Chapter XX: Part 1: with Heywood, Dec. 1602–Jan. 1603; one payment had been made to (8)

N.D. The Spanish Tragedie, Containing the lamentable end of Don Horatio, and Bel-Imperia: with the pittiful death of olde Hieronimo. Newly corrected, and amended of such grosse faults as passed in the first impression. _Edward Allde for Edward White._ [Induction. Greg, _Plays_, 61, and Boas, xxvii, agree in regarding this as the earliest extant edition. Boas suggests that either it may be White’s illicit print, or, if that print was the ‘first impression’, a later one printed for him by arrangement with Jeffes.]

1594. _Abell Jeffes, sold by Edward White._

_S. R._ 1599, Aug. 13. Transfer ‘salvo iure cuiuscunque’ from Jeffes to W. White (Arber, iii. 146).

1599. _William White._

_S. R._ 1600, Aug. 14. Transfer to Thomas Pavier (Arber, iii. 169).

1602.... Newly corrected, amended, and enlarged with new additions of the Painters part, and others, as it hath of late been diuers times acted. _W. White for Thomas Pavier._

1602 (colophon 1603); 1610 (colophon 1611); 1615 (two issues); 1618; 1623 (two issues); 1633.

_Editions_ in Dodsley^{1–4} (1744–1874, v), and by T. Hawkins (1773, _O. E. D._ ii), W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ i), J. M. Manly (1897, _Specimens_, ii), J. Schick (1898, _T. D._; 1901, _Litterarhistorische Forschungen_, xix). _Dissertations_: J. A. Worp, _Die Fabel der Sp. T._ (1894, _Jahrbuch_, xxix, 183); G. O. Fleischer, _Bemerkungen über Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy_ (1896).

Kyd’s authorship of the play is recorded by Heywood, _Apology_, 45 (cf. App. C, No. lvii). The only direct evidence as to the date is Ben Jonson’s statement in the Induction to _Bartholomew Fair_ (1614), ‘He that will swear _Ieronimo_ or _Andronicus_ are the best plays yet, shall pass unexcepted at here as a man whose judgment shows it is constant, and hath stood still these five and twenty or thirty years’. This yields 1584–9. Boas, xxx, argues for 1585–7; W. Bang in _Englische Studien_, xxviii. 229, for 1589. The grounds for a decision are slight, but the latter date seems to me the more plausible in the absence of any clear allusion to the play in Nashe’s (q.v.) _Menaphon_ epistle of that year.

Strange’s men revived _Jeronymo_ on 14 March 1592 and played it sixteen times between that date and 22 Jan. 1593. I agree with Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 150, 153) that by _Jeronymo_ Henslowe meant _The Spanish Tragedy_, and that the performances of it are distinguishable from those which the company was concurrently giving of a related piece called _Don Horatio_ or ‘the comedy of Jeronimo’, which is probably not to be identified with the extant anonymous _1 Jeronimo_ (q.v.). On 7 Jan. 1597 the play was revived by the Admiral’s and given twelve times between that date and 19 July. Another performance, jointly with Pembroke’s, took place on 11 Oct. Finally, on 25 Sept. 1601 and 22 June 1602, Henslowe made payments to Jonson, on behalf of the Admiral’s, for ‘adicyons’ to the play. At first sight, it would seem natural to suppose that these ‘adicyons’ are the passages (II. v. 46–133; III. ii. 65–129; III. xii^a. 1–157; IV. iv. 168–217) which appear for the first time in the print of 1602. But many critics have found it difficult to see Jonson’s hand in these, notably Castelain, 886, who would assign them to Webster. And as Henslowe marked the play as ‘n. e.’ in 1597, it is probable that there was some substantial revision at that date. There is a confirmation of this view in Jonson’s own mention of ‘the old Hieronimo (as it was first acted)’ in the induction to _Cynthia’s Revels_ (1600). Perhaps the 1597 revival motived Jonson’s quotation of the play by the mouth of Matheo in _E. M. I._ I. iv, and in _Satiromastix_, 1522, Dekker suggests that Jonson himself ‘took’st mad Ieronimoes part, to get service among the Mimickes’. Lines from the play are also recited by the page in _Poetaster_, III. iv. 231. In the Induction, 84, to Marston’s _Malcontent_ (1604) Condell explains the appropriation of that play by the King’s from the Chapel with this retort, ‘Why not Malevole in folio with us, as well as Jeronimo in decimo sexto with them’. Perhaps _1 Jeronimo_ is meant; in view of the stage history of _The Spanish Tragedy_, as disclosed by Henslowe’s diary, the King’s could hardly have laid claim to it.

The play was carried by English actors to Germany (Boas, xcix; Creizenach, xxxiii; Herz, 66, 76), and a German adaptation by Jacob Ayrer is printed by Boas, 348, and with others in German and Dutch, in R. Schönwerth, _Die niederländischen und deutschen Bearbeitungen von T. K.’s Sp. T._ (1903, _Litterarhistorische Forschungen_, xxvi).

_Cornelia. 1593_

_S. R._ 1594, Jan. 26 (Dickins). ‘A booke called Cornelia, Thomas Kydd beinge the Authour.’ _Nicholas Ling and John Busbye_ (Arber, ii. 644).

1594. Cornelia. _James Roberts for N. L. and John Busby._ [‘Tho. Kyd’ at end of play.]

1595. Pompey the Great, his fair Corneliaes Tragedie. Effected by her Father and Husbandes downe-cast, death, and fortune. Written in French, by that excellent Poet Ro: Garnier; and translated into English by Thomas Kid. _For Nicholas Ling._ [A reissue of the 1594 sheets with a new title-page.]

_Editions_ in Dodsley^4, iv. 5 (1874) and by H. Gassner (1894).

A translation of the _Cornélie_ (1574) of Robert Garnier, reissued in his _Huit Tragédies_ (1580). In a dedication to the Countess of Sussex Kyd expressed his intention of also translating the _Porcie_ (1568) of the same writer, but this he did not live to do. He speaks of ‘bitter times and privy broken passions’ endured during the writing of _Cornelia_ which suggests a date after his arrest on 12 May 1593.

_Lost and Doubtful Plays_

_The ‘Ur-Hamlet’_

_Dissertations_: J. Corbin, _The German H. and Earlier English Versions_ (1896, _Harvard Studies_, v); J. Schick, _Die Entstehung des H._ (1902, _Jahrbuch_, xxxviii. xiii); M. B. Evans, _Der bestrafte Brudermord, sein Verhältniss zu Shakespeare’s H._ (1902); K. Meier (1904, _Dresdner Anzeiger_); W. Creizenach, _Der bestrafte Brudermord and its Relation to Shakespeare’s H._ (1904, _M. P._ ii. 249), _Die vorshakespearesche Hamlettragödie_ (1906, _Jahrbuch_, xlii. 76); A. E. Jack, _Thomas Kyd and the Ur-Hamlet_ (1905, _M. L. A._ xx. 729); J. W. Cunliffe, _Nash and the Earlier Hamlet_ (1906, _M. L. A._ xxi. 193); J. Allen, _The Lost H. of K._ (1908, _Westminster Review_); J. Fitzgerald, _The Sources of the H. Tragedy_ (1909); M. J. Wolff, _Zum Ur-Hamlet_ (1912, _E. S._ xlv. 9); J. M. Robertson, _The Problem of Hamlet_ (1919).

The existence of a play on Hamlet a decade or more before the end of the sixteenth century is established by Henslowe’s note of its revival by the Admiral’s and Chamberlain’s on 11 June 1594 (cf. Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 164), and some corroborative allusions, but its relationship to Shakespeare’s play is wholly conjectural. The possible coupling of ‘Kidde’ and ‘Hamlet’ in Nashe’s epistle to _Menaphon_ has led to many speculations as to Kyd’s authorship and as to the lines on which the speculators think he would have treated the theme. Any discussion of these is matter for an account of _Hamlet_.

Kyd’s hand has also been sought in _Arden of Feversham_, _Contention of York and Lancaster_, _Edward III_, _1 Jeronimo_, _Leire_, _Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune_, _Soliman and Perseda_, _Taming of A Shrew_, and _True Tragedy of Richard III_ (cf. ch. xxiv), and in Shakespeare’s _Titus Andronicus_.

MAURICE KYFFIN (?-1599).

A Welshman by birth, he left the service of John Dee, with whom he afterwards kept up friendly relations, on 25 Oct. 1580 (_Diary_, 10, 15, 48). His epistles suggest that in 1587 he was tutor to Lord Buckhurst’s sons. In 1592 he was vice-treasurer in Normandy. His writings, other than the translation, are unimportant.

_Andria of Terence > 1587_

1588. Andria The first Comoedie of Terence, in English. A furtherance for the attainment vnto the right knowledge, & true proprietie, of the Latin Tong. And also a commodious meane of help, to such as haue forgotten Latin, for their speedy recouering of habilitie, to vnderstand, write, and speake the same. Carefully translated out of Latin, by Maurice Kyffin. _T. E. for Thomas Woodcocke._ [Epistle by Kyffin to Henry and Thomas Sackville; commendatory verses by ‘W. Morgan’, ‘Th. Lloid’, ‘G. Camdenus’, ‘Petrus Bizarus’, ‘R. Cooke’; Epistle to William Sackville, dated ‘London, Decemb. 3, 1587’, signed ‘Maurice Kyffin’; Preface to the Reader; Preface by Kyffin to all young Students of the Latin Tongue, signed ‘M. K.’; Argument.]

_S. R._ 1596, Feb. 9. Transfer of Woodcock’s copies to Paul Linley (Arber, iii. 58).

_S. R._ 1597, Apr. 21 (Murgetrode). ‘The second Comedy of Terence called Eunuchus.’ _Paul Lynley_ (Arber, iii. 83).

_S. R._ 1600, June 26. Transfer of ‘The first and second commedie of Terence in Inglishe’ from Paul Linley to John Flasket (Arber, iii. 165).

Presumably the _Andria_ is the ‘first’ comedy of the 1600 transfer, and if so the lost _Eunuchus_ may also have been by Kyffin. The _Andria_ is in prose; Kyffin says he had begun seven years before, nearly finished, and abandoned a version in verse.

JOHN LANCASTER (_c._ 1588).

A Gray’s Inn lawyer, one of the devisers of dumb-shows and director for the _Misfortunes of Arthur_ of Thomas Hughes (q.v.) in 1588.

SIR HENRY LEE (1531–1611).

[The accounts of Lee in _D. N. B._ and by Viscount Dillon in _Bucks., Berks. and Oxon. Arch. Journ._, xii (1906) 65, may be supplemented from Aubrey, ii. 30, J. H. Lea, _Genealogical Notes on the Family of Lee of Quarrendon_ (_Genealogist_, n.s. viii-xiv), and F. G. Lee in _Bucks. Records_, iii. 203, 241; iv. 189, _The Lees of Quarrendon_ (_Herald and Genealogist_, iii. 113, 289, 481), and _Genealogy of the Family of Lee_ (1884).]

Lee belonged to a family claiming a Cheshire origin, which had long been settled in Bucks. From 1441 they were constables and farmers of Quarrendon in the same county, and the manor was granted by Henry VIII to Sir Robert Lee, who was Gentleman Usher of the Chamber and afterwards Knight of the Body. His son Sir Anthony married Margaret, sister of Sir Thomas Wyatt, the poet. Their son Henry was born in 1531, and Aubrey reports the scandal that he was ‘supposed brother to Elizabeth’. He was page of honour to the King, and by 1550 Clerk of the Armoury. He was knighted in 1553. By Sept. 1575 he was Master of the Game at Woodstock (Dasent, ix. 23), and by 1577 Lieutenant of the manor and park (Marshall, _Woodstock_, 160), holding ‘le highe lodge’ and other royal houses in the locality. Probably he was concerned with the foundation of Queen’s Day (cf. ch. i) in 1570, which certainly originated near Oxford, and when the annual tilting on this day at Whitehall was instituted, Lee acted as Knight of the Crown until his retirement in 1590. He used as his favourite device a crowned pillar. He took some part in the military enterprises of the reign, and in 1578 became Master of the Armoury. In 1597 he was thought of as Vice-Chamberlain, and on 23 April was installed as K.G. He was a great sheep-farmer and encloser of land, and a great builder or enlarger of houses, including Ditchley Hall, four or five miles from Woodstock, in the parish of Spelsbury, where he died on 12 Feb. 1611. By his wife, Anne, daughter of William Lord Paget, who died in 1590, he had two sons and a daughter, who all predeceased him. His will of 6 Oct. 1609 provides for the erection of a tomb in Quarrendon Chapel near his own for ‘M^{rs}. Ann Vavasor alias Finch’. There are no tombs now, but the inscriptions on Lee’s tomb and on a tablet in the chancel, also not preserved, are recorded. The former says:

‘In courtly justs his Soveraignes knight he was’,

and the latter adds:

‘He shone in all those fayer partes that became his profession
and vowes, honoring his highly gracious Mistris with reysing
those later Olympiads of her Courte, justs and tournaments ...
wherein still himself lead and triumphed.’

The writer is William Scott, who also, with Richard Lee, witnessed the will. Anne Vavasour does not in fact appear to have been buried at Quarrendon. Aubrey describes her as ‘his dearest deare’, and says that her effigy was placed at the foot of his on the tomb, and that the bishop threatened to have it removed. Anne’s tomb was in fact defaced as early as 1611. Anne was daughter of Sir Henry and sister of Sir Thomas Vavasour of Copmanthorpe, Yorks. She was a new maid of honour who ‘flourished like the lily and the rose’ in 1590 (Lodge, ii. 423). Another Anne Vavasour came to Court as ‘newly of the beddchamber’ after being Lady Bedford’s ‘woman’, about July 1601 (Gawdy, 112, conjecturally dated; cf. vol. iv, p. 67). Anne Clifford tells us that ‘my cousin Anne Vavisour’ was going with her mother Lady Cumberland and Lady Warwick and herself to meet Queen Anne in 1603, and married Sir Richard Warburton the same year (Wiffen, ii. 69, 72). The Queen is said to have visited Sir Henry and his mistress at a lodge near Woodstock called ‘Little Rest’, now ‘Lee’s Rest’, in 1608. After Lee’s death his successor brought an action against Anne and her brother for illegal detention of his effects (_5 N. Q._ iii. 294), and the feud was still alive and Anne had added other sins to her score in 1618, when Chamberlain wrote (Birch, ii. 86):

‘M^{rs}. Vavasour, old Sir Henry Lee’s woman, is like to be
called in question for having two husbands now alive. Young
Sir Henry Lee, the wild oats of Ireland, hath obtained the
confiscation of her, if he can prove it without touching her
life.’

Aubrey’s story that Lee’s nephew was disinherited in favour of ‘a keeper’s sonne of Whitchwood-forest of his owne name, a one-eied young man, no kinne to him’, is exaggerated gossip. Lee entailed his estate on a second cousin.

I have brought together under Lee’s name two entertainments and fragments of at least one other, which ought strictly to be classed as anonymous, but with which he was certainly concerned, and to which he may have contributed some of the ‘conceiptes, Himmes, Songes & Emblemes’, of which one of the fragments speaks.

_The Woodstock Entertainment. Sept. 1575_

[_MS._] _Royal MS._ 18 A. xlviii (27). ‘The Tale of Hemetes the Heremyte.’ [The tale is given in four languages, English, Latin, Italian, and French. It is accompanied by pen-and-ink drawings, and preceded by verses and an epistle to Elizabeth. The latter is dated ‘first of January, 1576’ and signed ‘G. Gascoigne’. The English text is, with minor variations, that of the tale as printed in 1585. Its authorship is not claimed by Gascoigne, who says that he has ‘turned the eloquent tale of _Hemetes the Heremyte_ (wherw^{th} I saw yo^r lerned judgment greatly pleased at Woodstock) into latyne, Italyan and frenche’, and contrasts his own ignorance with ‘thaucto^{rs} skyll’.]

_S. R._ 1579, Sept. 22. ‘A paradox provinge by Reason and Example that Baldnes is muche better than bushie heare.’ _H. Denham_ (Arber, ii. 360).

1579. A Paradoxe, Proving by reason and example, that Baldnesse is much better than bushie haire.... Englished by Abraham Fleming. Hereunto is annexed the pleasant tale of Hemetes the Heremite, pronounced before the Queenes Majestie. Newly recognized both in Latine and Englishe, by the said A. F. _H. Denham._ [Contains the English text of the Tale and Gascoigne’s Latin version.]

1585. _Colophon_: ‘Imprinted at London for Thomas Cadman, 1585.’ [Originally contained a complete description of an entertainment, of which the tale of Hemetes only formed part; but sig. A, with the title-page, is missing. The unique copy, formerly in the Rowfant library, is now in the B.M. The t.p. is a modern type-facsimile, based on the head-line and colophon (McKerrow, _Bibl. Evidence_, 306).]

_Editions_ (_a_) from 1579, by J. Nichols, _Eliz._ i. 553 (1823), and W. C. Hazlitt, _Gascoigne_, ii. 135 (1870); (_b_) from _MS._ by J. W. Cunliffe, _Gascoigne_, ii. 473 (1910); (_c_) from 1585, by A. W. Pollard (1910, partly printed 1903) and J. W. Cunliffe (1911, _M. L. A._ xxvi. 92).

Gascoigne’s manuscript is chiefly of value as fixing the locality of the entertainment, which is not mentioned in the mutilated print of 1585. The date can hardly be doubtful. Elizabeth spent considerable periods at Woodstock in 1572, 1574, and 1575, but it so happens that only in 1575 was she there on the 20th of a month (_vide infra_ and App. B). Moreover, Laurence Humphrey’s _Oratio_ delivered at Woodstock on 11 Sept. 1575 (Nichols, i. 590) refers to the entertainment in the phrase ‘an ... Gandina spectacula ... dabit’. The description takes the form of a letter from an eyewitness, evidently not the deviser, and professing ignorance of Italian; not, therefore, Gascoigne, as pointed out by Mr. Pollard. At the beginning of sig. B, Hemetes, a hermit, has evidently just interrupted a fight between Loricus and Contarenus. He brings them, with the Lady Caudina, to a bower, where Elizabeth is placed, and tells his Tale, of which the writer says, ‘hee shewed a great proofe of his audacity, in which tale if you marke the woords with this present world, or were acquainted with the state of the deuises, you should finde no lesse hidden then vttered, and no lesse vttered then shoulde deserue a double reading ouer, euen of those (with whom I finde you a companion) that haue disposed their houres to the study of great matters’. The Tale explains how the personages have come together. Contarenus loved Caudina, daughter of Occanon Duke of Cambia. At Occanon’s request, an enchantress bore him away, and put him in charge of the blind hermit, until after seven years he should fight the hardiest knight and see the worthiest lady in the world. Caudina, setting out with two damsels to seek him, met at the grate of Sibilla with Loricus, a knight seeking renown as a means to his mistress’s favour. Sibilla bade them wander, till they found a land in all things best, and with a Princess most worthy. Hemetes himself has been blinded by Venus for loving books as well as a lady, and promised by Apollo the recovery of his sight, where most valiant knights fight, most constant lovers meet, and the worthiest lady looks on. Obviously it is all a compliment to the worthiest lady. Thus the Tale ends. The Queen is now led to the hermit’s abode, an elaborate sylvan banqueting-house, built on a mound forty feet high, roofed by an oak, and hung with pictures and posies of ‘the noble or men of great credite’, some of which the French ambassador made great suit to have. Here Elizabeth was visited by ‘the Queen of the Fayry drawen with 6 children in a waggon of state’, who presented her with an embroidered gown. Couplets or ‘posies’ set in garlands were also given to the Queen, to the Ladies Derby, Warwick, Hunsdon, Howard, Susan and Mary Vere, and to Mistresses Skidmore, Parry, Abbington, Sidney, Hopton, Katherine Howard, Garret, Bridges, Burrough, Knowles, and Frances Howard. After a speech from Caudina, Elizabeth departed, as it was now dark, well pleased with her afternoon, and listening to a song from an oak tree as she went by. A somewhat cryptic passage follows. Elizabeth is said to have left ‘earnest command that the whole in order as it fell, should be brought her in writing, which being done, as I heare, she vsed, besides her owne skill, the helpe of the deuisors, & how thinges were made I know not, but sure I am her Maiesty hath often in speech some part hereof with mirth at the remembrance.’ Then follows a comedy acted on ‘the 20 day of the same moneth’, which ‘was as well thought of, as anye thing ever done before her Maiestie, not onely of her, but of the rest: in such sort that her Graces passions and other the Ladies could not [? but] shew it selfe in open place more than euer hath beene seene’. The comedy, in 991 lines of verse, is in fact a sequel to the Tale. In it Occanon comes to seek Caudina, who is persuaded by his arguments and the mediation of Eambia, the Fairy Queen, to give up her lover for her country’s sake.

Pollard suggests Gascoigne as the author of the comedy, but of this there is no external evidence. He also regards the intention of the whole entertainment as being the advancement of Leicester’s suit. Leicester was no doubt at Woodstock, even before the Queen, for he wrote her a letter from there on 4 Sept. (_S. P. D. Eliz_. cv. 36); but the undated letter which Pollard cites (cv. 38), and in which Leicester describes himself as ‘in his survey to prepare for her coming’, probably precedes the Kenilworth visit. Pollard dates it 6 Sept., but Elizabeth herself seems to have reached Woodstock by that date. Professor Cunliffe, on the other hand, thinks that the intention was unfavourable to Leicester’s suit, and thus explains the stress laid on Caudina’s renunciation of her lover for political reasons. I doubt if there is any reference to the matter at all; it would have been dangerous matter for a courtly pen. Doubtless the writer of the description talks of ‘audacity’, in the Tale, not the comedy. But has he anything more in mind than Sir Henry Lee, whom we are bound to find, here as elsewhere, in Loricus, and his purely conventional worship of Elizabeth?

_The Tilt Yard Entertainment. 17 Nov. 1590_

There are two contemporary descriptions, viz.:

1590. Polyhymnia Describing, the Honourable Triumph at Tylt, before her Maiestie, on the 17 of Nouember last past, being the first day of the three and thirtith yeare of her Highnesse raigne. With Sir Henrie Lea, his resignation of honour at Tylt, to her Maiestie, and receiued by the right honorable, the Earle of Cumberland. _R. Jones._ [Dedication by George Peele to Lord Compton on verso of t.p.]

1602. W. Segar, Honor, Military and Ciuill, Book iii, ch. 54, ‘The Originall occasions of the yeerely Triumphs in England’.

Segar’s account is reproduced by Nichols, _Eliz._ iii. 41, and both in the editions of Peele (q.v.) by Dyce and Bullen. A manuscript copy with variants from the Q. is at St. John’s College, Oxford (F. S. Boas in _M. L. R._ xi. 300). _Polyhymnia_ mainly consists of a blank verse description and eulogy of the twenty-six tilters, in couples according to the order of the first running of six courses each, viz. Sir Henry Lee and the Earl of Cumberland, Lord Strange and Thomas Gerrard, Lord Compton and Henry Nowell, Lord Burke and Sir Edward Denny, the Earl of Essex and Fulk Greville, Sir Charles Blount and Thomas Vavasor, Robert Carey and William Gresham, Sir William Knowles and Anthony Cooke, Sir Thomas Knowles and Sir Philip Butler, Robert Knowles and Ralph Bowes, Thomas Sidney and Robert Alexander, John Nedham and Richard Acton, Charles Danvers and Everard Digby. The colours and in some cases the ‘device’ or ‘show’ are indicated. Lee is described as

Knight of the crown, in rich embroidery,
And costly fair caparison charged with crowns,
O’ershadowed with a withered running vine,
As who would say, ‘My spring of youth is past’,
In corselet gilt of curious workmanship.

Strange entered ‘in costly ship’, with the eagle for his device; Essex

In stately chariot full of deep device,
Where gloomy Time sat whipping on the team,
Just back to back with this great champion.

Blount’s badge was the sun, Carey’s a burning heart, Cooke’s a hand and heart,

And Life and Death he portray’d in his show.

The three Knowles brothers bore golden boughs. A final section of the poem describes how, after the running, Sir Henry Lee, ‘knight of the Crown’, unarmed himself in a pavilion of Vesta, and petitioned the Queen to allow him to yield his ‘honourable place’ to Cumberland, to whom he gave his armour and lance, vowing to betake himself to orisons.

Segar gives a fuller account of Lee’s fantasy. He had vowed, ‘in the beginning of her happy reigne’, to present himself yearly in arms on the day of Elizabeth’s accession. The courtiers, incited by his example, had yearly assembled, ‘not vnlike to the antient Knighthood della Banda in Spaine’, but in 1590, ‘being now by age ouertaken’, Lee resigned his office to Cumberland. The ceremony took place ‘at the foot of the staires vnder her gallery-window in the Tilt-yard at Westminster’, where Elizabeth sat with the French ambassador, Viscount Turenne. A pavilion, representing the Temple of the Vestal Virgins, arose out of the earth. Within was an altar, with gifts for the queen; before the door a crowned pillar, embraced by an eglantine, and bearing a complimentary inscription. As the knights approached, ‘M. Hales her maiesties seruant’ sang verses beginning:

My golden locks time hath to siluer turned.

The vestals then gave the Queen a veil and a cloak and safeguard, the buttons of which bore the ‘emprezes’ or ‘badges’ of many nobles, friends of Lee, each fixed to an embroidered pillar, the last being ‘like the character of _&c._’ Finally Lee doffed his armour, presented Cumberland, armed and horsed him, and himself donned a side-coat of black velvet and a buttoned cap of the country fashion. ‘After all these ceremonies, for diuers dayes hee ware vpon his cloake a crowne embrodered, with a certaine motto or deuice, but what his intention therein was, himselfe best knoweth.’

The Queen appointed Lee to appear yearly at the exercises, ‘to see, suruey, and as one most carefull and skilfull to direct them’. Segar dwells on Lee’s virtues and valour, and concludes by stating that the annual actions had been performed by 1 Duke, 19 Earls, 27 Barons, 4 Knights of the Garter, and above 150 other Knights and Esquires.

On 20 Nov. 1590 Richard Brakinbury wrote to Lord Talbot (Lodge, ii. 419): ‘These sports were great, and done in costly sort, to her Majesty’s liking, and their great cost. To express every part, with sundry devices, is more fit for them that delight in them, than for me, who esteemeth little such vanities, I thank God.’

P. A. Daniel (_Athenaeum_ for 8 Feb. 1890) notes that a suit of armour in Lord Hothfield’s collection, which once belonged to Cumberland and is represented in certain portraits of him, is probably the identical suit given him by Lee, as it bears a monogram of Lee’s name.

There has been some controversy about the authorship of the verses sung by ‘M. Hales’, who was Robert Hales, a lutenist. They appear, headed ‘A Sonnet’, and unsigned, on a page at the end of _Polyhymnia_, and have therefore been ascribed to Peele. The evidence, though inconclusive, is better than the wanton conjecture which led Mr. Bond to transfer them to Lyly (_Works_, i. 410). But a different version in _Rawl. Poet. MS._ 148, f. 19, is subscribed ‘q^d S^r Henry Leigh’, and some resemblances of expression are to be found in other verses assigned to Lee in R. Dowland, _Musicall Banquet_ (1610), No. 8 (Bond, i. 517; Fellowes, 459). It is not impossible that Lee himself may have been the author. One of the pieces in the _Ferrers MS._ (_vide_ p. 406 _infra_) refers to his ‘himmes & songes’. If the verses, which also appear anonymously in J. Dowland, _First Booke of Songs or Ayres_ (1597, Fellowes, 418), are really Lee’s, Wyatt’s nephew was no contemptible poet. Finally, there are echoes of the same theme in yet another set of anonymous verses in J. Dowland, _Second Book of Airs_ (1600, Fellowes, 422), which are evidently addressed to Lee.

_The Second Woodstock Entertainment, 20 Sept. 1592, and
Other Fragments_

[_MSS._] (_a_) _Ferrers MS._, a collection made by Henry Ferrers of Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire (1549–1633).

(_b_) _Inner Temple Petyt MS._ 538, 43, ff. 284–363.

[A collection of verses by Lady Pembroke, Sir John Harington, Francis Bacon (q.v.) and others, bound as part of a composite MS.]

(_c_) Viscount Dillon kindly informs me that a part of the entertainment, dated ‘20 Sept.’, is in his possession.

_Editions_ (_Ferrers MS._ only) by W. Hamper, _Masques: Performed before Queen Elizabeth_ (1820), and in _Kenilworth Illustrated_ (1821), Nichols, _Eliz._^2 iii. 193 (1828), and R. W. Bond, _Lyly_, i. 412, 453 (1902).

The Ferrers MS. seems to contain ten distinct pieces, separated from each other only by headings, to which I have prefixed the numbers.

(i) ‘A Cartell for a Challeng.’

Three ‘strange forsaken knightes’ offer to maintain ‘that Loue is worse than hate, his Subiectes worse than slaues, and his Rewarde worse than naught: And that there is a Ladie that scornes Loue and his power, of more vertue and greater bewtie than all the Amorouse Dames that be at this day in the worlde’. This cannot be dated. Sir Robert Carey (_Memoirs_, 33) tilted as a ‘forsaken knight’ on 17 Nov. 1593 (not 1592, as stated by Brotanek, 60), but he was not a challenger, and was alone. The tone resembles that of Sir Henry Lee, and if he took part, the date must be earlier than 1590.

(ii) ‘Sir Henry Lee’s challenge before the Shampanie.’

A ‘strange knight that warres against hope and fortune’ will maintain the cause of Despair in a green suit.

Hamper explained ‘Shampanie’ as ‘the lists or field of contention, from the French _campagne_’; but Segar, _Honor, Military and Ciuill_, 197, records, from an intercepted letter of ‘Monsieur de Champany ... being ambassador in England for causes of the Low Countreys’, an occasion on which Sir Henry Lee, ‘the most accomplished cavaliero I had euer seene’, broke lances with other gentlemen in his honour at Greenwich. M. de Champagny was an agent of the native Flemish Catholics, and visited England in 1575 and 1585 (Froude, x. 360; xii. 39). As his letter named ‘Sir’ C. Hatton, who was knighted in 1578, the visit of 1585 must be in question. The Court was at Greenwich from March to July of that year.

(iii) ‘The Supplication of the Owld Knight.’

A speech to the ‘serveres of this English Holiday, or rather Englandes Happie Daye’, in which a knight disabled by age, ‘yet once (thowe unwoorthie) your fellowe in armes, and first celebrator, in this kinde, of this sacred memorie of that blessed reigne’, begs them to ‘accepte to your fellowshippe this oneley sonne of mine’.

This is evidently a speech by Lee, on some 17 Nov. later than 1590. Lee’s own sons died in childhood; probably the ‘son’ introduced was a relative, but possibly only a ‘son’ in chivalry.

(iv) ‘The Message of the Damsell of the Queene of Fayries.’

An ‘inchanted knight’ sends the Queen an image of Cupid. She is reminded how ‘at the celebrating the joyfull remembraunce of the most happie daye of your Highnes entrance into Gouerment of this most noble Islande, howe manie knightes determined, not far hence, with boulde hartes and broken launces, to paye there vowes and shewe theire prowes’. The ‘inchanted knight’ could not ‘chardge staffe, nor strike blowe’, but entered the jousts, and bore the blows of others.

If this has reference to the first celebration of 17 Nov., it may be of near date to the Woodstock Entertainment of 1575 in which the fairy queen appeared. The knight, ‘full hardie and full haples’, is enchanted, but is not said to be old.

(v) ‘The Olde Knightes Tale.’

‘Not far from hence, nor verie long agoe,’ clearly in 1575, ‘the fayrie Queene the fayrest Queene saluted’, and the pleasures included ‘justes and feates of armed knightes’, and ‘enchaunted pictures’ in a bower. The knight was bidden by the fairy queen to guard the pictures and keep his eyes on the crowned pillar. He became ‘a stranger ladies thrall’, neglected this duty, and was cast into a deadly sleep. Now he is freed, apparently through the intervention of Elizabeth, to whom the verses are addressed.

(vi) ‘The Songe after Dinner at the two Ladies entrance.’

Celebrates the setting free by a prince’s grace, of captive knights and ladies, and bids farewell to inconstancy.

(vii) ‘The Ladies Thankesgeuing for theire Deliuerie from Unconstancie.’

A speech to the Queen, in the same vein as (vi), followed by a dialogue between Li[berty], or Inconstancy, and Constancy. This is datable in 1592 from another copy printed in _The Phoenix Nest_ (1593), with the title ‘An Excellent Dialogue betweene Constancie and Inconstancie: as it was by speech presented to her maiestie, in the last Progresse at Sir Henrie Leighes house’. Yet another copy, in _Inner Temple Petyt MS._ 538, 43, f. 299. ‘A Dialogue betweene Constancie and Inconstancie spoken before the Queenes Majestie at Woodstock’ is ascribed to ‘Doctor Edes’.

(viii) ‘The last Songe.’

A rejoicing on the coming of Eliza, with references to constancy and inconstancy, the aged knight, and the pillar and crown.

(ix) ‘The second daies woorke where the Chaplayne maketh this
Relation.’

An Oration to the Queen by the chaplain of Loricus, ‘an owlde Knight, now a newe religiouse Hermite’. The story of Loricus was once told [in 1575] ‘by a good father of his owne coate, not farr from this coppies’. Once he ‘rann the restles race of desire.... Sometymes he consorted with couragious gentelmen, manifesting inward joyes by open justes, the yearly tribute of his dearest Loue. Somtimes he summoned the witnesse of depest conceiptes, Himmes & Songes & Emblemes, dedicating them to the honor of his heauenlye mistres’. Retiring, through envy and age, to the country, he found the speaker at a homely cell, made him his chaplain, and built for their lodging and that of a page ‘the Crowne Oratory’, with a ‘Piller of perpetual remembraunce’ as his device on the entrance. Here he lies, at point of death, and has addressed his last testament to the Queen. This is in verse, signed ‘Loricus, columnae coronatae custos fidelissimus’, and witnessed by ‘Stellatus, rectoriae coronatae capellanus’, and ‘Renatus, equitis coronatae servus obseruantissimus’.

(x) ‘The Page bringeth tydings of his Maister’s Recouerie & presenteth
his Legacie.’

A further address to the Queen, with a legacy in verse of the whole Mannor of Loue, signed by Loricus and witnessed by Stellatus and Renatus.

This exhausts the _Ferrers MS._, but I can add from the _Petyt MS._ f. 300^v--

(xi) ‘The melancholie Knights complaint in the wood.’

This, like (vii), is ascribed in the MS. to ‘Doctor Edes’. It consists of 35 lines in 6 stanzas of 6 lines each (with one line missing) and begins:

What troupes are theis, which ill aduised, presse
Into this more than most vnhappie place.

Allusions to the freeing of enchanted knights and ladies and to constancy and inconstancy connect it closely with (vi)-(viii).

Obviously most of these documents, and therefore probably all, belong to devices presented by Sir Henry Lee. But they are of different dates, and not demonstrably in chronological order. A single occasion accounts for (vi)-(viii) and (xi), and a single occasion, which the mention of ‘the second daie’ suggests may have been the same, for (ix) and (x); and probably Mr. Bond is justified in regarding all these as forming part with (vii) of the entertainment at Lee’s house in the progress of 1592. But I do not see his justification for attaching (iv) and (v) to them, and I think that these are probably fragments of the Woodstock Entertainment of 1575, or not far removed from that in time. Nor has he any evidence for locating the entertainment of 1592 at Quarrendon, which was only one of several houses belonging to Sir Henry Lee, and could not be meant by the ‘coppies’ near Woodstock of (ix). It was doubtless, as the Petyt MS. version of (vii) tells us, at Woodstock, either at one of Lee’s lodges, or at Ditchley, during the royal visit to Woodstock of 18–23 Sept. 1592. I learn from Viscount Dillon that a MS. of part of this entertainment, dated 20 Sept., is still at Ditchley. Finally, Bond’s attribution of all the pieces (i)-(x) to Lyly is merely guesswork. Hamper assigned them to George Ferrers, probably because the owner of his MS. was a Ferrers. George Ferrers did in fact help in the Kenilworth Entertainment of 1575, and might therefore have helped in that at Woodstock; but he died in 1579, too early for (vi)-(xi). No doubt (vii) and (xi) are by Richard Edes (q.v.). He may have written the whole of this Woodstock Entertainment. On the other hand, a phrase in (ix) suggests that Lee may have penned some of his own conceits. Brotanek, 62, suggests that the two ladies of (vi) are Lee’s wife and his mistress Anne Vavasour, and that Elizabeth came to Lee’s irregular household to set it in order. This hardly needs refuting, but in fact Lee’s wife died in 1590 and his connexion with Anne Vavasour was probably of later date.

ROBERT LEE.

For his career as an actor, see ch. xv.

He may have been, but was not necessarily, the author of _The Miller_ which the Admiral’s bought from him for £1 on 22 Feb. 1598 (Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 191).

THOMAS LEGGE (1535–1607).

Of Norwich origin, Legge entered Corpus Christi, Cambridge, in 1552, and took his B.A. in 1557, his M.A. in 1560, and his LL.D. in 1575. After migration to Trinity and Jesus, he had become Master of Caius in 1573. In 1593 he was Vice-Chancellor, and in that capacity took part in the negotiations of the University with the Privy Council for a restraint of common plays in Cambridge (_M. S. C._ i. 200). His own reputation as a dramatist is acknowledged by Meres, who in 1598 placed him among ‘our best for Tragedie’, and added that, ‘as M. Anneus Lucanus writ two excellent Tragedies, one called _Medea_, the other _de Incendio Troiae cum Priami calamitate_: so Doctor _Leg_ hath penned two famous tragedies, y^e one of _Richard the 3_, the other of _The destruction of Ierusalem_’.

_Richardus Tertius. March 1580_

[_MSS._] _Cambridge Univ. Libr. MS._ M^m iv. 40, ‘Thome Legge legum doctoris Collegij Caiogonevilensis in Academia Cantabrigiensi magistri ac Rectoris Richardus tertius Tragedia trivespera habita Collegij divi Johannis Evangeliste Comitiis Bacchelaureorum Anno Domini 1579 Tragedia in tres acciones diuisa.’ [_Argumentum_ to each _Actio_; Epilogue.]

_Emmanuel, Cambridge, MS._ 1. 3. 19, with date ‘1579’ and actor-list.

_Clare, Cambridge, MS._ Kk, 3, 12, with date ‘1579’.

_Caius, Cambridge, MS._ 62, ‘tragoedia trium vesperum habita in collegio Divi Johannis Evangelistae, Comitiis Bacchalaureorum Anno 1573.’

_Bodl. Tanner MS._ 306, including first _Actio_ only, with actor-list and note, ‘Acted in St. John’s Hall before the Earle of Essex’, to which has been apparently added later, ‘17 March, 1582’.

_Bodl. MS._ 29448, dated α, φ, π, γ (= 1583).

_Harl. MS._ 6926, a transcript by Henry Lacy, dated 1586.

_Harl. MS._ 2412, a transcript dated 1588.

_Hatton MS._ (cf. _Hist. MSS._ i. 32).

_Editions_ by B. Field (1844, _Sh. Soc._) and W. C. Hazlitt (1875, _Sh. L._ ii. 1).--_Dissertation_: G. B. Churchill, _Richard III bis Shakespeare_ (1897, 1900).

The names in the actor-lists, which agree, confirm those MSS. which date a production in March 1580 (Boas, 394), and as Essex left Cambridge in 1581, the date in the _Tanner MS._, in so far as it relates to a performance before him, is probably an error. It does not seem so clear to me that the _Caius MS._ may not point to an earlier production in 1573. And it is quite possible that there may have been revivals in some or all of the later years named in the MSS. The reputation of the play is indicated, not only by the notice of it by Meres (_vide supra_), but also by allusions in Harington’s _Apologie of Poetrie_ (1591); cf. App. C, No. xlv. and Nashe’s _Have With You to Saffron Walden_ (1596, _Works_, iii. 13). It may even, directly or indirectly, have influenced _Richard III_. The argument to the first _Actio_ is headed ‘Chapman, Argumentum primae actionis’, but it seems difficult to connect George Chapman with the play.

_Lost Play_

_The Destruction of Jerusalem_

Meres calls this tragedy ‘famous’. Fuller, _Worthies_ (1662), ii. 156, says that ‘Having at last refined it to the purity of the publique standard, some Plageary filched it from him, just as it was to be acted’. Apparently it was in English and was printed, as it appears in the lists of Archer and Kirkman (Greg, _Masques_, lxii). It can hardly have been the _Jerusalem_ revived by Strange’s in 1592 (Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 155). Can any light be thrown on Fuller’s story by the fact that in 1584 a ‘new Play of the Destruction of Jerusalem’ was adopted by the city of Coventry as a craft play in place of the old Corpus Christi cycle, and a sum of £13 6_s._ 8_d._ paid to John Smythe of St. John’s, Oxford, ‘for hys paynes for writing of the tragedye’ (_Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 361; H. Craig, _Coventry Corpus Christi Plays_ (_E. E. T. S._), 90, 92, 93, 102, 103, 109)?

THOMAS LODGE (_c._ 1557–1625).

Lodge, who uses the description ‘gentleman’, was son of Sir Thomas Lodge, a Lord Mayor of London. His elder brother, William, married Mary, daughter of Thomas Blagrave, Clerk of the Revels (cf. ch. iii). He entered Merchant Taylors in 1571, Trinity College, Oxford, in 1573, whence he took his B.A. in 1577, and Lincoln’s Inn in 1578. In 1579 (cf. App. C, No. xxiii) he plunged into controversy with a defence of the stage in reply to Stephen Gosson’s _Schoole of Abuse_. Gosson speaks slightingly of his opponent as ‘hunted by the heavy hand of God, and become little better than a vagrant, looser than liberty, lighter than vanity itself’, and although Lodge took occasion to defend his moral character from aspersion, it is upon record that he was called before the Privy Council ‘to aunswere certen maters to be by them objected against him’, and was ordered on 27 June 1581 to give continued attendance (Dasent, xiii. 110). By 1583 he had married. His literary work largely took the form of romances in the manner of Lyly and Greene. _Rosalynde: Euphues’ Golden Legacy_, published (S. R. 6 Oct. 1590) on his return from a voyage to Terceras and the Canaries with Captain Clarke, is typical and was Shakespeare’s source for _As You Like It_. His acknowledged connexion with the stage is slight; and the attempt of Fleay, ii. 43, to assign to him a considerable share in the anonymous play-writing of his time must be received with caution, although he was still controverting Gosson in 1583 (cf. App. C, No. xxxv), and too much importance need not be attached to his intention expressed in _Scylla’s Metamorphosis_ (S. R. 22 Sept. 1589):

To write no more of that whence shame doth grow,
Or tie my pen to penny knaves’ delight,
But live with fame, and so for fame to write.

He is less likely than Nashe to be the ‘young Juvenal, that biting satirist, that lastly with me together writ a Comedy’ of Greene’s _Groats-worth of Wit_ epistle in 1592 (cf. App. C, No. xlviii). I should not cavil at the loose description of _A Looking Glass for London and England_ as a comedy; but ‘biting satirist’ hardly suits Lodge; and at the time of Greene’s last illness he was out of England on an expedition led by Thomas Cavendish to South America and the Pacific, which started on 26 Aug. 1591 and returned on 11 June 1593. After his return Lodge essayed lyric in _Phillis_ (1593) and satire in _A Fig for Momus_ (1595); but he cannot be shown to have resumed writing for the stage, although the Dulwich records make it clear that he had relations with Henslowe, who had in Jan. 1598 to satisfy the claims which Richard Topping, a tailor, had made against him before three successive Lord Chamberlains, as Lodge’s security for a long-standing debt (Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 44, 172). Lodge himself was then once more beyond the seas. One of the documents was printed by Collier, _Memoirs of Alleyn_, 45, with forged interpolations intended to represent Lodge as an actor, for which there is no other evidence. Subsequently Lodge took a medical degree at Avignon, was incorporated at Oxford in 1602, and obtained some reputation as a physician. He also became a Catholic, and had again to leave the country for recusancy, but was allowed to return in Jan. 1610 (cf. F. P. Wilson in _M. L. R._ ix. 99). About 1619 he was engaged in legal proceedings with Alleyn, and for a time practised in the Low Countries, returning to London before his death in 1625. Small, 50, refutes the attempts of Fleay, i. 363, and Penniman, _War_, 55, 85, to identify him with Fungoso in _E. M. O._ and Asotus in _Cynthia’s Revels_. Fleay, ii. 158, 352, adds Churms and Philomusus in the anonymous _Wily Beguiled_ and _Return from Parnassus_.

_Collection_

1878–82. E. Gosse, _The Works of Thomas Lodge_ (_Hunterian Club_). [Introduction reprinted in E. Gosse, _Seventeenth Century Studies_ (1883).]

_Dissertations_: D. Laing, _L.’s Defence of Poetry, Music, and Stage Plays_ (1853, _Sh. Soc._); C. M. Ingleby, _Was T. L. an Actor?_ (1868) and _T. L. and the Stage_ (1885, _6 N. Q._ xi, 107, 415); R. Carl, _Ueber T. L.’s Leben und Werke_ (1887, _Anglia_, x. 235); E. C. Richard, _Ueber T. L.’s Leben und Werke_ (1887, _Leipzig diss._).

_The Wounds of Civil War. c. 1588_

_S. R._ 1594, May 24. ‘A booke intituled the woundes of Civill warre lively sett forthe in the true Tragedies of Marius and Scilla.’ _John Danter_ (Arber, ii. 650).

1594. The Wounds of Ciuill War. Liuely set forth in the true Tragedies of Marius and Scilla. As it hath beene publiquely plaide in London, by the Right Honourable the Lord high Admirall his Seruants. Written by Thomas Lodge Gent. _John Danter._

_Editions_ in Dodsley^{3, 4} (1825–75) and by J. D. Wilson (1910, _M. S. R._).

The play contains a clear imitation of Marlowe’s _Tamburlaine_ in the chariot drawn by four Moors of Act III, and both Fleay, ii. 49, and Ward, i. 416, think that it was written shortly after its model, although not on very convincing grounds. No performance of it is recorded in Henslowe’s diary, which suggests a date well before 1592.

_A Looking Glass for London and England, c. 1590_

_With_ Robert Greene (q.v.).

_Doubtful Plays_

Lodge’s hand has been sought in _An Alarum for London_, _Contention of York and Lancaster_, _George a Greene_, _Leire_, _Mucedorus_, _Selimus_, _Sir Thomas More_, _Troublesome Reign of King John_, and _Warning for Fair Women_ (cf. ch. xxiv), and in Greene’s _James IV_ and Shakespeare’s _Henry VI_.

JANE, LADY LUMLEY (_c._ 1537–77).

Jane, daughter of Henry Fitzalan, 12th Earl of Arundel, married John, Lord Lumley, _c._ 1549.

_Iphigenia_ (?)

[_MS._] _Brit. Mus. MS. Reg._ 15 A. ix, ‘The doinge of my Lady Lumley dowghter to my L. Therle of Arundell ... [f. 63] The Tragedie of Euripides called Iphigeneia translated out of Greake into Englisshe.’

_Editions_ by H. H. Child (1909, _M. S. R._) and G. Becker (1910, _Jahrbuch_, xlvi. 28).

The translation is from the _Iphigenia in Aulis_. It is likely to be pre-Elizabethan, but I include it here, as it is not noticed in _The Mediaeval Stage_.

THOMAS LUPTON (?-?).

Several miscellaneous works by Lupton appeared during 1572–84. He may be the ‘Mr. Lupton’ whom the Corporation of Worcester paid during the progress of 1575 (Nichols, i. 549) ‘for his paynes for and in devising [and] instructing the children in their speeches on the too Stages’.

_All For Money. 1558 < > 77_

_S. R._ 1577, Nov. 25. ‘An Enterlude intituled all for money.’ _Roger Ward_ (Arber, ii. 321).

1578. A Moral and Pitieful Comedie, Intituled, All for Money. Plainly representing the manners of men, and fashion of the world noweadayes. Compiled by T. Lupton. _Roger Ward and Richard Mundee._

_Editions_ by J. O. Halliwell (1851, _Literature of Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries_), E. Vogel (1904, _Jahrbuch_, xl. 129), J. S. Farmer (1910, _T. F. T._).

A final prayer for the Queen who ‘hath begon godly’ suggests an earlier date than that of Lupton’s other recorded work. Fleay, ii. 56, would identify the play with _The Devil and Dives_ named in the anonymous _Histriomastix_, but Dives only appears once, and not with Satan.

JOHN LYLY (1554?-1606).

Lyly was of a gentle Hampshire family, the grandson of William, high master of St. Paul’s grammar school, and son of Peter, a diocesan official at Canterbury, where he was probably born some seventeen years before 8 Oct. 1571, when he matriculated from Magdalen College, Oxford. He took his B.A. in 1573 and his M.A. in 1575, after a vain attempt in 1574 to secure a fellowship through the influence of Burghley. He went to London and dwelt in the Savoy. By 1578, when he published _Euphues_, _The Anatomy of Wit_, he was apparently in the service of Lord Delawarr, and by 1580 in that of Burghley’s son-in-law, Edward, Earl of Oxford. It is a pleasing conjecture that he may have been the author of ‘the two prose books played at the Belsavage, where you shall find never a word without wit, never a line without pith, never a letter placed in vain’, thus praised in _The Schoole of Abuse_ (1579) of his fellow euphuist, Stephen Gosson. He incurred the enmity of Gabriel Harvey by suggesting to Oxford that he was aimed at in the _Speculum Tuscanismi_ of Harvey’s _Three Letters_ (1580). In 1582 he had himself incurred Oxford’s displeasure, but the trouble was surmounted, and about 1584 he held leases in the Blackfriars (cf. ch. xvii), one at least of which he obtained through Oxford, for the purposes of a theatrical speculation, in the course of which he took to Court a company which bore Oxford’s name, but was probably made up of boys from the Chapel and St. Paul’s choirs. Presumably the speculation failed, for in June 1584 Lyly, who on 22 Nov. 1583 had married Beatrice Browne of Mexborough, Yorks., was in prison for debt, whence he was probably relieved by a gift from Oxford, in reward for his service, of a rent-charge which he sold for £250. His connexion with the stage was not, however, over, for he continued to write for the Paul’s boys until they stopped playing about 1591. Harvey calls Lyly the ‘Vicemaster of Paules and the Foolemaster of the Theatre’. From this it has been inferred that he held an ushership at the Paul’s choir school. But ‘vice’ is a common synonym for ‘fool’ and ‘vicemaster’, like ‘foolemaster’, probably only means ‘playwright’. Nothing written by Lyly for the Theater in particular or for any adult stage is known to exist, but he seems to have taken part with Nashe in the retorts of orthodoxy during 1589 and 1590 to the Martin Marprelate pamphleteers, probably writing the tract called _Pappe with a Hatchett_ (1589), and he may have been responsible for some of the plays which certainly formed an element in that retort. Lyly’s ambitions were in the direction of courtly rather than of academic preferment. He seems to have had some promise of favour from Elizabeth about 1585 and to have been more definitely ‘entertained her servant’ as Esquire of the Body, probably ‘extraordinary’, in or about 1588, with a hint to ‘aim his courses at the Revels’, doubtless at the reversion of the Mastership, then held by Edmund Tilney. Mr. R. W. Bond bases many conjectures about Lyly’s career on a theory that he actually held the post of Clerk Comptroller in the Revels Office, but the known history of the post (cf. ch. iii) makes this impossible. From 1596 he is found living in the parish of St. Bartholomew the Less. He seems to have ceased writing plays for some while in 1590, and may be the ‘pleasant Willy’ spoken of as ‘dead of late’ and sitting ‘in idle Cell’ in Spenser’s _Tears of the Muses_ (1591), although it is possible that Tarlton (q.v.) is intended. But _The Woman in the Moon_ at least is of later date, and it is possible that both the Chapel and the Paul’s boys were again acting his old plays by the end of the century. In 1595 he was lamenting the overthrow of his fortunes, and by about 1597 the reversion of the Mastership of the Revels had been definitely promised to George Buck. There exist several letters written by Lyly to the Queen and to Sir Robert Cecil between 1597 and 1601, in which he complains bitterly of the wrong done him. Later letters of 1603 and 1605 suggest that at last he had obtained his reward, possibly something out of the Essex forfeitures for which he was asking in 1601. In any case, he did not live to enjoy it long, as the register of St. Bartholomew’s the Less records his burial on 30 Nov. 1606.

_Collections_

_S. R._ 1628, Jan. 9 (by order of a full court). ‘Sixe playes of Peter Lillyes to be printed in one volume ... viz^t. Campaste, Sapho, and Phao. Galathea: Endimion Midas and Mother Bomby.’ _Blount_ (Arber, iv. 192). [‘Peter’ is due to a confusion with Lyly’s brother, a chaplain of the Savoy, who had acted as licenser for the press.]

1632. Sixe Court Comedies. Often Presented and Acted before Queene Elizabeth, by the Children of her Maiesties Chappell, and the Children of Paules. Written by the onely Rare Poet of that Time. The Witie, Comicall, Facetiously-Quicke and vnparalelld: Iohn Lilly, Master of Arts. _William Stansby for Edward Blount._ [Epistles to Viscount Lumley and to the Reader, both signed ‘Ed. Blount’. This edition adds many songs not in the Qq, and W. W. Greg (_M. L. R._ i. 43) argues that they are not by Lyly, but mid-seventeenth-century work and possibly by Dekker.]