were oldest of the old. Many Earls were in their pedigree, some Dukes, and a few Queens.
Thomas Arundel subscribed j£ioo to help the English fleet against the Armada in 1588, as he was then engaged in fighting against the Turks in Hungary2. All shades of Christians could unite then in thrusting back the Infidels. The Emperor Rudolf II, on 1 4th December, 1595, made him a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, a title that Elizabeth did not allow him to assume. He succeeded to his father as owner of Wardour in 1598, and was made Baron in 1 605. Many letters about his troubles appear among the Salisbury Papers.
Thomas had a highly cultured younger brother, William, who probably attracted young Southampton to art and literature3.
1 See New Review, Oct.-Dec. 1889, p. 542.
1 G. E. C. His wife Mary Wriothesley died on 2yth June, 1607, and was buried at Tisbury, Wilts. He married again, and had a son baptized at St Andrew's, Holborn — "Matthew the son of Thomas Lord Arundell baptized 1 9th June 1609." Both Lord Thomas and his wife were buried at Tisbury, Wilts.
8 Pym Yeatman's House of Arundel and Vivian's Visitation of Cornwall.
CHAPTER III
THE EARL'S FIRST ASSOCIATION WITH ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
IN the autumn of the year 1585 the Earl's guardian sent him to the University. He was admitted at St John's College, Cambridge, as Fellow-Commoner at Michaelmas 1585. In the Register is the entry "Ego Henricus comes Southamptoniensis admissus eram in alumnum huius Collegii diui Johannis Euangelistae decimo sexto die Octobris anno Domini 1585" (St John's College). "Dec. n, 1585, Hen. Comes Southampton impubes 12 annorum admissus in Matriculam Acad. Cant:" (Matric. University). There, young as he was, he would meet with other youths of the same age, all engaged in mental work in various branches of learning. Even at this stage in his life, we learn few details concerning him; yet we have the broad general appreciative testimony of Camden: "Edward VI,conferred the tide on Thomas Wriothesley x Lord Chancellor. . . and his grandson Henry, by Henry his son now enjoys that tide, who, in his younger years, has armed the nobility of his birth, with the ornaments of Learning and military arts, that in his riper years, he may employ them in the service of his country."2 Henry Wrio- thesley did not find a fellow-student at College (as his grandfather had done) enthusiastic enough to record his youthful beauties, his "golden hair," his talent for acting, his dabbling in the Muses' fount, attributed by Leland to Thomas Wriothesley2 in his Encomia. But, on this one side of his character, he does seem to have inherited his literary and histrionic tastes from that grandfather.
Some of his College exercises were sent to Lord Burleigh, to allow him to measure the exactitude of his scholarship and the excellence of his caligraphy. These are hardly worth giving in extenso, as it is not at all likely that the thoughts expressed were his own. It is most likely that a sample of supposed good English had been given him to translate into good Latin. The earliest I have seen is endorsed "June 1586," wherein he proves to his own
1 Britannia, p. 123. * See Addenda.
CH. m] ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 25
satisfaction the soundness of the tide "Igitur laboriosa juventutis studia sunt, jucunda senectutis otia."1 It is written in a beautiful clear Italian handwriting, upright, and obedient to a broad margin on the left hand, but breaking through the proportional margin to the right, crowding the letters. He signed it with a larger, bolder hand, modelled upon that of his father, and, like that of the other jeunesse doree of his day, acutely angular.
Another similar exercise has been preserved, dated July 22nd, I5862. He must have had approval of this, or he would not have sent it to his guardian. It is written in a similar handwriting. The title was "Omnes ad studium virtutis incitantur spe premii." He gives his arguments in correct Latin, but he must have somewhat varied his text, as he ends with the tide modified in his conclusion, "Facile igitur videri potest quod omnes ad studium virtutis inci- tantur spe gloriae."
By the following year, Latin letters took the place of Latin exercises to send to his guardian, and there the thoughts and composition were probably his own, as well as the Latin. He wrote to thank Lord Burleigh for taking care of his affairs:
Magnas tibi gratias ago (honoratissime Domine) quod res mea tibi tanto- pere curae sunt utinam gratitudinem tibi ostendere possem aut saltern aliquo modo earn significare sed obsecro (quia his Nuntius tarn cito discessit ut tempus non erat satis longum ad scribendum amplius hoc tempore) ut in bonam partem accipies hanc meam brevem epistolam posthac spondeo et polliceor me te et pluribus verbis et sepius velle affari et te oro ut quemad- modum cepisti mihi in omnibus rebus, opem prestari, ita pergas facere id quod facis et ita me tibi semper deuinctum curabis. Deus te servet incolu- mem. Cantabrigiae x Junii 1587 Honori tui deuinctissimus.
H. SOUTHAMPTON 3.
The writing is not quite so careful as that of the two essays. The right-hand margin is still somewhat crowded by completions of words.
Several letters of a similar handwriting are preserved in a volume of the Lansdowne manuscripts (No. xvn), some of which suggest that they had been written by the writing master who had taught the young Earl this style.
As was to be expected, a will like the second Earl's produced a plentiful crop of little law-suits, which of course meant expenditure
1 Lansdowne MS. L. £.23. * Cecil Papers, MS. 302.
* Lansdowne MS. LIII. £.51.
26 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
of the estate, whichever side won. For instance, there is one noted in the Book of Wards and Liveries*. "Charles Lord Howard, Lord Admiral of England Committee of the bodye and landes of Henry Earl of Southampton, her Majestys Ward, hath on behalf of the said Earl exhibited a bill in this court, against the executors of Henry late Earl father of the ward, to have the yearly leases of Micheldever, Stratton, and Titchfield parsonages, which are let on lease to divers persons until the said young Earl shall accomplish his age of 1 8 years," the first two for the yearly rent of £40. 1 3*. \d., and Titchfield for the yearly rent of £100; and various days had been appointed for the meeting of the learned counsel on both sides and debating the question, and "it hath plainely appeared unto this court, that the rents and profits of the said leases in right and equitie appertayne properly to the said ward, and that the late Earle his father could not justly by will or otherwise, dispose of these leases, as pretended by the executors, the same being devised unto the nowe young Earle by the last will of Jane Countess of Southampton his grandmother, and the said late Earl having no interest in the same but only as executor to the Lady Jane. It is therefore ordered that the farmers of the parsonages shall henceforth during the minority of the young Earl, pay yearly to the Lord Treasurer, who is now Committee of the said Ward, to the use of the young Earl, their yearely rents of £40. 13*. 4^., and of £100, and the Lord Treasurer will give them a receipt, which will secure them, and also the executors, against the young Earl and any other person. As the young Earl is now grown into some years, whereby the small exhibition allowed by her Highness suificeth not for his convenyent mayntenance and expense, which exhibition is so much the less and cannot conveniently be increased by reason that the said Earl's lands in her majesties hands during the minoritie are but of small value because of several conveyances made by the late Earl for yearly payments of annuities, and the dischardge of great dettes by him owing for certain legacies given by him, it is therefore ordered that the said rents be made payable to the Lord Treasurer to defray the necessary expenses and honorable mayntenance of the young Earl over and above the small annuity allowed him by the Queen, as appertain to the estate and years of the young Earl." 1 Vol. LXXXV, Trinity, 28 Eliz.
m] ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 27
Thus were the greater expenses of his University life met.
In the Hilary term of the following year Richard Kingsmill Esq. *, her Majesty's Attorney for Henry, Earl of Southampton, her Majesty's ward, complained that the Earl's father was in his lifetime lawfully seized in demesne as of fee, in the Manor of Broadhenbury in the parish of Broadhenbury, Co. Devon, and in the grange thereof and of divers other lands, and about five years last past died seized. They descended to the young Earl, but the tenants and farmers paid their tithes to the Vicar of Broadhenbury. The grounds were formerly parcel of the Abbey, and at the dissolution belonged to Henry VIII, to whom they paid their tithes. Now Roger Carre, Vicar of Broadhenbury, hath commenced a suit sent before Thomas Barrett, Archdeacon and officer to the Bishop of Exon., against Thomas Ellis, one of the tenants, for his tithes, which ought not to be paid, contrary to the ancient custom, and the disherison of the young Earl." The answer is dated 31 st Oct. 1588. Roger Carre knew of a truth the lands belonged to the young Earl, but having heard that the previous Vicar had tithes, he had begun suit for them On hearing that he ought not to have done so, he apparently gave in.
Another bill in the same Court, in the same term of the following year, lay nearer home. Thomas Dymock, Gent.2, on behalf of Henry, Earl of Southampton, her Majesty's ward, complains that Richard Pitts, being an ill neighbour to his Park at Whiteley Park, Co. Southampton, came with others by night and stole the deer there- from, with guns, dogs, etc., and beat the keepers. This suggests that Thomas Dymock was employed as Steward still. His interest in Whiteley Park was great. He was paid for living in it, to keep it for the young Earl, and his perquisites were large.
Lord Montague had written to Sir William More3 on the 28th of June, 1584, telling him about a cause in law which would affect the interests both of Lord Southampton and of his own son Anthony, and begging Sir William to try to procure an equal trial, free from any indirect practices. I have not been able to determine to which case this refers.
The threatening attitude of Spain caused an enquiry into the
1 Court of Wards and Liveries, Hil., 29 Eliz., Bundle 27.
2 Ibid. Hil., 30 Eliz., Bundle 29. » Loseley Papers, x. 96.
28 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
amount of armour in the country. The supplies at Titchfield were not forgotten1. Hence ensued, 24th February, 1586-7, "A letter to the executors of the Erie of Southampton, that forasmuche as her Majestic thinketh it convenient, that the armor, weapons and suche like furniture belonging to the young Erie of Southampton, and remayning at his house at Tytchefelde, should be removed from thence and committed to the custody of some person who should looke into the same to be so kept and preservid that it might nether be increased or diminished, nor fall into decaye by meanes of rust or otherwise, nor to come to the handes of any ill affected persons, the rather in respecte of the doubtfullnes of theis times, of some forraine attemptes that might be intendid upon the seacost of that shire, and, namely, at Portesmouth, her Highnes' will and pleasure is, and so she hathe willed us to signifye unto you, that ye shall make delivery of suche armour, weapons and furniture as is at Tychfelde unto suche person or persons whome our very good Lord the Erie of Sussex shall direct unto yow to receave the same, which shalbe by bylle indented betwixt them and you, to the end that both the quantities and sortes thereof maye be knowne and annswerid hereafter, and in the meane time carefully looked unto, the better to preserve the same to the use of the said Erie hereafter or other- wise of her Majesty, if nede shoulde requier to use the same for her Majesties service upon any occasion happening thereof against forraine enemies or other ill attemptes ; in which case if any parte of the said armor and munition shoulde happen to be decayed or diminished, allowance shalbe made thereof by her Majestye as reason is."
On June I4th, 1587, the Earl of Southampton's armour is to be scoured and dressed by his Executors. A Royal Order in the State Papers2 supports and expresses this order.
Southampton might well have been present at his holiday time as a spectator of a comedy played at Gray's Inn on the i6th January, 1587-8. Most of the great noblemen are recorded to have been present : the Earls of Warwick and Leicester, the Earl of Ormond, Lord Burleigh, Lord Gray of Wilton, and others. On the 28th of February following, The Misfortunes of Arthur, written by
1 Privy Council Register, xiv. 340. * D.S.S.P. Eliz. ecu. 25.
m] ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 29
Thomas Hughes, was acted by eight of the members of the Society before the Queen at Greenwich, and he might have seen that also.
The very next day the Earl of Southampton was admitted member of Gray's Inn, introduced by his guardian. But that did not necessitate his leaving Cambridge until all his terms had been kept.
About the same time Francis Bacon offered to produce a masque for Lord Burleigh. So the young Lord had at least the opportunities of seeing dramatic performances other than those of his own College.
The young student had not passed these years of his life without hearing something of the great national and European events. He would know of the mysterious wooing of Elizabeth by the Due d'Anjou, of his brother's death and his succession, of his arrested courtship inherited by the Due d'Alen^on; and his mind would draw his own conclusions from the results. He would hear of the doings of the Scottish Queen from both sides — from the most en- thusiastic admirers and the most unfriendly critics. He would hear of the undeserved execution of Edward Arden of Park Hall, on a charge of supposed conspiracy ; of the real conspiracy of Francis Throgmorton, abetted by some of those who, before he was born, had been imprisoned in the Tower along with his father. He would gather suggestions of the increasing determination of the Pope to regain his toll of Peter's Pence from England ; of the lazy pre- parations of Philip II of Spain to invade England; of the exciting stories of Sir Francis Drake's dashing and successful exploits in the West Indies and at the very gates of Spain; of Sir Philip Sidney's escape from Court with his beloved Fulke Greville, to take possession of his grant of 300,000 acres of land in Virginia "yet to be discovered"; of their flight to Plymouth to embark with Sir Francis Drake1; of Elizabeth's parental chase after them to bring them back to Court on their allegiance; of Sir Philip's permission to go, under his uncle the Earl of Leicester, to the Low Country wars, there to be wounded, and, denied the loving attendance of Fulke Greville, to die after lingering pain, embalmed for ever in the hearts of poets in the odour of romance. He would hear also of the urgent collection of the Subsidies to secure the sinews of war. His property does not seem to have been assessed, but
1 This must have been in September, 1585.
30 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
the contrasts in the assessments of the people among whom he moved are both mysterious and interesting. So I give a small selection.
Lord Burleigh entered his lands as worth 200 marks, and was assessed at £8. 17*. yd. in 1586; Robert, Earl of Leicester, owned £300 in land and paid £20, as did Edward, Earl of Rutland, on 26th May, 1587; Viscount Montague had £500 worth of land, for which he paid £33. 6s. 8<£, the same sum as Philip, Earl of Arundel ; Henry, Earl of Sussex, had only 200 marks in land and paid the same as Burleigh; Henry, Earl of Pembroke, paid £40 on £600 worth of land; William, Earl of Worcester on £200 worth paid £i 3. 6s. 8d. ; Elizabeth, Countess of Lincoln, on the same extent of land paid the same subsidy; Mary, Countess of Southampton, upon £120 worth of land paid £8; Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton, on j£ioo worth paid £6. 8s. ^d. The need for preparedness increased.
The young Lord would hear, horror-struck, the joy-bells of the churches ringing on the execution of the Scottish Queen, whom all Catholics were bound to consider the legal, if not the elected, Queen of England. Then Philip, giving up further delays, hastened his preparations to invade in his own right and with his own claims to the Crown. Southampton would see his guardian's brows knit in anxious thought how to evade the consequences of Henry VI IPs actions; he would hear of the massing of men all over the country ; he would fret at his trammelled youth, desirous to do something, to win "glory." Was he present with the Court at the Queen's review of her land forces at Tilbury, when the first nobleman who appeared was his grandfather (loyal to his country, in spite of his faith) leading 200 men fed, clothed, and armed by himself "to see that no stranger should land"? With him were Anthony, his son and heir, his other sons, George and Henry, some of his brothers, and a "fair young child," all mounted on horseback and leading their bands, to shew that Montague at least was willing to risk his all in the Queen's cause — and that "fair child" was Southampton's own cousin, born four months after him in Cowdray Park! The example of Montague had a weighty influence among loyal Catholics and it gave profound discouragement to the Pope's allies. We know this through " A copy of a letter left by the priest Leigh in his cell when he was taken to execution, edited and
in] ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 31
published by Richard Field, and printed for him by J. Vautrollier, in Blackfriars." We do not know whether young Southampton in rivalry fled with his former " Committee " Lord Howard, to be taken aboard his man-of-war on the great occasion; or if he attempted to move some of his younger friends who had secured boats to rush to the sea and follow Drake to victory. He would have no money to secure a boat for himself, and fatherless youth no doubt became bitter to him for awhile.
There was a certain Mr William Harvey, a friend of his mother's, who prepared to go, and signalised himself at sea. How the boy would envy him. It may be well to introduce him formally here, as he becomes very important to the family in later years.
The Thomas Harvey1 of Henry VI IPs reign had four sons, John, Nicholas, Francis, and Anthony, The second son distinguished himself as " the Valiant Esquire," and was the challenger at Some of Henry's VI IPs jousts. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Fitzwilliam (widow of Sir Thomas Mauleverer), by whom he had issue Sir Thomas, who had only two daughters. Sir Nicholas married second Bridget, daughter of Sir John Wiltshire (and widow of Sir Richard Wingfield). They had issue Sir George Harvey, Lieutenant of the Tower, and Henry Harvey Esq. ; the latter married Jane, daughter of James Thomas of Glamorgan, and his son and heir was this William; he had also two daughters. Now this William seems to have been left poor and without influence ; but he was capable, hard-working, and ambitious. He had travelled, he had served in the Low Countries, he had kept his ears and eyes open and his mouth shut. So he was able to write a letter to Elizabeth on the 2Oth December, 15852, giving a private account of the keeping of the Netherlands and of Calais, of the friends on whom she might reckon, of the men she should "decipher." He advised action on Sir Thomas Cecil's part, encouragement of the Colonies in Terra Virginea, and the increase of the Navy. He stated the amount of money in the ship taken by Sir Richard Grenville as 600,000 ducats by Register.
You may quiet King Philip by Portugal and Barbary, without any charge, in order to get possession of King Philip's purse, the cause of so many wars.
1 Hasted's Kent, I. 136; Collins' Peerage, G. E. C.
2 Cotton MS. Galba, c. vnr. 222.
32 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
Brancha Leone, a Florentine and near companion of Parries, sometime a follower of Sir E. Hobbies, now governing the French Ambassador is a person necessary to be noted, as a malicious practiser, poisoner, and intelligencer, near of kin to the Bishop of Paris, by whom he is here mayntayned. Thus, right gracious sovereign in obeying your commandment, I have here set downe my knowledge in the premises, commending them humbly to your Majesties high wisdome, censure, and secrecy wherewith in all lowly duetie I furnish you. Your Majesties loyall devoted pore servant
W. H.
P.S. It may please your Majestic withal to make a Salamander of these my papers and observations, for I have none to behold or trust to but yourself, nor after your life any assurance in earth to build on. Be good to me therefore in tyme, lest I perish by necessitie. " In fide et sedulo sit princeps propensior quam in caeteris."
Now, this man William Harvey had his chance at the Armada time and took it. Though Elizabeth does not seem to have rewarded him, and though his name has not entered into the official or scholastic histories of the period, he was shrouded in an atmosphere of romance with his contemporaries1.
Another man whom Southampton would know was the cousin of his cousin, Anthony Copley, afterwards to be mixed up with Cobham and Grey. He was then living abroad, for the sake of freedom and religion. He would have liked to have come home at the Armada — he only wanted toleration in religion, but was determined to keep all foreign powers out of England. He was a minor poet and wrote quaintly2.
In his Answer to a disjesutted gentleman (i.e. his cousin), he tells a story3 that probably came over long before in correspondence. " Did I not see, after our firing the Spanish Fleet in the narrow seas, the young Prince of Ascoli at his fugitive arrival at Dunkirk the morrow after when the Duke of Parma entertained him on the Strond, him (I say) in answer to the Duke's question what news of the Armado, uncap himself, and grining towards Heaven swear by it, that he thought not onelie all the foure elements were Lutheran that night, and all the morning, but also God Himself, so blasphemous was his Spanish Spirit."
1 Baker's Chronicles, 2nd edition. Richard Field's pamphlet of the Jesuit's letter.
1 He was author of A Fig for Fortune and Wits, Fits, and Fancies » p. 62.
in) ST JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 33
After the excitement of the Armada died down, Sir Thomas Arundel wrote to Lord Burleigh on Oct. 25, I5881; the letter begins: "If I importune your Lordship in the behalf of the Earl of Southampton concerning the New Forest my love and care of this young Earl enticeth me — Beauly, the most ancient house that he hath is so near the Forest... the very situation may be of sufficient force to persuade. Your Lordship did helpe
the Earl of Rutland, in his nonage to the Forest of Sherwood
Your Lordship doth love him — Such as have good wills together with great minds are not so soon won any way as with favour, neither is any favour so thankfully taken and so long remembered of men, as that which they receive in their minority. That my Lord of Pembroke (his most feared co-rival) having neither land nor house near thereunto should, as it were by a perpetuity, bear the Forest from him in his own sphere and joining to his doors, were a great discourtesy. I may more truly say, a wrong.
From Ichell 25th October, 1588."
In spite of all these distractions Southampton managed to do good work in his College.
In the following year Southampton took his degree — " Reg. Acad. Cantab. Henricus Wriothesley Conies Southampton Cooptatus in ordinem Magistrorum in artibus per gratiam, June 6th 1589, St John's College."2
In Burleigh 's Diary there is a note made that autumn:
6th October 1589 Henry Co. Southampton erat aetatis 16 annorum Edward Co. Bedford erat aetatis 15 annorum Roger Co. Rutland erat aetatis 1 3 annorum 3
It was not that the 6th of October was the birthday of all three — it was only that of Southampton and Rutland. They were all Burleigh 's wards. I think he was comparing their ages for a certain purpose. Southampton, having already graduated, could write himself down a Master in Arts; and it was not the fault of his guardian that he could not also write himself "Benedick the married man."
1 Salisb. Papers, in. 365. 1 University Register.
3 The relative ages of these three are too often forgotten, and their strange relations to each other in later years.
s, s.
CHAPTER IV PROPOSALS FOR MARRIAGE
THE story of Southampton's life for the next few years has not been fully followed or understood. The present writer has sketched it in the preface to her edition of the Sonnets^ in The Athenaum J, and in her Shakespeare 's Environment 2. But much needs yet to be dis- covered. The guardianship of a royal ward at that time generally included what was technically called "his marriage," that is, the right to choose him a partner for life, to make all arrangements, and to receive a sum of money for the transaction. There were certain limitations as to rank, property, and suitability of the proposed lady, but mutual affection was rarely considered as a real or a necessary condition. Burleigh had been successful in marrying his children into noble families. He was very pleased when he wrote in his Diary that the Earl of Oxford wished to marry his daughter Anne. But it had been an unhappy marriage, and his daughter had died on June 5th, 1588. The careful statesman was now doing his best to ensure her daughter Elizabeth a happier life. She had been born on July 2nd, 1575, and was therefore of suitable enough age for Southampton. Burleigh 's own wife, Lady Mildred, "fell asleep in Westminster" on April 5th, 1589, and was buried beside her daughter, the Countess of Oxford, in Westminster. Lord Oxford was careless as a family man, and Burleigh felt himself bound to be mother and grandmother to the girl, as well as grandfather. Now, he really liked his brilliant young ward, he trusted him, he approved of his property and the dwellings he would have to live in on his coming of age — a little ready money put into them as the bride's dower would make them quite satisfactorily comfortable to settle in for life. There is no allusion at any time to the inclinations of the young lady, but the matter had evidently been well discussed with the youth and with his immediate relations. They had agreed readily enough; the bridegroom elect's one idea was how to postpone decision.
1 March igth and 26th, 1898. * p. 135.
CH. iv] PROPOSALS FOR MARRIAGE 35
Many writers have described Southampton as a lascivious youth; but there is not the slightest authority for such a statement. The facts, which have been twisted so as to support that opinion, are capable of a very different explanation, as will be seen here- after.
We must remember that he had no evil predisposing tendencies from hereditary influences. His grandfather Southampton, whatever his other faults may have been, was noted for conjugal devotion. His father, it is true, had at the end of his disappointed life lost his early affection for his wife; but the only authority we have concerning him was that he had kept his vows of wedlock. His grandfather Browne was noted for the chastity of his thought, speech, and behaviour; he was indeed "a very perfect, gentle knight."1 In regard to his environment and training, Burleigh was a very safe guide in questions of morality, and he kept a watchful eye over the youth's motions for his own sake. Further, the young man was full of occupation. He had to read law at Gray's Inn to please his guardian; to make a figure at Court to please the Queen; to prepare for war in order to be able, if need be, to defend his country; and to study literature and the arts to please himself. So he had no temptation through idleness and ennui. Through all his interests there floated the memory of his College paper — "All men are incited to study through the hope of glory \" Since the death of his mother's relative and good friend, the Earl of Leicester, he had come more into contact with Leicester's stepson, the Earl of Essex. To South- ampton Essex became the ideal knight, to whom he was willing to become esquire, or even page. Southampton's first love came in the shape of a man ; his heart had no room as yet for love of woman. The youth had no active disinclination to the Lady Elizabeth, but he had a very strong disinclination to be fettered by any ties that did not leave him free to follow his own career. I do not know exactly on what terms he stood with Burleigh in regard to his granddaughter. Southampton may have said that possibly in some remote future he might learn to love her. His mother and grandfather evidently appreciated the advantages of this match. Theirs was but a new nobility compared with the Veres; their faith was a proscribed faith, and what a shield the Lord Treasurer could 1 Life of Magdalen Lady Montagite.
3—2
36 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
be to them against the most unpleasant consequences of conscientious devotion ! Everything waited for the bridegroom-elect.
Burleigh had become suspicious at his delay and feared a possible rival. He was not accustomed to be trifled with, and said so. The following straightforward letter from Sir Thomas Stanhope1 removed one of his causes of annoyance.
Ryght honorable, my humble duty premised, yt may please the same to understand, that of late I have been advysed by some of my friends about how it should be reported, that whilst I lay in London I sought to have the Earl of Southampton in marriage for my daughter; that I offered with her £3000 in money and £300 by yere for threescore yeres &c. Even true it is my Lord, that I have been beholding to my Lady of Southampton of long tyme, and so was I to my Lord her late husband during his lyf, and therfor bothe I and my wyfe did willingly our dutyes to see her when helth did permitte. Unto her Ladyship I appele yff she can apeche me of such sim- plicity or presumption as to intrude myselfe, or of the meaning of so treach- erous a part towarde your honor, having evermore found myself so bound unto you as I have donne, I name it treachery, because I heard before then, you intended a matche that waye to the Lady Vayre (Vere) to whom you know also, I am akin. And my Lord, I confesse that talking with the Countess of Southampton thereof she told me you had spoken to her in that behalf. I replyed she should doo well to take holde of it, for I knew not whear my Lord her sonne should be better bestowed. Herself could tell what a stay you would be to him and his, and for perfect experience did teache her how beneficial you had been unto that Lady's father (though by hym litteU deserved). She answered I sayd well, and so she thought, and would in good fayth doo her best in the cause, but sayth she I doo not fynd a dis- position in my sonne to be tyed as yett, what wilbe hereafter time shall trye, and no want shalbe found on my behalfe. I think once or twyse such like wordes we had and not to any other effecte, which I referre to her Ladyship's creditt to tell, who I thinke will no ways dissemble with your Honor in any cawse. For other part of honorable curtasyes both to my wyfe and dowghter I found myself much bownd to her for she bade us twyse to her house. And herself having occasion to come with my Lord her son to Mr Harvies' house of the warde, I did all that in me was to invite them to a simple supper at my house, being the next house adjoyning. And this, most honorable, hathe been all my proceeding that way, for yf it can be proved I made any attempt, or had the thought of anything that way, let me lose my credit with your Honor, and with all the world besydes, whiche truly I would not doe for the wourthe of the best marriage that ever my daughter shall have,' and yet Sir, I love her very well, and have given her
1 D.S.S.P. Eliz. xxxm. n.
iv] PROPOSALS FOR MARRIAGE 37
advice accordingly, and would be as glad to bestowe her thereafter. Thus much my very good Lord, in discharge of my humble duty, I have presumed as beforesayd, and I shall (wish) yor Honor fynd me faytheful, in all the service I can, though not able to be thankeful as I desire. So praying for the continuance of yor good helthe and long lyfe I humbly take my leave. Shelf ord, this ifth of July 1590. Yor Honors humble cousin to command
(Sir) THOMAS STANHOPE
The summer passed on, and the Queen did not reach Cowdray in her progress. Montague was invited instead to come and see the Queen at Oatlands1. Lord Burleigh was puzzled. He could not understand any intelligent young man in his senses refusing such an eligible offer. He had a good long talk over the matter with Lord Montague when he was at Oatlands, and gave him advice how to act when he had his grandson alone with him.
That nobleman wrote him as soon as he could after he got home.
Aly very good Lord 2,
As I well remember your late speach to me at Otelands, touching my Lord of Southampton, so I have nott forgotten, so carefully as I might, and orderly as I could, to acquaint first his mother, and then himself there- withal, his Lordship late being with me at Cowdray. And being desirowse as orderly as I could, and as effectually as I was able to satisfye your Lordship of my knowledge in the matter, I thought itt best likely of, and I hope most liking to your Lordship to returne unto you what I find. First my daughter affirms upon her faith and honor that she is not acquaynted with any alteration of her sonnes mynd from this your grandchild. And wee have layd abrode unto hym both the comodityes and hindrances likely to grow unto him by chaunge; and indeede receave to our perticular speach this generall answer that your Lordship was this last winter well pleased to yeld unto him a further respite of one yere to enshure resolution in respecte of his younge yeres. I answered that this yere which he speaketh of is nowe almost upp and therefore the greater reason for your Lordship in honor and in nature to see your child well placed and provided for, wherunto my Lord gave me this answere and was content that I shoulde imparte the same to your Lordship. And this is the most as towching the matter I can now acquaint yor Lordship with. The care of his personne, and the circumstances of him, I can butt most effectually recommend to your Lordship's ruling. I mean God willing, and my dawghter also, at the beginning of the term to be in London, and then by your Lordship's favour will more particularly discourse with you, and will be sure to frame myself (God assisting me) to your Lordship's liking in this matter; and in the mean tyme require the
1 Loseley Papers. * D.S.S.P. Eliz. xxxur. 71.
38 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
continuance of your Lordship's very good will and opinion, and being lothe to be tediowse wish to your Lordship all honor health and happiness, From my house at Horsley igih September 1590, Your Lordship's assured to
command
ANTHONY BROWNE.
Lord Montague was probably at West Horsley, taking possession. His father had built it for his second wife, and had interwoven the arms of the Geraldines with his own, as he left it for her to dwell in; which she did.
She probably died in that house, and certainly was buried in that year1. She would be of a strange interest to the young Earl, for she was Elizabeth, Countess of Lincoln — not only "the fair Geraldine" of Surrey's Sonnets, but a connection by marriage of his own. While still a girl of 15, she had married the second Sir Anthony Browne (not by any means so old a man as her, or as his, biographers make out, as I have shewn in his Life)2. Some time after his death she married Sir Edward Clinton, afterwards Earl of Lincoln, and they lived much at her dower house at West Horsley. As Viscount Montague's sister married her brother Gerald, Earl of Kildare, there was a double connection, and a certain family acquaintance. In her will she desired little expense in her funeral, as expenses do no good to the dead, and sometimes hinder the living. She left to the Queen her emerald ring; to the Earl of Kildare her best bed and other remembrances; "to the Lord Montague the six pieces of hangings of the Story of Hercules which usually hang in my great chamber at Horsley," and all her
1 Beside her second husband, the Earl of Lincoln, in St George's Chapel, Windsor. All authorities are wrong in the date of her death, even G. E. C., who says she made her will in March 1589, proved May 1589. I knew this to be impossible, for I had seen a letter of hers among the Loseley Papers about poaching in the Park, dated 8th December 1589, with her clear beautiful signature shewing no sign of age or illness. Another letter there from Lord Howard backing up her application was dated the gth of December 1589. I went to Somerset House and found her will (Somerset House, 21 Drury). To my surprise the probate was dated March i3th 1589, so 'that I saw it must have been by the old calendar. But on reading the will I found that it had been originally copied as having been drawn up on i5th April, 3oth Eliz., which would be 1588; but a tiny interpolation of " one and " made it 31 Eliz., that is, 1589. It had not been finally corrected, hence the errors. But, as it was quite evident that a will could not have been proved in March 1589 if it were written in April of that year, the officer in charge has now corrected it. So that March 1589 should read 1589-90. * See Addenda.
iv] PROPOSALS FOR MARRIAGE 39
brewing implements and the brewing house there. To Lieutenant Edward Fitzgerald of her Majesty's Pensioners and to her niece Lettice Coppinger she left remembrances, to her sister Margaret substantial aid; also "to my nephew Francis Ainger and his wife Douglas. To Sir William More (of Loseley) 5 pieces of hangings of the story of Abraham, and to my cousin George More 5 pieces at Horsley. To Sir Thomas Heneage one piece of plate worth £20, and to Mr Roger Manners one piece worth £i 5." She speaks of her daughters, but they must have been her stepdaughters. Her exe- cutors were to be her cousin Sir Henry Grey, her nephew Gerald Fitzgerald, and her nephew Francis Ainger; her overseers Sir Christopher Hatton and Lord Cobham.
Till the end of 1 590 Southampton was far too busily occupied to think much of such trifles as love-making, or of such plans as those of matrimony. He knew that the Queen was yielding in her foreign policy and that she was about to send help to Henry IV of France, this time under the Earl of Essex. The form of "glory" Southampton sought was to be had in following this brilliant leader, and he was trying to make himself fit for the duty. Fencing and the military arts would absorb as much of his time as he dared. For some reason he found himself in Southampton1 on gth January, 1590-1, for on that date the Corporation granted him the freedom of the city. It is quite likely that he slipped over to France under his own sails. There is no doubt that this unexpected journey was something of the nature of an escapade; he hoped to surprise oppor- tunity by being in advance of refusal. It was not his fault that Essex's help was delayed. We can best realise the situation from his letter to Essex, a remarkable one for a youth aged 1 7 years and less than 6 months.
Though I have nothing to write about worth your reading, yet can I not let pass this messenger without a letter, be it only to continue the profession of service which I have heretofore verbally made unto your Lordship, which howsoever in itself it is of small value, my hope is, seeing it wholly proceede from a true respect borne to your own worth, and from one who hath no better present to make you than the offer of himself to be disposed of by your commandment, your Lordship will be pleased in good part to accept it, and ever afford me your good opinion and favour, of which I shall be
1 Southampton Corporation Books, vol. III.
40 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
exceedingly proud, endeavouring myself always with the best means to deserve it. As I shall have opportunity to send into England I will be bold to trouble your Lordship with my letter, in the mean time wishing your fortune may even prove answerable to the greatness of your own mind, I take my leave &c. Dieppe 2nd March (i 590-1)*,
He may have looked long over the sea from the Plage du Nord at Dieppe, or from its Castle on the steep fa/aise; but no Essex came, and any letter that came could only be a refusal of his generous offer. Essex himself was in trouble with the Queen about his own marriage with the widow of Sir Philip Sidney, and he would not risk offending her farther by taking possession of the person of a royal ward without permission. The best he could do for Southampton, then, was to hurry him home and to keep his trip and his letter as secret as it might be.
Here must be introduced, in parenthesis, the present writer's theory of Southampton's life, based upon long work and logical inferences.
fit seems most likely that when Southampton was ordered home from Dieppe, he was not only disappointed but moody and petulant. To distract his thoughts, he went (as we are told he afterwards did in like case) to the theatre every day, first to see a play, then to hear a play, and then to study the art of the actor. No suggestion is here offered as to the date of the first time Southampton heard of Shakespeare, as something different from the ordinary run of players; and no date can be assigned to the circumstances under which he first spoke to the player. Shakespeare says it was "in the Spring,"2 and this present spring of 1591 best suits the lives of both peer and player. It seems most likely that Southampton introduced himself, willing the player to come to him, because he wanted, while thanking him for a good representation, to find fault with him on some minor points, perhaps in his accent, his gesture, his posing, or in the play itself. He was in the habit of giving good advice about their business to all the players, as is often the way with amateurs. But the answers of this man impressed him. He felt, by a subtle intuition, an interest in him, because he felt that the poet also was suffering something of what he suffered, rebellion against
1 Salisb. Papers, iv. 96.
2 See Preface to my edition of the Sonnets.
iv] PROPOSALS FOR MARRIAGE 41
his fate and its limitations. He felt he must have a private talk with this "man from Stratford," and took him home with him to supper. And this was not once or even twice. They had each met the other in a psychic moment in their lives, and the player brought a new interest into Southampton's life. He had never before met one of these "puppets" who was able to recast and alter his play-books to suit his own notions; he pressed his conceits and wishes upon the poet's acceptance. Shakespeare was not likely to have ever had so intelligent a critic rising up to him from amid his audience. It was one of the poet's practical aims to please his hearers, and he did not turn away scornfully from the young lord's suggestions, even though he represented but a small fraction of the theatre-goers. A certain amount of self- revelation ensued on either side; their tastes, their beliefs, their opinions harmonised in a wonderful way; and, while Shakespeare cried "Oh for my sake do you with Fortune chide" or
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state x
Southampton tried to stimulate his ambition to higher walks of literature than the dramatic was then esteemed. He would shew his visitor some of the books he read and give bright analyses of their contents; he would dwell on the delights of pure poetry and the lack of it in the ordinary popular drama, of the books best likely to help — as Sir Philip Sidney's Art of Poesie^ Webbe's book on the same, Thomas Wilson's Art of Rhetoric; and he might be surprised to find that the player knew both of the latter. Southampton would encourage the rustic actor to make trial of his powers in the new form of verse introduced by Wyat and Surrey from Italy; all the nobles and gentry were trying their skill in their efforts to turn a well-filed line to rival those of authors preserved in the book of Songs and Sonettes. Then, being tired of indoor air, he would swear Shakespeare his servant for the day, mount him, and lead him off to Hampstead Heights 2, by the Wych Elm grove (old then, but not extinct even yet), up past the Well to the crest of the Horse
1 Sonnets cxi and xxix.
2 We know from the State Papers that the Spanish Ambassador at that time had his house upon the hill, and many came and went secretly to him. So there was always a little curiosity as to the intentions of those who went in that direction.
42 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
Shoe Hill, where he would fling himself down on the heath, drink in the pure air, and glory in the extensive views. Then came more heart to heart talks than could take place in rooms, and both went refreshed to their homes. Sometimes the peer would ask the player to supper with him after the play; he was not always alone then, but it gave Shakespeare a chance of listening to the tones in which upper class equals addressed each other, to their forms of gossip, to their methods of criticism. Southampton would always bring them back to his favourite Colin Clout^ Thomas Watson's Passionate Century^ the Faerie Queene^ Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia^ and his Astrophel and Stella, just then coming through the press. And among the young nobles, but somewhat apart, would sit Master William Harvey, of Armada fame, silent, like Shakespeare, and willing to hear. My theory is that he was the man who suggested to Shakespeare that, if he wanted to please the young noble's friends, he might weave some of the arguments of Arcadia into Sonnets (which Southampton was so anxious that he should try); for it would be greatly for the good of all that the young Earl should yield to Burleigh's wishes, and marry his granddaughter.
These feasts of reason were not in Southampton's "Lodgings in the Strand," nor in Burleigh House, nor Arundel House; but on odd occasions at Southampton House in Holborn — where then most probably there hung his mother's portrait (now at Welbeck). Shakespeare's time was not wholly his own ; beside the playing time, there were rehearsals, consultations on the one hand to get through, and on the other hand the alteration of old plays. There would be no time for him to become weary of his young friend.
To be sure, some people think that Southampton was not the young friend addressed in the Sonnets. Various other friends have been suggested, but the only theory which has held the ear of the public for any time is Mr Thomas Tyler's " Herbert-Fitton Theory," that is, that Lord William Herbert, afterwards the Earl of Pembroke, was the friend addressed1. That theory assumes that the whole of the Sonnets must have been written after 1598, when Lord Herbert first appeared at Court, at the age of eighteen. But that means that Shakespeare was at once
1 I have treated this in full both in my Preface to the Sonnets, and also in my Shakespeare's Environment, p. 144.
iv] PROPOSALS FOR MARRIAGE 43
introduced to him, became intimate with him, and began to write sonnets to him in which he ascribes to Lord Herbert not only inspiration but " education out of rude ignorance," and the guidance of" his pupil pen," after he had written not only both of his poems, but A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet^ and The Merchant of Venice. It assumes that he had warmed up for this second young Lord the same feelings which he had assured another he would never change — not only the same feelings, but the same phrases, which he had already publish ed,"Lord of my Love," etc. We are asked to believe that the three-year Sonnet Story had happened, and that Meres had had time to read them, to put a reference to them in his book, to get his book finished, passed by the censor, consigned to the printer and registered to him, within six months ! The whole beauty of the Sonnets dies out before the thought. Nothing in the description of Shakespeare's youth suits Herbert. He was not the sole hope of his great House, as he had both a father and a brother; he was not fair, but dark, and he never wore long curling locks. Sonnets had become commonplace by the date of 1598. Shakespeare's cannot be read as a hackneyed imitation of past fashions. They have all the verve of a fresh impulse, all the ideal transport of a newly discovered power, all the original treat- ment of a new method of art expression. The twined threads of biography and autobiography are there on which to string the pearls of Shakespeare's thought. And these twined threads can only be woven to fit Henry, the third Earl of Southampton. Shakespeare had no second dream; all his songs and praises were addressed
To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
This was but a variant of Southampton's motto "Ung par tout, tout par ung." Perhaps the most telling are the phrases of personal description :
Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee Recals the lovely April of her prime1.
The portrait of Southampton's mother can still be seen; it determines Shakespeare's painting. His young friend wore long locks curling like buds of marjoram; he was beautiful, but his special beauty was in his eyes, twin stars, that governed his poet's path.
1 Sonnet xui.
44 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH .
The youth was at the time the Sonnets were written "the world's fresh ornament," a "child of state" (or royal ward), being under age, and the sole hope of his great house. He was interested in heraldry and astrology, acquainted with law and philosophy, and devoted to poetry. He was kind and sympathetic, though critical. Now, it is not desired to assert that the later Sonnets are prose diaries of events; they are sparks struck off from some fervour, echoes of some con- versation; they often contradict each other; there is a constant clearing up of misunderstandings, and one can find many of the situations painted in Shakespeare's plays. Perhaps, more than we realise, the Sonnets give the key to the plays.]
Meanwhile, though he tried, Southampton could not forget his dreams of foreign service; he heard all about Lord Essex and his doings. Burleigh entered in his Diary the main points to be remembered. It would be as well to record them in toto for the next few months, as printed at the end of Murdin's State Papers.
July 1 9th 1591. The Queen at my House to see the Erie of Essex' horses in Covent Garden. 3000 men appointed to be embarked for Diepe to serve under the Erie of Essex.
July 2 1 st. The Erie of Essex's Commission for Normandy.
August 3rd. The Erie of Essex landed at Diepe.
August 4th. At Guldeford. Mr H. Killigrew appointed to attend the Erie of Essex in France.
September. Thomas Leighton sent to attend the Erie of Essex in France.
Oct. 1 8th. The Erie of Essex took his leave at Richmond.
October 24-th. Roan invested by Marshal Biron and the Erie of Essex.
November 23rd. The Erie of Essex came to Westminster unlocked for.
Dec. 5th The Erie of Essex returned to Normandy.
Dec. yth Sir Thomas Leighton sent out of Guernsey to assist the
Erie of Essex in Normandy.
February 1591-2. Sixteen hundred new men sent to Normandy.
And still Southampton kept out of it.
By comparing this Diary with the Queen's proceedings, we may notice that, as soon as the Earl of Essex left the court, she began her arrangements for her summer progress. She went via Sir William More's house at Loseley to Guildford, and there she sent a messenger after Essex into France. Southampton would now be occupied at Court, for during this progress the Queen had arranged
iv] PROPOSALS FOR MARRIAGE 45
at last to visit Cowdray and Titch field, and he probably would be interested in plans to give her a fit reception in both places.
It would seem from a letter of his in the Loseley Papers that his grandfather had already sketched the device of which he told Sir William More. But he would want some one to write it up, some company of men to play it. Now Lord Montague, with all his wealth, was not one of the noblemen known to have a company of players of his own. This left him all the more likely to be willing to hire men from the metropolis, some of the companies going on their summer tours, and it was quite as likely as not that he had a selection from the Burbage Company to govern and train local talent. The present writer looked up the accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber to see if any special details about the route could be found, through the preliminary expenses of the gentlemen servants and assistants who were always sent in advance of her Majesty to make her loyal subjects' homes fit for her temporary sojourn in them. Unluckily three lots seemed to have been sent at once, to suit her convenience, so we cannot from them reckon the stages of the progress as consecutive steps in a story. However, they do tell us some little things about it1.
In August 1591 Simon Bowyer and his fellows were allowed pay- ment for preparing Lord Lumley's house at Stanstede; for making ready Sir William M ore's house at Loseley; for making ready a standing for the Queen in Guildford Park; "for making ready a dininghouse at Katharine Hall"; "to him also by a bill for ex- penses" "for making ready my Lord Montague's house at Cowdray for her Majestic, 6 dayes in August 1591 ; To the same for making readye the Priorye House at my Lord Montague's; for making ready a Lodge in the North Park, for her Majesty to rest as she came to Cowdray; for making ready three standings for her Majestic at the Lord Montague's"; for making ready Mr Richard Lewknor's house for the Queen to dine in between Cowdray and Chichester; "To making ready the Earl of Sussex's house in Portsmouth ; to making ready a Standing outside of Portsmouth to see the Soldiers." "For making ready at Abberston...for making ready a dining house at Mr Tichborne's in September... for making
1 Declared accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber, Audit Office, Bundle 385, Roll 29.
46 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
ready a Dining House at Mr William Wallop's House between Abberston and Fareley." There were preparations also at Bishops- walton, at the Bishop of Winchester's house at Winchester, at the Lord of Hertford's house at Elverton, and a dining house at the Earl of Hertford's.
The expenses then go back to accounts for similar work done by others under Richard Coningsby, "for making ready the Church at Chichester in August... also Lord Delawarre's in the Hault;...Mr Marven's house at Bramshott. . .a dininghouse between Bramshott and Sir Henry Weston's.v, for making ready a House at Southamp- ton1 Sept. 1 591;... at Bagshott on her return. A dininghouse at Fayrethorne...Mr Cornwallys'2 house at Horsley in August;... for making ready at Mr Tilney's house3 at Letherhyde for her Majesty to dine at in August... a dining house at Mr Weston's at Clandon."
To another groom of the Chamber was given the duty of making ready at Titchfield in September "for two standings for her Majesty at Titchfield"; there was a dining house between Titchfield and the next stage, and so on homewards.
The chief events of the royal visit to Cowdray are told in a little pamphlet of the time, printed by Thomas Scarlet (reprinted by Mr John Nichols in the Progresses of Queen Elizabeth^ in. 90).
There we find that the Queen arrived on I5th August at Cow- dray at 8 o'clock "after her rest in the North Park" (as prepared for her). At the gate of Cowdray the porter, in presenting the key to the Queen as "the wisest, fairest, and most fortunate of creatures," said that "the owner's tongue is the key to his heart, and his heart the lock of his soul. Therefore what he speaks you may constantly believe." Her Highness took the key and said she u would answer for him." At the entrance of the house the Queen embraced the Lady Montague and the Lady Dormer her daughter; the Mistress of the House (as it were weeping in her bosom) said, " O happie Time! O joyful daie!"
The next day was Sunday, and the Queen, or at least the story- writer, managed to do without any religious service, but there was a substantial breakfast of three oxen and a hundred and forty geese
1 Was this Bull Place in Southampton, the Wriothesleys' town house?
1 Southampton's uncle, Sir Thomas Cornwallis.
3 Mr Edmund Tilney was the'n Master of the Revels.
iv] PROPOSALS FOR MARRIAGE 47
with et ceteras, which would occupy some time. The house which had been begun by William, Earl of Southampton, Montague's uncle, had only lately been completed and redecorated; and this was made an excuse for the lavish expenditure of the reception. Probably the Queen would inspect the Picture Gallery, containing so many portraits of people she had known, from her father to her young brother. There was enough to interest a resting day in the house.
Monday was devoted to hunting, which was ordered by Henry Browne, Lord Montague's third son, Ranger of Windsor Forest. It may be noted that there were "three standings" made ready for the Queen in Cowdray Park 1.
The Queen killed three deer, one at each "standing," and Mabel, Countess of Kildare, sister of her host, the only lady who had the courage to try, killed one. It is said that the Queen was displeased at her audacity and did not ask her afterwards to sit at her own table. But the Royal Huntress carried away the honours of the day, and the bow with which she killed the deer was hung up in the Buck Hall of Cowdray. After the hunt there were masques, and nymphs in sweet arbours sang harmonious songs of the Queen's glory. On Tuesday the Queen "went to dinner in the Priory, where my Lord kept house." Masques of the pilgrims, of the anglers, and of the wild man gave the Queen sufficient flattery, even for her accustomed ear. On the last day of her visit the Queen knighted some young gentlemen, among them Sir George Browne, Lord Montague's second son (the second Lady Montague's eldest), and Sir Robert Dormer, his son-in-law, afterwards Lord Dormer. Montague's eldest son, who had led the family horsemen to the famous gathering at Tilbury Fort, was not knighted. Perhaps the Queen thought he did not need it, as he would be Viscount some day; perhaps she wished to honour her hostess through her son and her daughter; perhaps he was, even then, too ill to appear.
Anthony Browne2, writing to Sir William More from Horsley on 30th December of that year, regretted that he could not at present accept his kind invitation; but before the twelve days are ended, if he is fit to leave his dear friend Cornwallis and travel, he will come, "But I assure you I have been very weak and faint since Christmas."
1 Prepared for driving deer past. * Loseley Papers, x. 122.
48 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH. iv
After leaving Cowdray, Elizabeth visited Chichester and Ports- mouth, whence she reached Titchfield, the home of her ward. He would be certain to be present to strengthen his mother in her responsibility. We do not hear if the Queen was fortunate at the "two standings "prepared for her at Titchfield; nor have we heard if there were any masques prepared and performed. The family were too poor at the time to do great things. Once before the Queen had been at Titchfield under more painful circumstances, when the Duke of Norfolk was discovered to have intended to marry the Queen of Scots, and Leicester l feigned to be ill, in order to confess the faults of others and secure his own safety. That was the beginning of the troubles of Southampton's father, and of his mother's too.
1 See Addenda.
CHAPTER V THE PATRON1
THE year 1592 entered gently and gave no early sign of its malevolent intentions, though there was "a great drought."
A letter of Southampton's shews that he was paying some attention to his property by that time:
Mr Hyckes, Whereas I am gyven to understand that my manor house at Beaulye, with dyvers parcells of my inheritance there, are lyke to fall in greate decaye and daunger to be lost thoroughe wante of meanes to supplye the charge of the reparacions during 'my wardship — I woulde hartely request you to move my Lord Treasurer, accordinge to the note I doe sende, to yealde me his honorable favor in taking such course as shall seeme best to his wisdome whereby the sayd chardges and reparacions may be supply ed; in doing whereof I shall rest most bounde unto his Lordship, and wilbe redye to require yor curtesye in what I maye, from my lodging in the Strand this 26th of June 1592,
Your loving friend H. SOUTHAMPTON 2.
This indirect method of application to Lord Burleigh was probably the result of the strained relations between the guardian and ward, Southampton not having as yet consented to marry Lord Burleigh's granddaughter.
Domestic sorrows were coming on apace. Anthony, the heir apparent of Cowdray, always delicate, lay dying, at the age of 39. He departed this life on the 2gth of June, at Riverbank, in a house built for him in Cowdray Park. His father felt his loss keenly, though he had no lack of heirs. There were his sons, Sir George and Henry, to comfort him, and his eldest son's sons, three handsome youths, to carry on the direct line. The eldest of these, Anthony Maria, was the baby which arrived four months after the Earl of Southampton at Cowdray — "the fair child" of the Armada gathering. He married Lady Jane Sackville, daughter of Thomas Sackville, first Earl of Dorset, in February 1591. Viscount Montague
1 The earliest Dedication to Southampton is that of John Clapham. 1591, printed before his Poem on "Narcissus." It has probably been hitherto kept out of the record because it was written in Latin.
2 Lansdowne MS. LXXI. 72.
s. s. 4
50 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
made a great funeral procession for his son at Midhurst, when he buried him on the ist of August, 1592. Lord Southampton would certainly be present among the chief mourners, as Anthony was his mother's only brother of the full blood, and his only uncle of the Ratcliffe descent.
The next affair we know him to be concerned in was "a vessel of St Malo in Brittany laden with sugar from Brazil, taken as a prize by Sir Martin Frobisher and brought into Portsmouth. The Earl of Southampton, Mr Ralph Bowes, and Mr Carew Raleigh lay claim to shares in it."1 The Privy Council told the Mayor of Portsmouth to take charge of it on September 6th. When the Court was at Oxford on September 26th, the Privy Councillors wrote to the customers of the Port of London that the prize had arrived, and they were to keep it until the shares were divided between these three. But a dispute was waged about it until March and April of the following year, so that it is not likely that much would come to Southampton after all.
The Earl of Southampton was incorporated of Oxford in August 1592. This incident becomes worth noting, because during Elizabeth's visit to Oxford in that year she was surrounded by a gallant bevy of distinguished noblemen, of whom he was one. The visit began on September 22nd, 1592, and the proceedings lasted until the 28th 2. The glories of the Queen's reception were recorded by Mr Philip Stringer in Latin verse, dated October loth, 1592.
In the poem, Apollo and all the Muses describe the great men of their University in appropriate terms and their youthful visitors with more personal flattery — Dr Bond, the Vice- Chancellor, the French Ambassador, Lord Treasurer Cecil (the Nestor of his time), the Earl of Worcester, Lord Herbert, Lord Henry Somerset, the Earl of Cumberland, the Earl of Pembroke; the Earl of Essex, noble and learned, "whom learned men admired, more learned himself," "a Maecenas with wisdom unmatched." "After him followed a Prince of a distinguished race, whom (rich in her right) Southampton blazons as a great hero. No youth there present was more beautiful or more brilliant inthelearned arts than this youngprinceof Hampshire, although his face was yet scarcely adorned by a tender down."
1 Privy Council Register, 6th Sept. 1592. s Reprints by C. Plummet, pp. 249, 292.
r] THE PATRON 51
Less than a month after this brilliant concourse met at Oxford, Viscount Montague of Cowdray, the last of the three great Anthony Brownes of the sixteenth century, died at his manor-house of West Horsley on October igth, 1592. With his grandfather, South- ampton lost the last vestige of paternal control and guidance, and instead of the genial old man in his second home at Cowdray, he would henceforth find only his cousin Anthony Maria, his junior by four months, a personage of no particular use to him either in influence or example. Southampton's mother would be overwhelmed with grief, for she had always been a devoted daughter. She had now no elder male member of the family to lean upon, and it would be a sad time in the Southampton home as well as at Cowdray. Viscount Montague's great public funeral took place on December 6th, 1 592, when he was carried from West Horsley to Midhurst. He had not, like his father, designed his own tomb (as his biographers say). But shortly after, to fulfil his will, a noble monument was commenced, with figures of himself and his two wives, after the model he had chosen for that of his son-in-law, the second Earl of Southampton, at Titch field. It is a curious coincidence that, just as Edward Gage had been allowed to leave prison to take up his executorship to the second Earl of Southampton, so the Privy Council Register records on April ist, 1593, "Edward Gage Esq., one of the executors of the last will of the late Lord Montague, restrained in the custody of Richard Shelley Esq., to be allowed to go out on bonds to confer with the heir, Lord Montague, about the will of the late Lord." This Edward Gage must have been a trustworthy man with a good head for figures.
The death of Viscount Montague seems to have been due to a long-standing disease. But wide ravages of death were near. Just after the courtly gaieties at Oxford, the Terror stalked into the land.
The Michaelmas Term was held in Hertford.
No Bartholomew Fair was kept in London that year for fear of the Plague, which was very hot in the city, says Stow1, between Dec. 29th, 1592, and Dec. 3Oth, 1593.
On October 23rd died Sir William Rowe, Lord Mayor; on November ist, William Elken; on December 5th, Sir Rowland 1 Annals, p. 1274.
4—2
52 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
Hayward; on January gth, Sir Wolston Dixie — all Aldermen. Five-eighths of all deaths were caused by the Plague.
From the Privy Council Registers we can gather that on the 9th March, 1592-3, "the matter of the Prize Ship arose into a new controversy between the Earl of Southampton and Mr Ralph Bowes on the one part, and Sir Martin Frobisher for her Majestic on the other." Finally the Privy Council wrote a letter on the ist of April, 1593, to Sir Thomas Wilkes and Henry Clethro, as legal counsel, "to tell them what they think of the claims touching a prize taken at sea by Sir Martin Frobisher," "whereunto our verie good Lord The Earl of Southampton and Mr Ralph Bowes, pretend tide."
The claims seem to have been settled, in some way, out of court; for we do not hear anything more about them, at least at that time.
In that very month of April, on the i8th day, something happened which has done more than anything else to keep the Earl of Southampton in memory. Yet a commonplace enough event it was — the registration of a book in the Stationers' Registers. But the name of the book was Venus and Adonis^ the name of the author was William Shakespeare, the name of the printer was Richard Field, the Stratford friend of the poet, and it was dedicated to the Earl of Southampton — dedicated timidly, because the poet did not know how the public would take his venture, and he wanted to leave his patron as free as possible to slip out, should the venture prove a failure. It happens that the first preserved fragment of Shakespeare's prose writing is this dedication:
To the Right Honorable Henrie Wriotheseley, Earle of Southampton, and Baron of Titchfield. Right Honorable, I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolisht lines to your Lordship, nor how the worlde will censure me for choosing so strong a propp to support so weak a burthen, onely, if your Honour seeme but pleased, I account myself e highly praised, and vowe to take advantage of all idle houres, till I have honoured you with some graver labour. But, if the first heire of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorie it had so noble a god-father, and never after eare so barren a land, for feare it yeeld me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your Honour- able survey, and your Honor to your heart's content; which I wish may always answere your owne wish, and the world's hopeful expectation. Your Honor's in all dutie.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
T] THE PATRON 53
The immediate recognition of the poem of Venus and Adonis must have surprised both patron and poet. It raised the writer out of the rank of players, above the rank of dramatists, into the rank of poets, where he sat at the feet of Spenser and became a member of his school. It brought reflected honour to his patron, gave him new subjects of conversation, and widened his circle of friends and admirers. He became Shakespeare's sole patron for life; but Shakespeare, though in 1593 ms so^e Protege, was not allowed long to remain so.
He was but one hour mine. (Sonnet xxxm.)
Eager aspirants crowded round the brilliant young nobleman who had proved his taste through his poet; they brought their poems, which they thought well fitted for like honours; some even ventured to dedicate their productions to him without permission, when Southampton learned how to turn a cold shoulder and deaf ears towards too audacious courtiers.
The poem which dazzled the world of 1 593 (then wrapped in lugubrious memories) may be looked at under many aspects. It was a period of translations. Golding's Ovid had been a text-book for translations from 1 565-7 ; scholars and poets were essaying transla- tions; Marlowe had left unfinished his Hero and Leander, Drayton had written \\isEndymton and Phoebe, Chapman his Ovid's Banquet of Sence, Thomas Peend his Hermaphroditus and Salmacis, Lodge his Scylla. But Venus and Adonis was unlike any of these in style, rhythm, and imagery, and though the measure is nearest to that of Lodge, how superior it was to its predecessor any one can measure. Those who pause in wonder before its lyric beauties will best find an expression in Mr George Wyndham's sympathetic description. It cannot here be dwelt upon as regards Shakespeare, since South- ampton is now in question. Now, it was quite the custom of the period to enfold in poems a second intention, such as was fully illus- trated by Spenser in his Faerie Queene. Therefore, while mere strangers could see in the exquisite verse of Venus and Adonis a poetic rendering of an ancient tale, artistically combined from materials gathered from various sources — to which the every-day charms of English natural scenery formed a harmonious setting — some of the friends of the patron would pause to wonder whether in it there were a secondary intention. Was Adonis intended to represent the youth
54 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
himself? If so, what was the attitude of the youth to voluptuous temptation? Clearly repellent, if the answers of Adonis are analysed,
"For shame," he cries, "let go and let me go."
"I know not love," quoth he, "nor will not know it."
Remove your siege from my unyielding heart, To Love's alarms it will not ope the gate.
...My heart stands armed in mine ear,
And will not let a false sound enter there; Lest the deceiving harmony should run Into the quiet closure of my breast.
I hate not love, but your device in love That lends embracements unto every stranger.
Love comforteth like sunshine after rain But Lust's effect is tempest after sun.
Therefore in sadness, now I will away; My face is full of shame, my heart of teen:
Mine ears that to your wanton talk attended
Do burn themselves for having so offended.
And that is the end of the dialogue.
Shakespeare was only just in time to be first, for Barnabe Barnes had also been writing during 1592 a poem, or collection of poems, sonnets, madrigals, elegies, and odes which he called Parthenophil andParthenophe^ which he managed to get printed in May 1 593, and in it he included a sonnet to Southampton, though the dedication was "to Mr William Percy Esq. his deerest friend." At the end are six sonnets: I. To the Right Noble Henry, Earl of Northumber- land; II. To the Right Honourable Robert, Earl of Essex, the most renowned and valiant; III. To the right noble and vertuous Lord Henry, Earle of Southampton; IV. To the most vertuous learned and beautiful lady Maria, Countess of Pembroke; V. To the right vertuous and most beautiful the Lady Strange; VI. To the beautiful lady the Lady Bridget Manners.
The sonnet to Southampton certainly suggests that Barnabe Barnes knew that this Earl had been guide, helper, and patron to some other poet, and that he would like to have the same advantages himself. If he did receive any it was in a minor degree. His inferiority to Shakespeare is best shewn by himself.
v] THE PATRON 55
Receave (sweet Lord) with thy thrice sacred hande
Which sacred muses make their instrument
These worthless leaves, which I to thee present,
Sprong from a rude and unmanured lande That with your countenance grac'de, they may withstande
Hundred ey'de enuies' rough encounterment
Whose patronage can give encouragement
To scorne back-wounding Zoilus his hande. Voutchsafe (right vertuous Lord) with gracious eyes
Those heavenly lamps which give the Muses light
Which give, and take (in course) that holy fier
To view my muse with your judicial sight. Whom when Time shall have taught by flight to rise
Shall to thy vertues of much worth aspyre *.
One amusing point is that the only unmarried lady here, the Lady Bridget Manners, "Rose of the garland, fairest and sweetest," was the very lady next year advised to turn her attention to the Earl of Southampton.
Perhaps the praise of the Oxford panegyrist, the brilliance of his protege's dedicated poem, or a turn of Elizabeth's favour at the time encouraged Southampton's friends to propose that he should be made a Knight of the Garter this year He was not appointed, but the fact of his name having been proposed was in itself an honour so great at his early age that it had never before been paid to any one not of Royal Blood.
It is possible that Southampton's bailiff, Richard Nash, was a relative to the satirist who made a desperate bid for Southampton's approval. His wit and conversation may have pleased the young lord, for his dedications suggest some degree of acquaintance. (It is very important to pay attention to these Dedications, and their results.) He evidently had written by 1593 his first prose novel, as the Stationers' Registers2 refer to it.
"John Wolf Entred for his copie under thandes of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Wardens a booke entitled The unfortunate traveller bd" It is not clear that this entry remained in force, for the tide-page of the first edition known informs us : "The unfortunate Traveller or the Life of Jack Wilton. Thomas Nashe. Printed by
1 From Dr Grosart's reprint of the unique copy in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire. 2 Arber, it. 636
56 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
T. Scarlet for C. Burby, and are to be sold at his shop adjoyning to the Exchange 1 594. London."
Whether this dedication was included in the manuscript as it reached John Wolfe or not, it certainly appears in the first edition, and is withdrawn from all later ones. By way of contrast to Shakespeare's it may preferably be treated here:
To the Right Honorable Lord Henrie Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton
and Baron of Tichfeeld.
Ingenuous honorable Lord, I know not what blind custome methodical! antiquity hath thrust upon us, to dedicate such books as we publish to one great man or other; in which respect, least anie man should challenge these my papers as goods uncustomed, and so extend uppon them as forfeite to contempt to the scale of your excellent censure loe here I present them to bee scene and allowed. Prize them as high or as low as you list: if you set anie price on them, I hold my labor well satisfide. Long have I desired to approove my wit unto you. My reverent duetifull thoughts (even from their infancie) have been retayners to your glorie. Now at last I have enforst an opportunitie to plead my devoted minde. All that in this phantasticall Treatise I can promise, is some reasonable conveyance of historic, and varietie of mirth. By divers of my good frends have I been dealt with to employ my dul pen in this kinde, it being a cleane different vaine from other my former courses of writing. How wel or ill I have done in it, I am ignorant : (the eye that sees round about it selfe, sees not into it selfe:) only your Honours applauding encouragement hath power to make arrogant. In- comprehensible is the heigth of your spirit both in heroical resolution and matters of conceit. Unrepriueably perisheth that book whatsoever to wast paper which on the diamond rock of your judgement, disasterly chanceth to be shipwrackt. A dere lover and cherisher you are, as well of the lovers of Poets, as of Poets themselves. Amongst their sacred number, I dare not ascribe my selfe, though now and then I speak English: that smal braine I have to no further use I convert, save to be kinde to my frends and fatall to my enemies. A new brain, a new wit, a new stile, a new soule will I get mee, to canonize your name to posteritie, if in this, my first attempt I be not taxed of presumption. Of your gracious favor I despaire not, for I am not altogether Fame's out-cast. This handfull of leaves I offer to your view, to the leaves I compare, which as they cannot grow of themselves, except they have some branches or boughes to cleave too, and with whose iuice and sap they be evermore recreated and nourisht : so except these unpolisht leaves of mine have some braunch of Nobilitie whereon to depend and cleave and with the vigorous nutriment of whose authorized commendation they may be continually foster'd and refresht, never wil they grow to the world's good liking, but forthwith fade and die on the first hour of their birth.
v] THE PATRON 57
Your Lordship is the large spreading branch of renown, from whence these my idle leaves seeke to derive their whole nourishing: it resteth you either scornfully shake them off as worm-eaten and worthless, or in pity preserve them and cherish them for some litle summer frute you hope to finde amongst them. Your Honors in all humble service
THO: NASHE.
It is evident from this dedication that Nash knew of Shakespeare's when he wrote it; I think that he printed it without permission having been asked or received. Besides the faults and peculiarities of "this phantasticall Treatise" as a work of art, it certainly lacked "some reasonable conveyance of historic" on the two points about which Southampton would best know. He was intimate with the Howards, he was a student of literature, and he would know that the whole story of the Earl of Surrey was false and disparaging to his character. He would also know that the vision of the fair Geraldine at the Emperor's court could not have been founded on fact; and was moreover discreditable to her, as she could not have bewailed him as "her Lord" while he was married to another, and she was preparing to marry another. Her connection with his own family would give Southampton the facts, which shewed that other of Nash's statements might be false.
It is probable, therefore, that when Southampton saw this dedi- cation in print he was displeased, and told Nash that he would not have it; at all events it was withdrawn from all subsequent editions.
Meanwhile, having witnessed the success of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, Nash, though he had not dared to describe himself as among the "sacred number" of the poets, seems to have fancied that he might be more successful with this patron if he could become one. He therefore wrote some verses, entitled The Choice of Valentines^ which he also dedicated to Southampton. The contents, however, of these verses, or their "English," seems to have been even more distasteful to Southampton (or the Censor); for the effort remained in manuscript till lately. It has a prologue and an epilogue both addressed to Southampton.
Pardon, sweete flower of matchless Poetrie And fairest bud the red rose ever bore, Althoughe my Muse devor'st from deeper care Presents thee with a wanton Elegie,
58 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
Ne blame my verse of loose unchastitie
For painting forth the things that hidden are
Since all men acte what I in speeche declare
Onelie induced by varietie. Complaints and praises everie one can write,
And passion out their panges in statelie rhymes
But of Love's pleasures none did ever write
That hath succeeded in theis latter times Accept of it Dear Lord, in gentle grace
And better lynes ere long shall honor thee1.
At the end of the poem:
Thus hath my penne presumed to please my frend
Oh mightst thow lykewise please Apollo's eye,
No : Honor brookes no such impietie,
Yet Ovid's wanton muse did not offend. He is the fountaine whence my streames doe flowe
Forgive me if I speake as I was taught
A lyke to women utter all I knowe
As longing to unlode so bad a fraught. My mynde once purg'd of such lascivious witt
With purifide words and hallowed verse
Thy praises in large volumes shall rehearse
That better maie thy graver view befitt. Meanwhile yett rests, you smile at what I write
Or for attempting, banish me your sight2.
It is evident that Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis is referred to in the fourth line of the latter address, the author not realising the difference between Shakespeare's Muse and his own. Southampton did so, and, accepting Nash's challenge, followed the alternative his would-be protege suggested in his last line, and "banished" him.
£ln connection with the private theories here advanced, it may be suggested that Shakespeare, alone and neglected, may have mingled with the crowd when the Queen passed through Oxford in 1 592. But he would have no eyes for any but the young " Prince of Hampshire," his vision of youthful beauty, mounted on a steed to awaken of itself a poet's fervour. The poet gazed and felt, but dared not speak. The sight helped him in his work, a secret work, which he had been keeping from his friend through the beautiful spring, the hot summer,
1 From Mr McKerrow's edition of Nash's Works, vol. in. p. 403.
2 Ibid. p. 415.
v] THE PATRON 59
and the heavy autumn airs of 1 592. At every opportunity he had enjoyed the lively gossip and critical dissertations of the young Earl. But he had been often out of town, and in his solitude Shakespeare had been studying hard and working hard. One book which was able to strengthen and correct much of his patron's advice was The drte of English poesie, Contrived into three bookes^ the first of Poets and Poesie; the second of Proportion^ the third of Ornament. This work was printed by Shakespeare's friend Richard Field, and was dedicated by the author to the Queen and by the printer to Lord Burleigh. Shakespeare would know then, what the world did not surely know, but we now know, that its author was George Putten- ham. That book was of great use to the poet. Besides general advice, it strongly advocates the use of blank verse in plays and suggests the suitability of the six-lined and seven-lined stanza for narrative verse, both of which Shakespeare essayed in his two poems. He had also been studying in Dick Field's shop Sir Thomas North's translation of Amyot's Plutarch's Lives. But, more than anything else, he had been studying Richard Field's new edition of Ovid. Thence he seized his motto, a choice which has not been sufficiently noticed. He set it before him, he headed his paper with it, and he began to be a translator, a poetic translator of the poet who wrote
Villa miretur vulgus ; mihi flavus Apollo Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua.
While his friend spoke to him of Golding and Marlowe, Drayton and Chapman, he had hugged his secret, until his work was done — and then he had to break it to his friend, so as to prepare the way for a formal request for liberty to dedicate his poem to him.
In one sonnet he betrays his study:
Describe Adonis, and the Counterfeit Is poorly imitated after you.
He had to shew his friend that he believed in his own work:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Yea do thy worst, old Time ; despite thy wrong My love shall in my verse live ever young
were not spoken of the sonnet but the poem.
60 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
When he had finished the poem, with the manuscript he sent the special sonnet (xxvi):
Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,
To thee I send this written embassage
To witness duty, not to shew my wit.
Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine
May make seem bare, in wanting words to shew it;
But that I hope some good conceit of thine
In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it;
Till whatsoever star that guides my moving
Points on me graciously with fair aspect
And puts apparel on my tattered loving
To shew me worthy of thy sweet respect;
Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee,
Till then, not shew my head where thou dost prove me
which seems to signify, " My duty requires me to shew that the trouble you have taken with me has been worth taking. When my pages are printed and bound^ and you are satisfied with them, and the world approves, then shall I dare to boast how I do love thee." But he put a timid and far-off address of dedication to his first poem — he would not have his friend discredited for his sake. Southampton was poet himself enough to understand the beauties of the poem, to accept the dedication, to hurry up Richard Field, and to wait eagerly for the result. Alas! Southampton was kept much out of London by the Plague, delays were multiplied among printers, proof correctors, Archbishops, and Master Wardens, so that it was the 1 8th of April, 1 593, when Richard Field " entered for his copy, under the handes of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Master Warden Stirrup a book intituled Venus and Adonis 6d" Yet the book, written chiefly in 1592, had time to know the beginning of "the great sickness," for, speaking of Adonis' lips, it says
their verdure still endure To drive infection from the dangerous year. That the Star-gazers having writ on death May say the Plague is banished by thy breath.
Ven. and. Adon. LXXXV.
The date of the poem helps to date the Sonnets. The poet had used certain phrases to urge the youth to marry, and these same
v] THE PATRON 61
phrases Venus used in her passionate pleadings. Shakespeare could never have used them in his Sonnets after she had soiled them in her poisoned speech.
Thomas Edwards, a little-known contemporary poet, in his Envoy to his Narcissus1, gives a list of poets under the names of their chief characters. When he wrote of this poem,
Adon deafly masking thro' Stately troupes, rich-conceited Shewed he well deserved to
Love's delight on him to gaze, And had not Love herself entreated
Other nymphs had sent him bayes.
did he refer to the poet or the patron?]
1 Narcissus, with Cephalus and Procris, was registered to John Wolfe on 22nd Oct. 1593, and (though apparently not printed until 1595) was the first allusion to Venus and Adonis. It was satirised by Nash, and lost to us until 1 867, when a fragment with title-page was discovered at Lamport Hall. A complete copy was found in 1878, in the Cathedral Library at Peterborough, by the Rev. W. E. Buckley, and reprinted by him in 1882.
THE EARL'S MAJORITY
THE Countess of Southampton had become a widow at 28 or 29 years old; she was a beautiful and popular woman of wide- reaching connections, and she must certainly have received many offers of a second marriage. But, either from devotion to her son, distaste of matrimony, or the difficulty of finding anyone who satisfied her critical taste, she had remained unmated for 13 years. The death of her father had left her without a counsellor of her own kin, and she felt that she needed one. It may be remembered that Viscount Montague had appointed as the overseer of his will Sir Thomas Heneage, an old friend of the family. Sir Thomas Heneage wrote to Sir Robert Cecil, November 27th, 1593, from "the woful Lodge of Copthall," so styled because of his late loss. When Heneage lost his wife on igth November, 1593, ne was at first very disconsolate. He was ageing and ill, and his only daughter Elizabeth had in 1572 married Moyle Finch (eldest son of Sir Thomas Finch) who had been kind neither to his wife nor to his father-in-law. Apparently when Heneage turned his eyes for com- fort to the Countess of Southampton, her heart melted towards him in his loneliness and failing health, and early in 1 594 the news went round that the two bruised hearts were planning to comfort each other. Camden says that Sir Thomas Heneage "for his elegancy of life and pleasantness of speech was born for the court." Indeed, he was about as perfect a man as had graced it — learned and cultured, a lover of the muses and patron of their followers, honest and capable in business, he was honoured and trusted by the Queen, and was powerful in his offices of Treasurer of the Chamber, Vice-Chancellor of the Household, and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He was the very man to affect for good the habits and opinions of the young and somewhat headstrong Earl. The Queen had given Heneage many grants of land, chiefly in Essex, where his headquarters were at Copt Hall. In London he had removed from Heneage House to the official residence for the Duchy, the Savoy.
The Countess of Southampton was given another chance of
CH. vi] THE EARL'S MAJORITY 63
shewing what a good wife she could be, and on 2nd of May, 1594, these two were happily married. The marriage promised well for her son, and incidentally proved to be of use to her son's poet and that poet's company.
Apparently the Countess of Southampton was living at South- ampton House before her marriage, as among examinations of priests and suspects a good many are noted to have frequented Southampton House, or lived near it.
It is well to remember, what is too often forgotten, that Sir Thomas Heneage wrote verses himself, and that he also had dedications made to him.
Fox dedicated to him an appendix to his De 0/iva Evange/ica, 1577, as "ornatissimo viro D. Thomae Hennagio," but he did not say much about his literary tastes.
A more important Encomium of him was penned by the learned Thomas Newton, when he dedicated to him his edition (1589) of The Encomia of Leland, "Honoratissimo, splendidissimo ac orna- tissimo Viro, D. Thomae Henneagio, Equiti Aurato, Camerae Regineae Gazophylaci perspicacissimo, eidem Reg. Ma. Procame- rario dignissimo, &c. Consiliario fidelissimo, Literarum ac Litera- torum patrono summo; Domino mihi multis nominibus suspiciendo.
Newton says to Heneage: "Let others give gems, gold, bronzes, ivories, pearls from Eastern waters; give myrrh and spices and wine, give coloured carpets, Chinese wools, Scarlet cloaks, Assyrian tapestry, yellow talents of the Phrygian Midas. No such gifts does Newton offer thee, Heneage, thou well-born flower of a famous flock; not for him does Pactolus, nor the goldbearing Hermus, nor the Tagus flow, rather for him does the Castalian wave roll, which, like a graving-tool strives to immortalise those who cultivate the sacred gifts of the muses, among whom ever remembered by me, Heneage most brightly shines, and most conspicuously sparkles.
" Leland celebrated in song the learned Treasurer of the Chamber to Henry the Eighth, Brian Tuke; experienced Heneage flourishes as treasurer under the divine and learned Princess, and discharges the offices of Tuke; Leland remembers Tuke, Newton remembers Heneage, distinguished in honor, in song, in mind, in prayer.
" Let these poems submitted by his own hand be a sign of the
64 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
sincere love he consecrates to you, which if only you favour, and honour with a serene aspect, you will give a great gift for a little service; whilst I, as with a shield, covered by such a protection against the crowd which scorns and criticises... will despise them all. May celestial Jupiter give you Nestor's years, since he has given to you his mind and eloquence.
Yours most devotedly Thomas Newton.'*
And Thomas Newton's most intimate friend, William Hunnis, Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal, also honoured him x.
During the previous year Shakespeare had been working to redeem his promise of taking advantage of all idle hours to complete his "graver labour," and during the same time he had been growing in intimacy with his lord, increasing in gratitude, and becoming bolder in expression. The love he had kept hidden in his heart when he published the first poem he now had no fear in expressing — and therefore the Dedication to the Rape of Lucrece almost goes back in terms, certainly in feeling, to the 2oth of his private Sonnets to his friend. For Shakespeare's prose runs thus: To the Right Honourable Henry Wriothesley Earle of Southampton, and Baron of Titchfield.
The loue 1 dedicate to your Lordship is without end; whereof this Pam- phlet without beginning is but a superfluous Moity. The warrant I have of your Honourable disposition, not the worth of my untutored Lines, makes it assured of acceptance. What I have done is yours, what I have to do is yours, being part in all I have, devoted yours. Were my worth greater, my duety would shew greater, meane time, as it is, it is bound to your Lordship ; To whom I wish long life still lengthened with all happiness,
Your Lordship's in all duety
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
Southampton's family motto had a meaning for Shakespeare apart from the world, "Ung par tout, tout par ung." Therefore he mortgaged his life-work to Southampton — "What I have to do is yours.'1'' The book was registered gth May, 1594.
The poem, being expected, was eagerly and preparedly welcomed; admirers were satisfied in their expectations, censors were silenced. The story of Lucretia had never been more tenderly or perfectly
1 See Dedication from Hunnies Recreations, "printed by P.S. [Philip Short] for W. Jaggard and are to be sold at his shoppe at the east end of S. Dunston's Church, 1595."
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treated; the seven-line stanza of Chaucer's Troylus and Cryseyde had never been more musically breathed, not even by Daniel in his Complaint of Rosamond.
It may not be out of place here to say a little about a lady associated with both Heneage and Southampton. Much has been built upon the Lady Bridget Manners' opinion of Southampton as "so young, fantasticall, and easily carried away" and it is there- fore as well to have the real truth about the speaker. Sir Thomas Heneage wrote to Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland, November 20, I5921, "the exceeding good modest and honorable behaviour and carriage of my lady Bridget your daughter with her careful and dilligent attendance of her Majestic ys so contentynge to her Highness and so commendable in this place where she lives — where vyces will hardly receive vyzards, and vertues will most shyne, as her Majestic acknowledges she hath cause to thank you for her, and you may take comforte of so vertuous a daughter, of whose beeynge here and attendance her Majestic hath bidden mee to tell your Ladyship that you shall have no cause to repent — The token of her Majesties remembrance, which, consydering from whence yt comes deserves never to be forgotten, I refer to the deliverye of the bearer."
The young lady had been away from her mother some time before 1 594, had grown tired of the Court, and had secret marriage plans of her own on hand. It is likely to have been common Court gossip that Burleigh had offered Southampton his granddaughter, and that he had not accepted her. But he was probably prudent enough not to pay attentions to any other Court lady sufficient to arouse his guardian's reproach. It is quite possible that the Lady Bridget had cast eyes on him and found no response.
Now, on June igth, I5942, Roger Manners, her uncle, wrote to her mother that he was "very glad of the conclusion you have made with the executors of Mr Tyrwhitt, for the wardship and marriage of the young gentleman." Since she would like to see her daughter, he advises her to get the Lord Treasurer to ask the Queen's leave to have her home for a visit. Mary Harding, attendant on the Lady Bridget, wrote from Greenwich to the Countess on July 5th, proposing a match for her young lady with the Lord Wharton, a
1 From the originals at Belvoir. See also Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. xn. i. 304.
2 Ibid. 320.
s. s. 5
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widower with children. " If your Ladyship ask Mr Manners his advice, he will speake stryghte of my Lord of Bedford, or my Lord Southampton. If they were in her choice, she saith, she would choose my Lord Wharton before them, for they be so younge, and fantasticall, and would be so caryed awaye, that yf anything should come to your Ladiship but good, being her only stay, she doubteth their carridge of themselves, seynge some expearynce of the lyke in this place.... If your ladyship did know how weary my lady wer of the courte, and what little gain there is gotten in this time, her Majesties favourable countenance excepted, which my lady hath, your honour would willinglie be contented with a smaller fortune to help her from here... .Ask Mr Manners. I think the nearest way were to fayne the messelles so she might have leve for a month to ayre her. And when she wer once with your honor, you might send to get the Queen's favour."1 The Countess thereupon wrote to her cousin Mary Ratcliffe on July i8th and entreated her to beg the Queen to let her daughter come home after five years' absence. She longed much to see the girl, especially as she was in great danger through sickness and weakness. Now, either through her own imaginary measles, or her mother's supposed illness, Lady Bridget got home — but that was not the end of her trickery. She knew that neither Lord Bedford nor Lord Southampton was within her choice. She had no fancy for the middle-aged widower Lord Wharton, and, with Mary Harding's help, no doubt, she found a young husband for herself without asking the leave of Queen or mother. In those days such a step was no trifle. She must have known it could not be passed by. The next known of her is a distressed letter from Thomas Scri ven, the family bailiff, who lived in the Holy well House by the theatre. He had delivered the Countess's letter2 to both the Lord Chamberlain and the Vice-Chamberlain, "lest either should side with her Majesty's conceipt of contempt." They both promised to try to clear the Countess of blame for this late marriage; but the Queen could not believe her ignorant of it — she was too wise and her daughter too obedient. "The marriage of your own daughter, in your own house, and by your own chapeleyn, Lady Bridget could not have ventured so great a breach of duty. Time and submission must satisfy and good friends may prevail in staying further pro- 1 Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. xn. i. 321. 8 Ibid. 329.
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eeedings." Mr Tyrwhitt must be sent up at once, and was like to be imprisoned; the Lady Bridget also, though the Queen granted her the grace of being committed to the custody of one lady. The Queen was highly offended. "It could never have been done she says without your Ladyship, and she says you were bold to do it, as if neither you nor your son should ever need her Majestic." Lord Hunsden wrote in the same strain and blamed her severely for not sending Lady Bridget up at once to Lady Bedford's custody."1 On October i6th, 1594, Thomas Scriven wrote again that the Countess of Bedford came to London last night with Lady Bridget; " . . .Mr Tyrwhitt amendeth well and greatly desireth liberty." But it was November 27th before Lord Hunsden sent to Belvoir to say that the Queen had set them both at liberty, and blamed the Countess more than either of them; though the Lady Bridget took the blame on herself, the Queen insists it was only to shield her mother. Now she was to be sent for at once — ' Lady Bedford had been burdened with her long enough. Her husband could come down with her.' From the house-books of the Countess we can see that the young lady was far from economical. Her mother allowed her at Court as much money as she allowed her son Roger at Cam- bridge; yet Bridget left debts in London to the amount of £125.
The girl sank into obscurity after that. We hear of some Court gossip about Lady Bridget's child. She lived ten years and was buried in Bigby Church2: "July loth 1604 the wife of Robert Tyrwhitt, and daughter of John Earl of Rutland, leaving 4 children William, Robert, Rutland and Bridget."
On September 3rd, 1 594, there was entered on the Stationers' Registers a book entitled Willobie his Aviso and the true picture of a modest maid, and of a chast and constant wife. (In Hexameter verse. The like argument whereof was never before published.) The Preface is written by Hadrian Darell.
The interest to Shakespeareans lies in one of the laudatory poems to the author "in praise of Willobie his Avisa." ' Hexameton ' gives the first clear reference to Shakespeare by name as the author of his second poem, that spring: "And Shake-speare paints poore Lucrece rape."
Another interest has been dragged into it, through the resem- i Hist. MS5. Comm. Rep. xn. i, 3Z3. * Ibid.il. 317.
5—2
68 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
blance of two pairs of initials, which were either accidentally or intentionally used to represent two of theactors in the story. " H. W.," ostensibly Henry Willobie himself, has been supposed to represent Henry Wriothesley, and "W.S.,"" the old player," has been supposed to mean William Shakespeare, who from experience could give the younger man advice how to prosecute his unlawful love. Such a translation of the friendship which had resulted in the writing of the Sonnets, and of the two poems descriptive of two aspects of chastity in man and woman, could only have been made by the enemies of both. A good deal of heated controversy went on over the intention of the book, and eventually it was called in. The whole publication seemed purposely wrapped in a mantle of mystification and descriptive self-contradiction.
Mr Charles Hughes, completing Dr Grosart's work on the poem, tried to treat it as descriptive of real facts, places, and people. He searched the county histories and Oxford registers to advantage and found that a real Henry Willoughby was born in West Knoyle, in the hundred of Mere, "at wester side of Albion's isle" and had matriculated at St John's in 1591, and that in local registers Avice or Avisa was a common name of girls. He brings South- ampton on the scene as a visitor to his brother-in-law Thomas Arundel, son of Sir Matthew Arundel of Wardour, not very far off, and believes that Sir Thomas was living then at Abbey Court, Shaftesbury. Sir Thomas's mother was an Elizabeth Willoughby of Wollaton, but might have been connected with the West Knoyle Willoughbys. Mr Hughes can only bring Shakespeare on as a companion to the Earl of Southampton. He also identifies the Horseys of Melcombe Regis as the persons honoured in Penelope's Complaint^ which was published along with a second issue of Willobie's Avisa in 1 596 These facts are interesting, but have still to be sifted, collated, and corrected. H. W. might really have meant Henry Willoughby, and W.S. might have represented William Stanley before he became the Earl of Derby, or any other man in the country.
I had surmised that after his mother's marriage Southampton had devoted himself more to Italian studies, intending to travel on the continent, but now I have discovered proof of it, in a strange way. In 1598, in John Florio's preface to his World ofWordes he says
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that he had been some years in the "pay and patronage of the Earl of Southampton." The years were at first not easy to reckon, but Florio is found residing at Titchfield with the Earl in the late autumn of 1594 (see page 83). Southampton came of age on the 6th of October of that year; but there is no trace of any rejoicings at the occasion. Sir Thomas Arundel and his wife (Southampton's sister Mary) were at Titchfield — not only they, but their cook, as if they expected to help at some festivities. But alas!, if there had been any plans for mirth and jollity, they were swept away by the horrors and anxieties connected with a murder committed in Wiltshire by Sir Charles and Sir Henry Danvers, special friends of the young Earl, on Friday the 4th of October. The hue and cry out against them reached Titchfield by Saturday; the men them- selves had fled thither, and were put up between 8 and 9 o'clock in the morning in Whitley Lodge, where Thomas Dymock, South- ampton's bailiff, resided. Southampton's cook dressed their food, and he himself came to the Lodge on Monday night, supped with them, spent the night, and departed with them two hours before day next morning. After considerable difficulty he managed to get them shipped over to France, and made them his grateful and adoring friends for life.
The two Danvers were the two elder sons of Sir John Danvers of Dauntsey, Wiltshire, by Elizabeth, fourth daughter and co-heiress of John Neville, last Baron La timer; Sir Charles was probably born in 1571, Sir Henry on 28th June, 1573, so that he was less than four months older than Southampton. He had been the page of Sir Philip Sidney, and went with him to the Low Countries. After Sidney's death he served the Earl of Essex and was knighted by him; so there was a double bond of union between the two young men. Henry was very highly praised and admired by his con- temporaries. Aubrey says in his Wiltshire that " Henry Danvers had a magnificent and munificall spirit. He made the noble physic garden at Oxford, and endowed it."
These two fine young men, having thus burdened their lives and clouded Southampton's, were well received in France. When he was assured that his friends were safe, Southampton was prudent enough to do the best he could for himself, rode up to London, and, almost certainly, went to stay with his step-father, Sir Thomas
70 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
Heneage, at the Savoy. The Vice-Chamberlain had great influence both with the Queen and the Privy Council, and to him the youth would pour out the whole truth and ask advice. It is certain that Heneage helped him, for no unpleasant consequences to him followed, at least in public. Yet I seem to hear the echo of a rumour about his doings in Shakespeare's Sonnets.
A letter preserved at Loseley makes it probable that Southampton was spending his Christmas holidays with his mother and Sir Thomas Heneage.
He had by that time taken over the responsibilities of his position, and had something to ask Sir William More1, his father's old friend. Sir, understanding that one Christopher Buckle, a late servant of yours, receyved by my cosen Haull to be the Underkeeper of Dogmarsfield Parke. whereof I have commytted the charge to hym, is an humble suitor for your good favour to be continued unto hym, as to a person that would be most sorye for your discountenance, or yll opynyon of hym, I shall pray you for my request's sake to vouchsafe such allowance of his humble desyre in this behalfe as may give me cause to yeelde yow thanks for hym. Wherewith, wishing you very hartely well, I leave you to the good keeping of our Lord Jesus. At the Savoy, the 2ist December 1594
Your assured frende
H. SOUTHAMPTON.
A few days later, events occurred at Gray's Inn which have never been fully explained. The students, who had not had their usual revels for two or three years because of the plague and other causes, had resolved to make up for it this year. For this they elected a Mr Henry Helmes2 to be their Lord of Misrule, entitling him "Henry, Prince of Purpoole, Archduke of Stapulia and Bernardia, Duke of High and Nether Holborn, Marquis of St Giles and Tottenham, Count Palatine of Bloomsbury and Clerkenwell etc." They were going to frame round him all the paraphernalia of a court, had selected Innocent's night, December 28th, as the day of their first special revels, and had invited the Templars to join them, so that they might heal the breach that had unfortunately risen between them. They had erected in the Hall a great stage, which
1 Loseley Papers, vol. vin.
8 Gesta Grayorum, or the History «/ the High and Mighty Prince of Purpoole who reigned and died 1594. Printed by Canning, reprinted in Nichols' Royal Progresses of Elizabeth (vol. in. 262), lately reprinted from the original MS., and edited by W. W. Greg for the Malone Society.
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we still can measure, whereon to represent their device. But the goodly company of great folks whom they had invited were not amenable to the mock Prince's discipline; they all seemed to have aspired to the seats of honour on the stage, and "the very good inventions and conceptions" could not be performed for the uproar and disorder. The Templars rose up and went away dissatisfied; as the masque had been intended for their benefit, it was not then played, and those who remained had "to content themselves with ordinary dancing and revelling, and when that was over, with a comedy of errors like to Plautus his Menaechmi, which was playd by the players." This play was considered the crowning disgrace of the evening, which was ever afterwards called "the night of errors."
Next day they held a mock court, examined witnesses, arraigned a "conjurer" on the charges of having caused the confusion by magic and "of having foisted a company of base and common fellows to make up our disorders with a play of Errors and confusions." The officers of the Christmas court were sent to the Christmas Tower for neglect of their duty of careful watching. But it may be noticed that nobody asked " How were the ' base and common fellows' introduced?" nor the even more pertinent question, "Who paid the players?" I think that the Earl of Southampton most likely had something to do with that.
The Prince and the Privy Council held a great consultation how to regain the lost honour of Gray's Inn "by some graver conceipt." During their efforts to arrange something to do this, the year of Southampton's majority closed.
[Now, in regard to the Gray's Inn Revels of 1594, I should like to bring forward a hypothesis which would account for much of the mystery regarding the Play of Errors. I think it is quite possible that Southampton was associated with it much more closely than has been supposed. At Gray's Inn he still might be reckoned as among the students; he could not have risen higher than an inner barrister, and there is no record that he had risen so far. It is possible that, knowing how popular he had been in his own circle, he might have expected to have been chosen the Prince of Purpoole himself, all the more that it would be a natural compli- ment to him on his coming of age. When he found another selected,
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trifles might have the effect of rubbing him the wrong way. He might think that it was because he had sheltered his friends the Danvers that he was left out of the ring. Some of Henry Helmes' titles were taken from his property: "The Duke of High and Nether Holborn," "Count Palatine of Bloomsbury and Clerkenwell." The powers given to the Prince might have annoyed him, the device intended to have been played might have offended him, but he would have done nothing but for the accidental over-crowding of people, and the uproar and confusion among the crowds. Then he would see an innocent way, even yet, of becoming a " Lord of Misrule." He would almost certainly have been at Court at Greenwich for the forenoon per- formance, and as certainly would return to town for the Gray's Inn evening festivities. Possibly he went up to town about the same time as the players and offered them a rere-supper at one of the Holborn Inns, promising to come round and join them as soon as he could. When the Templars departed and he knew the device was spoiled, he might send for them, get them somehow admitted (they could not have got in by their own wits), and tell them to play the comedy they had just shewn the Queen. Somehow they did find an entrance, and a cleared stage, and the noise ceased as a performance began. Thereafter the players would slip away, secure in the knowledge of a coming reward from Southampton. Supposing all that, what follows? Next day the Gray's Inn revellers, after legal forms, held an enquiry as to the causes of the tumult. They charged a "Sorcerer or Conj urer" with having done the mischief, who appealed for j ustice, and blamed every one else. So the Court punished their officials for lack of due discipline and sent them to the Christmas Tower. They never found the real offender, because they did not want to find him \ They knew so far — that somebody well known must have guided the players," the base and common fellows," into their sanctum, and that somebody must have paid them. Was it Southampton? If any one ever brings forward a simpler explanation, I am willing to give this up. I am quite aware that some have made a difficulty about the date of the play at Greenwich. Even Mr Greg and Mr E. K. Chambers have done so.
It would perhaps help to clear away some dust from a literary question to pause for a moment here. Mr Greg published his new and careful edition of the Gesta Grayorum for the Malone Society's
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reprints. The date printed on the volume is April 1914; the date in the Museum copy is stamped May 1915; the date of actual delivery to subscribers was the I3th March 1916 — (this is on the late Mr Wheatley's authority). A reviewer of my book Shakespeare's Industry^ published on the 8th of March and sent to the Press on the i oth, suggested that I should have referred to this edition in the reprint of my article on the subject which had appeared in the Shakespeare Jahrbuch^ 1895!
In the preface to this edition of the Gestay Mr Greg, as general editor, states, "There are certain difficulties which have not always been recognized. The performance at Gray's Inn took place in the evening of December 28, and if the play was Shakespeare's play, we must suppose that the company was Shakespeare's company and the Lord Chamberlain's men. But the accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber show payments to this company for performances before the Court both on the 26th December and 28th December. The Court was at Greenwich, and the performances were in the evening. These accounts, however, also shew a payment to the Lord Admiral's men in respect of 28th December. It is true that instances of two Court performances on one night do occur elsewhere, but in view of the double difficulty involved, it is perhaps best to assume that in the Treasurer's accounts 28th December is an error for 2;th December." Mr Greg refers to Mr E. K. Chambers' article in the Modern Language Review^ Oct. 1906, n. 10. Now Mr Chambers says that "both in the 'Pipe Roll' and in the Treasurer of the Chamber's original account (Harl. MS. 1642, f. 19 b) records of the payments for the 26th and 28th December are given — It is not unlikely that the second play of the Chamberlain's men before Elizabeth was really on St John's day, Dec. 27th."
Why so? Why assume an error until other alternatives are ex- hausted? Now it is notable among these records that the usual form of an entry runs, "on New Year's day at night," "on Inno- cent's day at night"; but this particular entry runs "on Innocent's Day" So there was surely sufficient time for the Chamberlain's men to perform twice on that occasion, at Greenwich by day, at Gray's Inn at night. I treated this fully in my Jahrbuch article on "The earliest Official Record of Shakespeare's name," reprinted in Shakespeare's Industry, p. 218, and also in my Atheneeum article
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of April 30th, 1904; but neither Mr Chambers nor Mr Greg seems to have read them, or checked the originals quoted. In the " Declared accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber, Pipe Office" (not the Pipe Roll as Mr Chambers says) and also in the same "Declared accounts" in the Audit Office, to which he does not seem to have referred, the statement is quite clear — " Innocent's Day." It is not like Mr Chambers to mix his references; but he says the payments discussed are given also in Harleian MS. 1642 f. 19 b. There is no such record at that reference, because the Harleian MS. in question concerns itself with the year previous to that in which these plays were performed at Greenwich.
This story cannot be dismissed without a few words on the first form of the Bacon -Shakespeare Question. It is quite probable that Bacon designed, or had something to do with designing, the device intended to have been performed at Gray's Inn on 28th December, 1594— only, it was not played. It was Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors^ played by base and common fellows (himself certainly being one), which was reckoned as the crowning disgrace of the evening. But during the following few days, when the disap- pointed performers laid their heads together to recover the lost glory of Gray's Inn, there is no doubt that Bacon helped them. Mr Spedding, his biographer, says that the speeches of the Six Councillors "carry his signature in every line." With that dictum careful readers agree. The history says that the performances of the 3rd January, 1 594, quite restored the lost honour of the Night of Errors and made the Graians and the Templars friends — that is, that his legal contemporaries preferred Bacon's Six Councillors. But dramatic posterity prefers Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors.
The story of the Sonnets fits in wonderfully with the story of Southampton's life just then. Anyone may search and see some slight associated idea. For instance, it must have been about July, 1 594, when the company went on its travels, that the talks of the friends led them to discuss what would be done after the coming of age, and marked a poetic fervour in Sonnet civ:
To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed Such seems your beauty still. Three winters' cold Have from the forests shook three summers' pride;
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Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned In process of the seasons have I seen; Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd Since first I saw you fresh which yet are green.
In regard to Shakespeare's private relations to the Earl, little is definitely known. Though I do not wish to put it forward as founded on authority^ 1 may say that there are a good many reasons to suggest the opinion that, considering the circumstances, Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream for the wedding festivities of Sir Thomas Heneage and the Countess of Southampton. The stately central figures of Theseus and Hippolyta harmonised with the representation of the Bridegroom and the Bride; the inter^ weaving of fairies sprang from dreams of perpetual youth; the lovers' fancies controlled by the fairies' will, was a tribute of associated ideas for his beautiful young friend; Bottom and his group was a gentle satire on his own company as they had appeared to his youthful eyes at Kenilworth in 1575. For it seems certain that Shakespeare had been taken there by his father as a boy of eleven, and had remembered the spell of the masque and music of The Lady of the Lake by Master William Hunnis, which so inspired Master Robert Laneham — "the hole armonny conveyed in tyme, tune, and temper, thus incom- parably melodious; with what pleazure, with what sharpnes of conceyt, with what lyvely delighte, this moughte pears into the heerer's harts, I pray ye imagine yourself as ye may..., for by all the wit and cunning I have, I cannot express, I promis you." It is not at all certain that the Earl and Countess of Southampton had been there; but it is quite certain that Sir Thomas Heneage had been, and who so well as that faithful old courtier could have appreciated the memorable lines to Elizabeth1?
Now, if that play was performed at his mother's wedding, it would give Southampton a chance of being stage manager, whether
1 M.N.D. n. i. ! saw_
Cupid all arm'd : a certain aim he took At a fair vestal, throned by the west; And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow, As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts ; But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon ; And the imperial votaress passed on In maiden meditation fancy free.
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the performance was at Southampton House, at Horsham, at the Savoy, in the rural surroundings of Copthall, or even at Titchfield; and he would have enjoyed that.
We do know that it was after the Heneage marriage that we have the first official record of Shakespeare's name as playing at Court, in the accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber, Dec. 28th, I5941-]
Mr Bertram Dobell on Sept. 1 4th, 1901, wrote to The Athenaum* stating that he had purchased a manuscript book entitled A Register of all the Noble Men of England stthence the Conquest Created — probably written between 1570—90. On the fly-leaves at the end are some poems by Sir Thomas Heneage, to one of which Sir Walter Raleigh wrote a reply. As he had not found any of the former printed, Mr Dobell includes them, as follows:
SR. THOMAS HENEAGE
Most welcome love, thou mortall foe to lies, thou roote of life and miner of debate, an impe of heaven that troth to vertue ties, a stone of choise that bastard lustes doth hate a waye to fasten fancy most to reason in all effects, and enemy most to treason.
A flowre of faith that will not vade for smart, mother of trust and murderer of oure woes in sorrowes seas, a cordiall to the hart that medcyne gives to every grief that growes ; a schoole of witt, a nest of sweet conceit, a percynge eye that findes a gilt disceit.
A fortress sure which reason must defend, a hopefull tayle, a most delyghtinge band, affection mazed that leades to happy ende to ranginge thoughtes a gentle ranginge hande, a substaunce sure as will not be undone, a price of joye for which the wisest ronne.
SR. THOMAS
The markes of thoughtes and messengers of will (my friend) be wordes, but they not all to trust,
1 See my paper "The earliest Official Record of Shakespeare's name," Jahrbuch, 1895.
1 Athenceum, September I4th, 1901, p. 349.
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for wordes be good full oft when thoughtes be ill, at fair is falce though sometymes sweet and juste, then friends to judge aright and scape the scof trust none till tyme shall putt their vysardes of.
MR RAWLEIGH
Farewell falce love, thou oracle of lies,
a mortall foe and enemy to rest, an envious boye from whome all cares arise
a bastard vile, a beast with rage possest, a way of error, a temple full of treason, in all effectes contrary unto reason.
A poysened serpent, covered all with flowers, mother of sighes and murderer of repose,
a sea of sorrowe from whence are drawen such showers as moysture lendes to every griefe that growes,
a schoole of gyle, a nest of deep deceit,
a gylded hook that holdes a poysened bait.
A fortress foiled whome reason did defend,
a Cyren's songe, a feaver of the mynde, a maze wherin affection findes no ende,
a raginge clowde that ronnes before the winde, a substaunce lyke the shadow of the sunne, a goale of griefe for which the wysest ronne.
SR. THOMAS
Madame who once in paper puts his thoughte doth send to daunger that was safe at home, and meaning well doth make his judgment noughte to thrall his wordes he wotes not well to whome; yet pullinge back his penne he must confesse to show his witt he proves his love the lesse.
SR. THO.
Idle or els but seldom busied best
in court (my Lord) we leade the vaynest life,
where hopes with feares, where joyes with sorrowes rest,
but faith is rare, tho fayrest wordes be rife.
Heare learne we vice, and looke one vertuous bookes, heare fine deceit we hould be courtly skill; our care is heare to waite one wordes and lookes, and greatest work to follow others will.
78
Heare scorne a grace, and pride is pleasant thought, mallice but might and fowlest shifte no shame, lust but delyght, and plainest dealing nought, whear flattery lykes, and trothe beares oftest blame
Yet is the cawse not in the place, I finde, but all the fault is in the faulty minde.
SR. THOMAS
Seldome and short be all our happiest houres we hear can hold, for why? oure hopes and joies roulinge and fake their broding tyme devoures, which when we trust, alas we finde but toyes.
Hard to obtain, but yet more haistly gon, be greatest happ, with grudginge envie matcht, of fairest seedes the fruit is nought or none with good and evill our lyfe so much is patcht.
Owr twisted blis by tyme is soon untwynde,
to hope and love and fear doth gyve a lashe,
so change gives checke to each unstable mynde
to all delyght, and daunger gyves the dashe, Thus dasht who yet fast troth to vertues lynckes mak faith to shine, however fortune shrinckes.
Farewell fake Love first appeared in print in William Byrd's Psalms Sonnets and Songs^ 1588, says Mr Dobell, referring to Mr Bullen's Lyricks from the Song-books of the Elizabethan age.
CHAPTER VII CAUSES OF GOSSIP
No doubt one of the reasons which made the Gray's Inn men so ashamed of The Comedy of Errors was that it was an exceedingly free, if not a bad, translation of the Latin of Plautus. No wonder that they took Bacon into consultation as to how they might have something dignified and fitting. The Prince of Purpoole and his Christmas court planned another great evening on the 3rd of January. They invited the Templars, with due apologies, to come and see their actually intended plan. They reared an altar to the goddess of Amity, surrounded with nymphs and fairies who filled the air with sweet music. Then, apparently, the originally planned masque, revised, corrected and expanded, was performed in stately dignity for the benefit of the Templars. It represented a series of historical friends, Theseus and Pirithous, Achilles and Patroclus, Pylades and Orestes, Scipio and Lelius. To these they added Graius and Temp/arius. Then six Lords of the Prince's Privy Council discoursed, the ist on Ware, 2nd on Philosophy, 3rd on Eternize- ment and fame by Buildings and Tombstones, 4th on the Ab- soluteness of State and Treasure, 5th on Vertue and Good Govern- ment, 6th on Pastime and Sports. This last Councillor advised all present to enjoy their opportunities. The Prince made a suitable reply, chose a lady to dance with, and so did all the others. "The performance of which night being carefully and orderly handled did so delight and please... that thereby Gray's Inn did not only recover their lost credit and quite take away all the disgrace that the former 'Night of Errors' had incurred, but got instead honour and good report," and Gray's Inn and the Temple were made friends.
Among the honourable personages invited on the great occasion were the Earls of Essex and Southampton, Sir Thomas Heneage, Sir Robert Cecil, and many knights and ladies, who all had "convenient places and very good entertainment to their good liking and contentment."
8o THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
Sir Henry Helmes went on an imaginary visit to Muscovy, and a real visit to the Queen at Greenwich, where she honoured him and his company; and their revels only closed at Shrovetide.
The mysterious rumours which had been floating about through November and December1 about the cause of the flight of the two Danvers and the association of the Earl of Southampton with it were intensified in January, 1594-5, when some of those concerned in it were examined before Sir Thomas West and other Justices of Hampshire.
Later notes to frame an indictment before the Wiltshire assizes in the Lent term were collected in a remarkable document, of which two copies are preserved in the Lansdowne MSS.2, entitled "A lamentable discourse taken out of sundry examinacions concerning the wilful escape of Sir Charles and Sir Henrie Danvers, Knights, and their followers, after the murder committed in Wiltshire upon Henrie Long, gent." These notes are considerably fuller than the first set, and seem fairly trustworthy as to the escape, the only unsupported evidence being that of the manner of the death of the victim. The writer, probably the attorney of Sir Walter Long, says, "The said wilful murder executed upon Henrie Longe, gent, sitting at his dinner in the company of Sir Walter Longe his brother, Anthony Mildmay, Thomas Snell, Henrie Smith Esquires, Justices of her Majesties Peace for Wilts, and divers other gents att one Chamberlain's house in Cosham by Sir Charles and Sir Henry Davers and their followers to the number of 17 or 1 8 persons in most riotous manner appointed for that foul facte on Fridaie the 4th of October 1594." Another account says that Henry Long had challenged Charles Danvers, that he was pressing an unfair advan- tage and had his arm raised to kill, when Henry Danvers thrust himself between to ward off the blow, was wounded in the act, and striking upwards with his dagger killed Henry Long accidentally.
It is evident that they had confided in Southampton, before they went out, "to settle up with the Longs"; and that they had laid some plans, in case of the worst happening.
On the other hand3 Lady Danvers brought a case against Sir Walter Long, and there is to be considered a letter of John
1 Salisb. Papers, v. 84-90. 2 Lansdowne MSS. 827. 5 and 830. 13. 3. 3 D.S.S.P. Eliz. CCLI. 123-124.
vnj CAUSES OF GOSSIP 81
Galley to Cecil1, later. He was servant to Lady Danvers and devoted to her and his young masters, and wrote, entreating pardon for them: "My Lords of the Circuit and a grand jury of gentlemen had an upright regard for justice — We of our side at the assizes preferring one bill for the killing of our man better than a year past, the same was found accordingly as also some of Mr Danvers neigh- bours preferring one other bill against Broome, a very base and lewd fellow, and a chief countenanced and abetted witness by Sir Walter Long for indictment of Mr Danvers at Lent assizes, is now at this
assizes indicted of felony for robbing of a church Touching my
poor selfe, whom Sir Walter Longe doth malice in the highest degree.... In his continual malicious proceedings he could never reprove me for a disobedient subject towards her Majesty and her laws — I could find matter for his utter disgrace." Meanwhile he implored Cecil to help his young masters home, July 23rd, 1 595.
This account is supported by a later letter of Lady Danvers to Sir Robert Cecil, saying that she hears her Majesty is inclined to mercy, but still delays granting it. She suggests that this may be so as not to grieve the relatives, and asks if a reasonable composition might help. She would be willing to consider that, "beseeching you that in the matter you will not begin at the death of Mr Long, but at the murder of one of Mr Danvers' men, the cunning con- triving of the saving of his life that did it, derisions and foul abuses offered to my husband's chief officers, and open scorns of him and his in saying that they had knighted him with a glass of beer; last of all, letters addressed to my son Charles, of such form as the heart of a man indeed had rather die than endure, how the beginning of all this quarrel was prosecuting of justice against thieves, harboured and maintained by the Longs, all the country knows. And if a life notwithstanding must be answered with a life, what may be trulier said than that my son slew Long with a dagger, and they have been the cause of slaying my husband with dolour and grief; and if Sir John Danvers were a worthier man, and his life of more worth than Harry Long's, so much odds the Longs have had already of our good name and house."
The story of the "escape," however, can be gathered from the examinations, in reading which one is held in breathless suspense at
1 Scdisb. Papers, v. 288. s.s. 6
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times, unless the result is known. The facts are interesting, the details are sometimes amusing. There is an almost universal desire evident among all they meet to help the Danvers to escape.
The fugitives arrived about 8 or 9 in the morning of Saturday the 5th at Whitley Lodge near Titchfield, where Thomas Dymock lived, and there they remained till Tuesday morning, and "John, the Earl of Southamptons servant dressed their meat." The hue and cry followed them through the day. John gave Dymock's servant girl two shirts to wash, and one of them was bloody. The Danvers' servant, Gilbert Scott, stayed at Titchfield secretly for 10 days and was sent post haste to London and to the various ports, to secure a passage for France. On Sunday the 6th, the Earl remained at home for his 2ist birthday. On Monday October yth Mr Dymock and Mr Robinson had a controversy as to who should have Sir Henry Danvers' bloody velvet saddle. On the same Monday the Earl went with seven or eight followers to Whitley Lodge, supped with his friends, and tarried all night. On Tuesday morning, two hours before dawn, the Earl departed with the Knights and company to Burselldon Ferry, where Henry Meedes awaited them by command of Dymock. The Earl required Meedes to take the party either to Calshot Castle or Bewly, a-hunting. They went towards Calshot Castle, but did not land until Wednesday the Qth. Now the Captain, Master Perkinson, was a great friend of the Danvers, and he was absent from the Castle at the time, whether by accident or intention is not clear. The Deputy also was absent for a shorter time. In their absence the master gunner admitted the party, but, having some doubts, took their arms from them and put them in the Deputy's room to wait. There were five in the first boat, the Knights and Thomas Dymock included, and thirteen in the second boat. Mean- while "Mr Francis Robinson, the gentleman of the Earl's stables, told Dredge the stable-boy to go into the kitchen to Austin, the cook of Sir Thomas Arundel (who with his lady was then at Titchfield), and get a basket of cooked meats, and carry it to Mr Dymock"; and the party in the Deputy's room supped there, the Deputy arriving in time to join them. They stayed at the Castle till Friday the nth, many messages coming and going. Then Captain Perkinson sent private information to the Earl that he had received official letters from Sir Thomas West to apprehend them. Southampton sent his
vn] CAUSES OF GOSSIP 83
servant Payne to warn his friends; the master gunner gave them back their arms, though all knew by this time that they were the men wanted; and they hurried out pell-mell, overcrowding the boat in their haste. It is not quite clear where they went; but on Friday night seven strange men supped in Whitley Lodge kitchen and rode away. Then more arrived, who only had boiled milk for food, but spent the night there and went away on foot in the morning with Dymock. On Saturday, Master Captain Perkinson sent to his Deputy to apprehend the fugitives, but the latter told the messenger they had already gone, and he feared he would lose his office; but the Captain said he was very glad they were gone, whatever it cost him.
Master Lawrence Grose, Sheriff of Southampton, being at Hamble, the Constable there told him about the murder and asked him to inform the Mayor of Southampton of what was going on, which he did. "The said Grose, passing over Itchen's Ferry with his wife that Saturday the 1 2th, one Florio an Italian, and one Humphrey Drewell a servant of the Earl of Southampton, being in the said passage boat threatened to cast Grose overboard, and said they would teach him to meddle with their fellows, with many other threatening words."
So "resolute John Florio," being even then "in the pay and patronage" of the Earl, backed his friends in their efforts to escape.
We do not know where they were meanwhile; but on Monday night, the 1 4th, Mr Robinson ordered Dredge to saddle seven horses and go to bed, and the horses went away at midnight; one of the Earl's servants brought back four of them on Thursday at daybreak to Titch field, telling Dredge to feed them and treat them well, for the Earl was going to London with them that day. The author of "the lamentable discourse" concludes with the words, "names of the principal menservants of the Earl of Southampton, not yet examined, but it is very necessary they should." Thirteen are noted, of which the first are "Hennings, his Steward; Payne, keeper of his wardrobe; Robinson, gentleman of his horses; the Barber, Humphrey Drewell, who threatened Mr Grose the Sheriff; Signior Florio, an Italian, that did the like; Richard Nash, the Earl's Bayly at Tichfield."
The Danvers brothers, apparently secreted in Titch field House itself, by the Earl's help managed to escape from some port to France,
6—2
84 THE THIRD EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON [CH.
where they were well received. The Earl of Essex was ready to believe in his old soldier and receive him to his service again.
On the ist of January, 1 594-5 *, Sir Henry Danvers wrote to the Earl of Essex from Paris thanking him for his "royal proceeding in my favour — I am informed you intend a journey this spring where or whether I little regard to know (so it be without the confines of a constable)." He added that if he were allowed to follow him, he would await his directions; if not, he would attend the King to Lyons. "The end of my life is the limit of your commandment and without exception are the bounds against whom you will employ me — I wish to give a blow wherein you may equalise your fortune to your worth." 2 The King of France became personally interested in the brothers, and wrote to Essex on September 25th, 1595, that he would be very ungrateful did he not employ himself on behalf of Danvers and his brother, who had proved their affection in his service, in trying to obtain her Majesty's pardon for them. He wrote in a similar strain several times.
The brothers did not escape a certain amount of suffering for their sins3. Their estates were forfeited and taken into the Queen's hands, and they wrote pitifully to their friends of their lack of money4.
Yet Fynes Moryson, after having been robbed of all his gold by soldiers in France, reached Paris, with but little to go further5. There he met Sir Charles and Sir Henry Danvers "who for an ill accident lived there as banished men,... yet did they not cast off all care to provide for me but with great importunitie perswaded a Starveling merchant to furnish me with ten French crowns," which brought him home to England by May 1 3th, 1 595.
From London (in June?) Southampton wrote to Sir John Stanhope about an advowson6 — (it is strange how often the Queen's rights interfered with his gifts): "I hear that the Queen's answer to my suit