A Finding List: Part 3.

Elizabethan Facts and Historical References

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Naked before marriage In Thomas More’s Utopia there’s a law where young people should see themselves naked before marriage; a law that is also stated in Bacon’s New Atlantis: “The married couple are permitted, before they contract, to see one another naked. They have near every town a couple of pools (which they call Adam and Eve’s pools), where it is permitted to one of the friends of the man, and another of the friends of the woman, to see them severally bathe naked.” Thomas More is described as a zestful man with “extraordinary facetious.” In Aubrey’s Brief Lives, an account is given of how More had two riders imagining a dragon had appeared in the sky. 1

Name variations There can hardly be a reasonable doubt, that there was then no settled orthography of surnames and that a signature of Elizabethan days is not conclusive evidence of the mode in which a person’s name should be spelt. Lord Robert Dudley’s signature was generally Duddeley, his wife’s, Duddley, and a relative’s, Dudley. Allen, the actor, signed his name at various times, Alleyn, Aleyn, Allin, and Allen, while his wife’s signature appears as Alleyne. Henslowe’s autographs are in the forms of Hensley, Henslow, and Henslowe. Samuel Rowley signed himself, Rouley, Rowley, and Rowleye. Burbage sometimes wrote Burbadg while his brother signed himself Burbadge. One of the poet’s sons-in-law wrote himself Quyney, Quyneye, and Conoy, while his brother, the curate, signed, Quiney. His other son-in-law, Dr. Hall, signed himself Hawle, Halle, Haule and Hall. Alderman Sturley, of Stratford-on-Avon, signed his name sometimes in that form and sometimes, Strelley. Similar variations occur in Christian names of the time, that of the poet’s friend, Julius Shaw, positively appearing as Julyus, Julius, Julie, Julyne, Jule, Julines, Julynes, July, Julye, Julyius and Julyles. “Our English proper names,” observed Coote, Master of the Free-school at Bury St. Edmunds, 2 “are written as it pleaseth the painter, or as men have received them by tradition;” and after giving some examples, he exclaims, “yea, I have known two natural brethren, both learned, to write their owne names differently.” Bancroft, in his Epigrammes, 1639 was called Shake-speare by his literary friends. The martial character of the name was admitted from an early period, Verstegan classing it with “surnames imposed upon the first bearers of them for valour and feates of armes.” Camden derives it from the mere use of the weapon; and Bogan, in his additions to the Archeologicae Attica of Francis Rous, says that Shakespeare is equivalent to soldier. A parallel instance occurring in the broken lance in the arms of Nicholas Break-speare, as described by Upton, in his treatise De Studio Militari, fol. London 1654.

Nature of poetry
The parts of human learning have reference to the three parts of man’s understanding, which is the seat of learning: History to his memory, Poesy to his imagination, and Philosophy to his reason. Divine learning receiveth the same distribution, for the spirit of man is the same, though the revelation of oracle and sense be diverse; so as Theology consisteth also of History of the Church, of Parables, which is Divine Poesy, and of holy Doctrine or Precept. For as for that part which seemeth supernumerary, which is Prophecy, it is but Divine History, which hath that prerogative over human as the narration may be before the fact as well as after. History is natural, civil, ecclesiastical, and literary, whereof the three first I allow as extant, the fourth I note as deficient. For no man hath propounded to himself the general state of learning to be described and represented from age to age, as many have done the works of Nature and the State civil and ecclesiastical, without which the History of the world seemeth to me to be as the statua of Polyphemus with his eye out, that part being wanting which doth most show the spirit and life of the person. And yet I am not ignorant that in divers particular sciences, as of the Jurisconsults, the Mathematicians, the Rhetoricians, the Philosophers, there are set down some small memorials of the schools, authors, and books; and so likewise some barren relations touching the invention of arts or usages.
But a just story of learning, containing the antiquities and originals of knowledges and their sects, their inventions, their traditions, their diverse administrations and managings, their flourishings, their oppositions, decays, depressions, oblivions, removes, with the causes and occasions of them, and all other events concerning learning throughout the ages of the world, I may truly affirm to be wanting. The use and end of which work I do not so much design for curiosity or satisfaction of those that are the lovers of learning, but chiefly for a more serious and grave purpose, which is this in few words, that it will make learned men wise in the use and administration of learning. For it is not Saint Augustine’s nor Saint Ambrose’s works that will make so wise a divine as Ecclesiastical History thoroughly read and observed, and the same reason is of Learning. Poesy is a part of Learning in measure of words for the most part restrained, but in all other points extremely licensed, and doth truly refer to the imagination, which, being not tied to the laws of matter, may at pleasure join that which Nature hath severed, and sever that which Nature hath joined, and so make unlawful matches and divorces of things: Pictoribus atque Poetis. It is taken in two senses in respect of words or matter. In the first sense it is but a character of style, and belongeth to arts of speech, and is not pertinent for the present. In the later it is, as hath been said, one of the principal portions of learning, and is nothing else but feigned history, which may be styled as well in prose as in verse. The use of this feigned history hath been to give some shadow of satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein the nature of things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul; by reason whereof there is agreeable to the spirit of man a more ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety than can be found in the nature of things.
Therefore, because the acts or events of true History have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man. Poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical; because true History propoundeth the successes and issues of actions not so agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice, therefore Poesy feigns them more just in retribution and more according to revealed Providence; because true History representeth actions and events more ordinary and less interchanged, therefore Poesy endueth them with more rareness and more unexpected and alternative variations: so as it appeareth that Poesy serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality, and to delectation. And therefore it was ever thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind, whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto the nature of things. And we see that by these insinuations and congruities with man’s nature and pleasure, joined also with the agreement and consort it hath with music, it hath had access and estimation in rude times and barbarous regions, where other learning stood excluded. The division of Poesy which is aptest in the propriety thereof (besides those divisions which are common unto it with History, as feigned chronicles, feigned lives, and the appendices of History, as feigned epistles, feigned orations, and the rest) is into Poesy Narrative, Representative, and Allusive.
The Narrative is a mere imitation of History with the excesses before remembered, choosing for subject commonly wars and love, rarely state, and sometimes pleasure or mirth. Representative is as a visible History, and is an image of actions as if they were present, as History is of actions in nature as they are, that is past; Allusive, or Parabolical, is a narration applied only to express some special purpose or conceit: which later kind of parabolical wisdom was much more in lose in the ancient times, as by the Fables of Aesop, and the brief sentences of the Seven, and the use of hieroglyphics may appear.
And the cause was for that it was then of necessity to express any point of reason which was more sharp or subtle than the vulgar in that manner, because men in those times wanted both variety of examples and subtlety of conceit: and as hieroglyphics were before letters, so parables were before arguments: and nevertheless now and at all times they do retain much life and vigour, because reason cannot be sensible, nor examples so fit. But there remaineth yet another use of Poesy parabolical opposite to that which we last mentioned; for that tendeth to demonstrate and illustrate that which is taught or delivered, and this other to retire and obscure it: that is, when the secrets and mysteries of Religion, Policy, or Philosophy, are involved in fables or parables. Of this in divine Poesy we see the use is authorized. In heathen Poesy we see the exposition of fables doth fall out sometimes with great felicity, as in the fable that the Giants being overthrown in their war against the Gods, the Earth their mother in revenge thereof brought forth Fame expounded, that when princes and monarchs have suppressed actual and open rebels, then the malignity of people, which is the mother of Rebellion, doth bring forth libels and slanders, and taxations of the states, which is of the same kind, with rebellion, but more feminine: so in the fable that the rest of the gods having conspired to bind Jupiter, Pallas called Briareus with his hundred hands to his aid, expounded, that monarchies need not fear any curbing of their absoluteness by mighty subjects, as long as by wisdom they keep the hearts of the people, who will be sure to come in on their side: so in the fable that Achilles was brought up under Chiron the Centaur, who was part a man and part a beast, expounded ingenuously but corruptly by Machiavell, that it belongeth to the education and discipline of princes to know as well how to play the part of the lion in violence and the fox in guile, as of the man in virtue and justice.
Nevertheless, in many the like encounters, I do rather think that the fable was first and the exposition devised than that the moral was first and thereupon the fable framed. For I find it was an ancient vanity in Chrysippus that troubled himself with great contention to fasten the assertions of the Stoics upon the fictions of the ancient poets: but yet that all the fables and fictions of the poets were but pleasure and not figure, I interpose no opinion. Surely of those poets which are now extant, even Homer himself (notwithstanding he was made a kind of Scripture by the later schools of the Grecians), yet I should without any difficulty pronounce that his fables had no such inwardness in his own meaning: but what they might have, upon a more original tradition, is not easy to affirm, for he was not the inventor of many of them. In this third part of Learning which is Poesy, I can report no deficiency. For being as a plant that cometh of the lust of the earth, without a formal seed, it hath sprung up and spread abroad, more than any other kind: but to ascribe unto it that which is due for the expressing of affections, passions, corruptions, and customs, we are beholden to Poets more than to the Philosophers’ works, and for wit and eloquence not much less than to Orators’ harangues. (Bacon, Adv., Bk. II, 1605).

New year In Bacon’s day and age, the New Year calendar began on March 25 (Lady Day) which was used as the starting point of the year in England from the twelfth century down to 1752, although the 1st of January was accounted New Year’s Day, following the Roman tradition and occurs as a Red Letter Day in the Book of Common Prayer. It was customary that friends exchange gifts and tokens at New Year. This custom was formalised at the Tudor Court when gifts at New Year became part of the cement of the patronage system and an indicator of political fortune. The comparative value of the Crown’s gifts signalled the relative importance at Court of the recipients. If the monarch declined to make a gift to an individual, this signified loss of political favour.

Northumberland crannies Among Cole’s manuscripts 3 is a copy of a letter from the Vice Chancellor of Cambridge, written to Lord Burghley, the Chancellor of that University in 1580, which shows that dramatic representations of a regular kind were rather discouraged than received there by the Heads of Houses. He says: 4

My bounden duty remembered with most humble recommendation, whereas it hath pleased your honour to recommend unto me, and the Heads of the University, my Lord of Oxenford his Players that they might show their cunning in several Plays already practiced by them before the Queen’s Majesty. I did speedily council with the Heads and others, viz. Dr. Still, Dr. Howland, Dr. Binge, Dr. Legge; &c. and considering and pondering that the seed, the cause, and the fear of the Pestilence is not yet vanished and gone this hot time of the year; this Midsummer Fair time having confluence out of all countries, as well of infected as not; the Commencement time at hand, which requireth rather diligence in study, than dissoluteness in plays; and also that of late we denied that like to the right honorable the Lord Leicester his servants; and especially that all Assemblies in open places be expressly forbidden in this University and Town, or within five miles in compass, by her Majesty’s Council’s letters to the Vice Chancellor, October 30, 1575; our trust is that your honour, our most dear loving Chancellor, will take our answers made unto them in good part; and being willing to impart something from the liberality of the University to them, I could not obtain sufficient assent thereto, and therefore delivered them but xxs. towards their charges. Also they brought Letters from the right honorable the Lord Chancellor, and the right honorable the Lord Sussex, to the Vice-Chancellors of Cambridge and Oxford; I trust their Honours will accept their Answers. Thus leaving to trouble your honour with my rude writing, I take my leave.
Your Lordship’s humble and unworthy deputy.
John Hatcher. Vice Can.
Cambridge, June 21, 1580

Drama was encouraged at Trinity College Cambridge long after the reign of Queen Elizabeth I., as is shown by the titles of the four Plays which follow:

1. Melanthe; Fabula pastoralis, acta cum Jacobus Magnae Brit. Franc; and Hiberniae Rex Cantabrigiam suam nuper inviseret. Egerunt alumni Coit sac. et individuae Trinitatis Cantalrigie. 4° Cantr. Legge, Mart. 27. 1615. This play, written by Brookes, of Trinity College, was acted before King James I., Friday, March 10, 1614–16. A person who was present says, it was excellently written, and as well acted, which gave great contentment, as well to the King as to the rest.
2. Pedantius; Comcedia, olim Canhbrig. acta in Coll. Trin. Nuuquam antehac typis evulgata. 12° London. 1651. This play is by Nashe, in his Strange News 1593, ascribed to N. Wingfield. It was acted before the year 1591; being mentioned by Sir John Hamngton, in his Apology prefixed to Ariosto, printed in that year. This piece was entered on the books of the Stationers’ Company, February 9, 1630. The printed edition has two copper-plates representing scenes in the play.
3. Fraus Honesta; Comcedia, Cantabrigize olim actii: authore Mr. Stubb Collegii Trimitatis Socio. 12° London. 1632. In a MS., copy of this play, in Emmanuel College library, the names of the performers are placed opposite the characters. It was performed at Trinity College.
4. Nanfragiurn Joculrre; Comcedin, publice coram Academicis acta in Collegio S.S. et individuæ Trinitatis 4° nonas Feb. an. dom. 1688. authore Abrahamo Cowley. 18° London. 1635.

Many manuscript plays, in Latin, performed at Trinity College in the reign of Elizabeth I., remain unpublished. 5 There were even matters connected with the Game of Swans that were formerly of much interest, and “upping” (now called “hopping”) the Swans was a diversion greatly followed. In that interesting volume, Mr. A. J. Kempe’s Loseley Manuscripts, which contains so many curious and valuable documents connected with public and private affairs in the reigns from Henry VIII., to James I., are some papers, p. 305, which amusingly illustrate the subject: they are not however of so early a date as the subsequent Warrant for appointing Commissioners in Buckinghamshire, which must have been directed to Sir Nicholas Bacon, then Lord Keeper. The first name in the list of Commissioners ought to be Arthurus Dñs Grey de Wilton, and not Anthonius. Several of the names of the other Commissioners will be familiar to the ear. The object of the instrument was to authorise the persons mentioned in it to inquire into offences against the laws for the preservation of the Queen’s Swans. Indorsed, the names of the Commissioners appointed to hear and determine the causes and offences concerning the Game of Swans, in the Country of Buck in 1566, were: Anthonius Dñs Grey de Wilton; Edwardus Dñs de Windsor; Robertus Drewrye, miles; Willelmus Dormer, miles; Henricus Lee, miles; Thomas Packington, miles; 6 Nichas Weste, Ar; Johannes Thomson, Ar; Thomas Fletewood, Ar; Willelmus Hawtrey, Ar; Thomas Terringham, Ar; Thomas Pigott de Grendon, Ar; Willelmus Fletewoode, Ar; Edwardus Ardes, Ar. The Commissioners were to “require for the service of the Queen’s Majesty, to direct her Highness Commission, under the Great Seal of England, to the persons above reversed, or four of them, to enquire of such offences as have been and are committed against the ancient Laws and Orders made for the preservation of the Queen’s Majesty’s game and herd of Swans within the county of Buck. And for the dew punishment of the offenders in that behalf, as in like cases heretofore have been accustomed. And these presents shall be your warrant for the same.”
The Marginal Notes, together with an opinion at the close of the following document, are in the handwriting of Sir Walter Mildmay, who seems to have taken especial interest in all matters relating to the proposed marriage of Queen Elizabeth. The argument for and against the union is attributed in the title of the MS., to Sir Nicholas Bacon, but before the words “by the Lord Keeper,” there is a blank, and something has evidently there been erased, possibly expressive of a doubt upon the point of authorship. Sir Walter Mildmay does not appear to have been at all satisfied or convinced by the reasoning, and remarks that nothing whatever had been advanced upon the most important point of all: religion.

Octain
By Peter Coustau 7
Honour nourishes the arts.
The swan melodious chants no lay,
Attempts no song of worth to sing,
Should zephyrs, breathing graciously
Over the fields, no sweetness bring:
And who desert from letters seeks,
Or undertakes some poet’s theme,
If praise on learning never breathes,
Nor honours over labour beam?

Nova Philosophia Written by Patricius published in 1593; a work long since so rare that Sorellus 8 says that a small library might be purchased for the price of this single book. (Bacon, Sec. Fab. Cupidinis et Cœli).

Novitious Of modern origin.