Chapter XXIII: Part 1: with Heywood, Dec. 1602–Jan. 1603; one payment had been made to (11)

McKerrow, too, has given the best account (v. 65) of Nashe’s quarrel with Gabriel and Richard Harvey. This arose out of his association as an anti-Martinist with Lyly, between whom and Gabriel there was an ancient feud. It was carried on, in a vein of scurrilous personal raillery on both sides, from 1590 until it was suppressed as a public scandal in 1599. One of the charges against Nashe was his friendship with, and in the Harveian view aping of, Robert Greene, with whom, according to Gabriel’s _Four Letters_ (_Works_, i. 170), Nashe took part in the fatal banquet of pickled herrings and Rhenish which brought him to his end. Nashe repudiated the charge of imitation, and spoke of Greene in _Have With You to Saffron Walden_ (iii. 132), as ‘subscribing to mee in anything but plotting Plaies, wherein he was his crafts master’. Unless _Dido_ is early work, no play written by Nashe before Greene’s death on 3 Sept. 1592 is known to us. But he is pretty clearly the ‘young Iuuenall, that byting Satyrist, that lastly with mee together writ a Comedie’ of Greene’s posthumous _Groats-worth_ (cf. App. C, No. xlviii), and the tone of his own Defence of Plays in _Pierce Penilesse_ of 1592 (cf. App. C, No. xlvi) as compared with that of the _Menaphon_ epistle suggests that he had made his peace with the ‘taffata fooles’. His one extant unaided play belongs to the autumn of 1592, and was apparently for a private performance at Croydon. Internal evidence enables us to date in Aug.–Oct. 1596, and to ascribe to Nashe, in spite of the fact that his name at the foot is in a nineteenth-century writing, a letter to William Cotton (McKerrow, v. 192, from _Cott. MS. Julius C._ iii, f. 280) which shows that he was still writing for the stage and gives valuable evidence upon the theatrical crisis of that year (App. D, No. cv). To 1597 belongs the misadventure of _The Isle of Dogs_, which sent Nashe in flight to Great Yarmouth, and probably ended his dramatic career. He is mentioned as dead in C. Fitzgeffrey, _Affaniae_ (1601).

_Collections_

1883–5. A. B. Grosart, _The Complete Works of T. N._ 6 vols. (_Huth Library_).

1904–10. R. B. McKerrow, _The Works of T. N._ 5 vols.

PLAYS

_Summer’s Last Will and Testament. 1592_

_S. R._ 1600, Oct. 28 (Harsnett). ‘A booke called Sommers last Will and testament presented by William Sommers.’ _Burby and Walter Burre_ (Arber, iii. 175).

1600. A Pleasant Comedie, called Summers last will and Testament. Written by Thomas Nash. _Simon Stafford for Walter Burre._ [Induction, with Prologue and Epilogue.]

_Edition_ in Dodsley^{3–4} (1825–74).--_Dissertations_: B. Nicholson, _The Date of S. L. W. and T._ (_Athenaeum_, 10 Jan. 1891); F. G. Fleay _Queen Elizabeth, Croydon and the Drama_ (1898).

The play was intended for performance on the ‘tyle-stones’ and in the presence of a ‘Lord’, to whom there are several other references, in one of which he is ‘your Grace’ (ll. 17, 205, 208, 587, 795, 1897, 1925). There are also local references to ‘betweene this and Stretham’ (l. 202), to ‘Dubbers hill’ near Croydon (l. 621), to Croydon itself (ll. 1830, 1873), and to ‘forlorne’ Lambeth (l. 1879). The conclusion seems justified that ‘this lowe built house’ (l. 1884) was the palace of Archbishop Whitgift at Croydon.

There was a plague ‘in this latter end of summer’ (l. 80); which had been ‘brought in’ by the dog-days (l. 656), and had led to ‘want of terme’ and consequent ‘Cities harm’ in London (l. 1881). Summer accuses Sol of spiting Thames with a ‘naked channell’ (l. 545) and Sol lays it on the moon (l. 562):

in the yeare
Shee was eclipst, when that the Thames was bare.

Two passages refer to the Queen as on progress. Summer says (l. 125):

Haruest and age haue whit’ned my greene head:

* * * * *

This month haue I layne languishing a bed,
Looking eche hour to yeeld my life and throne;
And dyde I had in deed vnto the earth,
But that _Eliza_, Englands beauteous Queene,
On whom all seasons prosperously attend,
Forbad the execution of my fate,
Vntill her ioyfull progresse was expir’d.
For her doth Summer liue, and linger here.

And again, at the end of the play (l. 1841):

Vnto _Eliza_, that most sacred Dame,
Whom none but Saints and Angels ought to name,
All my faire dayes remaining I bequeath,
To waite vpon her till she be returnd.
Autumne, I charge thee, when that I am dead,
Be prest and seruiceable at her beck,
Present her with thy goodliest ripened fruites.

The plague and absence of term from London might fit either 1592 or 1593 (cf. App. E), but I agree with McKerrow, iv. 418, that the earlier year is indicated. In 1593 the plague did not begin in the dog-days, nor did Elizabeth go on progress. And it is on 6 Sept. 1592 that Stowe (1615), 764, records the emptying of Thames. I may add a small confirmatory point. Are not ‘the horses lately sworne to be stolne’ (l. 250) those stolen by Germans in the train of Count Mompelgard between Reading and Windsor and referred to in _Merry Wives_, IV. v. 78. The Count came to Windsor on 19 Aug. 1592 (Rye, xcix). Now I part company with Mr. McKerrow, who thinks that, although the play was written in 1592, it may have been revised for performance before Elizabeth in a later year, perhaps at her visit to Whitgift on 14 Aug. 1600. His reasons are three: (_a_) Sol’s reference to the Thames seems to date it in a year earlier than that in which he speaks; (_b_) the seasonal references suggest August, while Stowe’s date necessitates September at earliest, and the want of term points to October; (_c_) the references to Elizabeth imply her presence. I think there is something in (_a_), but not much, if the distinction between actual and dramatic time is kept in mind. As to (_b_), the tone of the references is surely to a summer prolonged beyond its natural expiration for Eliza’s benefit, well into autumn, and in such a year the fruits of autumn, which in this country are chiefly apples, will be on the trees until October. As to (_c_), I cannot find any evidence of the Queen’s presence at all. Surely she is on progress elsewhere, and due to ‘return’ in the future. I may add that Elizabeth was at Croydon in the spring of 1593, and that it would, therefore, have been odd to defer a revival for her benefit until another seven years had elapsed. The 1592 progress came to an end upon 9 Oct. and I should put the performance not long before. When Q_{1} of _Pierce Penilesse_ (S. R. 8 Aug. 1592) was issued, Nashe was kept by fear of infection ‘with my Lord in the Countrey’, and the misinterpretations of the pamphlet which he deprecates in the epistle to Q_{2} (McKerrow, i. 154) are hinted at in a very similar protest (l. 65) in the play.

The prologue is spoken by ‘the greate foole _Toy_’ (ll. 10, 1945), who would borrow a chain and fiddle from ‘my cousin Ned’ (l. 7), also called ‘Ned foole’ (l. 783). The epilogue is spoken (l. 1194) and the songs sung (ll. 117, 1871) by boys. Will Summer (l. 792) gives good advice to certain ‘deminitiue urchins’, who wait ‘on my Lords trencher’; but he might be speaking either to actors or to boys in the audience. The morris (l. 201) dances ‘for the credit of Wostershire’, where Whitgift had been bishop. The prompter was Dick Huntley (l. 14), and Vertumnus was acted by Harry Baker (l. 1567). There is a good deal of Latin in the text. On the whole, I think that the play was given by members of Whitgift’s household, which his biographer describes as ‘a little academy’. The prologue (l. 33) has ‘So fares it with vs nouices, that here betray our imperfections: we, afraid to looke on the imaginary serpent of Enuy, paynted in mens affections, haue ceased to tune any musike of mirth to your eares this twelue-month, thinking that, as it is the nature of the serpent to hisse, so childhood and ignorance would play the goslings, contemning and condemning what they vnderstood not’. This agrees curiously in date with the termination of the Paul’s plays. Whitgift might have entertained the Paul’s boys during the plague and strengthened them for a performance with members of his own household. But would they call themselves ‘nouices’?

_Dido, Queen of Carthage > 1593_

_With_ Marlowe (q.v.).

_Lost Plays_

_Terminus et non Terminus. 1586 < > 8_

_Vide supra._ McKerrow, v. 10, thinks that the name of Nashe’s alleged part may be a jest, and points out that the identification by Fleay, ii. 124, of the play, of which nothing more is known, with the ‘London Comedie’ of the _Cards_ referred to in Harington’s _Apology_ (cf. App. C, No. xlv) is improbable.

_The Isle of Dogs. 1597_

Meres, _Palladis Tamia_ (S. R. 7 Sept. 1598), writes:

‘As _Actaeon_ was wooried of his owne hounds: so is _Tom Nash_
of his _Isle of Dogs_. Dogges were the death of _Euripedes_,
but bee not disconsolate gallant young _Iuuenall_, _Linus_,
the sonne of _Apollo_ died the same death. Yet God forbid that
so braue a witte should so basely perish, thine are but paper
dogges, neither is thy banishment like _Ouids_, eternally to
conuerse with the barbarous _Getes_. Therefore comfort thy
selfe sweete _Tom_, with _Ciceros_ glorious return to Rome, &
with the counsel _Aeneas_ giues to his seabeaten soldiors.’

We learn something more from _Nashes Lenten Stuffe_ (S. R. 11 Jan. 1599), where he tells us that he is sequestered from the wonted means of his maintenance and exposed to attacks on his fame, through ‘the straunge turning of the Ile of Dogs from a commedie to a tragedie two summers past, with the troublesome stir which hapned aboute it’, and goes on to explain the ‘infortunate imperfit Embrion of my idle houres, the Ile of Dogs before mentioned ... was no sooner borne but I was glad to run from it’; which is what brought him to Yarmouth. In a marginal note he adds ‘An imperfit Embrion I may well call it, for I hauing begun but the induction and first act of it, the other foure acts without my consent, or the least guesse of my drift or scope, by the players were supplied, which bred both their trouble and mine to’ (McKerrow, iii. 153). Of this there is perhaps some confirmation in the list of writings on the cover of the _Northumberland MS._ which records the item, not now extant in the MS., ‘Ile of doges frmn^t by Thomas Nashe inferior plaiers’. This MS. contains work by Bacon (q.v.), and if the entry is not itself based on _Lenten Stuffe_, it may indicate that Bacon was professionally concerned in the proceedings to which the play gave rise. McKerrow, v. 31, points out that the evidence is against the suggestion in the _Trimming of Thomas Nashe_ (S. R. 11 Oct. 1597) that Nashe suffered imprisonment for the play. The Privy Council letter of 15 Aug. 1597 (cf. App. D, No. cxi) was no doubt intended to direct his apprehension, but, as I pointed out in _M. L. R._ iv. 410, 511, the actor and maker of plays referred to therein as actually in prison must have been Ben Jonson, who was released by the Council on 3 Oct. 1597 (cf. App. D, No. cxii). The connexion of Jonson (q.v.) with the _Isle of Dogs_ is noted in _Satiromastix_. With him the Council released Gabriel Spencer and Robert Shaw, and the inference is that the peccant company was Pembroke’s (q.v.) at the Swan on Bankside. The belief that it was the Admiral’s at the Rose only rests on certain forged interpolations by Collier in Henslowe’s diary. These are set out by Greg (_Henslowe_, i. xl). The only genuine mention of the affair in the diary is the provision noted in the memorandum of Borne’s agreement of 10 Aug. 1597 that his service is to begin ‘imediatly after this restraynt is recaled by the lordes of the counsell which restraynt is by the meanes of playinge the Ieylle of Dooges’ (_Henslowe_, i. 203). The restraint was ordered by the Privy Council on 28 July 1597 (App. D, No. cx), presumably soon after the offence, the nature of which is only vaguely described as the handling of ‘lewd matters’. Perhaps it is possible, at any rate in conjecture, to be more specific. By dogs we may take it that Nashe meant men. The idea was not new to him. In _Summer’s Last Will and Testament_ he makes Orion draw an elaborate parallel between dogs and men, at the end of which Will Summer says that he had not thought ‘the ship of fooles would haue stayde to take in fresh water at the Ile of dogges’ (l. 779). But there is nothing offensive to authority here. Nashe returns to the question of his indiscretion in more than one passage of _Lenten Stuffe_, and in particular has a diatribe (McKerrow, iii. 213) against lawyers who try to fish ‘a deepe politique state meaning’ out of what contains no such thing. ‘Talke I of a beare, O, it is such a man that emblazons him in his armes, or of a woolfe, a fox, or a camelion, any lording whom they do not affect it is meant by.’ Apparently Nashe was accused of satirizing some nobleman. But this was not the only point of attack. ‘Out steps me an infant squib of the Innes of Court ... and he, to approue hymselfe an extrauagant statesman, catcheth hold of a rush, and absolutely concludeth, it is meant of the Emperor of Ruscia, and that it will vtterly marre the traffike into that country if all the Pamphlets bee not called in and suppressed, wherein that libelling word is mentioned.’ I do not suppose that Nashe had literally called the Emperor of Russia a rush in _The Isle of Dogs_, but it is quite possible that he, or Ben Jonson, had called the King of Poland a pole. On 23 July 1597, just five days before the trouble, a Polish ambassador had made representations in an audience with Elizabeth, apparently about the question, vexed in the sixteenth as in the twentieth century, of contraband in neutral vessels, and she, scouring up her rusty old Latin for the purpose, had answered him in very round terms. The matter, to which there are several allusions in the Cecilian correspondence (Wright, _Eliz._ ii. 478, 481, 485), gave some trouble, and any mention of it on the public stage might well have been resented. A letter of Robert Beale in 1592 (McKerrow, v. 142) shows that the criticisms of Nashe’s _Pierce Penilesse_ had similarly been due to his attack upon the Danes, with which country the diplomatic issues were much the same as with Poland. In _Hatfield MSS._ vii. 343 is a letter of 10 Aug. 1597 to Robert Cecil from Richard (misdescribed in the Calendar as Robert) Topcliffe, recommending an unnamed bearer as ‘the first man that discovered to me that seditious play called The Isle of Dogs’.

_Doubtful Play_

Nashe has been suggested as a contributor to _A Knack to Know a Knave_ (cf. ch. xxiv).

THOMAS NELSON.

The pageant-writer is probably identical with the stationer of the same name, who is traceable in London during 1580–92 (McKerrow, 198).

_Allot Pageant. 29 Oct. 1590_

1590. The Deuice of the Pageant: Set forth by the Worshipfull Companie of the Fishmongers, for the right honourable Iohn Allot: established Lord Maior of London, and Maior of the Staple for this present Yeere of our Lord 1590. By T. Nelson. _No imprint._

Speeches by the riders on the Merman and the Unicorn, and by Fame, the Peace of England, Wisdom, Policy, God’s Truth, Plenty, Loyalty and Concord, Ambition, Commonwealth, Science and Labour, Richard the Second, Jack Straw, and Commonwealth again, representing Sir William Walworth, who was evidently the chief subject of the pageant.

_Edition_ by W. C. Hazlitt (1886, _Antiquary_, xiii. 54).--_Dissertation_: R. Withington, _The Lord Mayor’s Show for 1590_ (1918, _M.L.N._ xxxiii. 8).

ALEXANDER NEVILLE (1544–1614).

Translator of Seneca (q.v.).

THOMAS NEWTON (_c._ 1542–1607).

Translator of Seneca (q.v.).

RICHARD NICCOLS (1584–1616?).

This writer of various poetical works and reviser in 1610 of _The Mirror for Magistrates_ may have been the writer intended by the S. R. entry to Edward Blount on 15 Feb. 1612 of ‘A tragedye called, The Twynnes tragedye, written by Niccolls’ (Arber, iii. 478). No copy is known, and it is arbitrary of Fleay, ii. 170, to ‘suspect’ a revival of it in William Rider’s _The Twins_ (1655), which had been played at Salisbury Court.

HENRY NOEL (_ob._ 1597).

A younger son of Andrew Noel of Dalby on the Wolds, Leicestershire, whose personal gifts and extravagance enabled him to make a considerable figure as a Gentleman Pensioner at Court. He may have been a fellow author with Robert Wilmot (q.v.) of _Gismond of Salerne_, although he has not been definitely traced as a member of the Inner Temple, by whom the play was produced.

THOMAS NORTON (1532–84).

Norton was born in London and educated at Cambridge and the Inner Temple. In 1571 he became Remembrancer of the City of London, and also sat in Parliament for London. Apparently he is distinct from the Thomas Norton who acted from 1560 as counsel to the Stationers’ Company. He took part in theological controversy as a Calvinist, and was opposed to the public stage (cf. App. D, No. xxxi). In 1583 he escaped with some difficulty from a charge of treason. His first wife, Margaret, was daughter, and his second, Alice, niece of Cranmer.

_Ferrex and Porrex_, or _Gorboduc_. _28 Jan. 1562_

_S. R._ 1565–6. ‘A Tragdie of Gorboduc where iij actes were Wretten by Thomas Norton and the laste by Thomas Sackvyle, &c.’ _William Greffeth_ (Arber, i. 296).

1565, Sept. 22. The Tragedie of Gorboduc, Where of three Actes were wrytten by Thomas Nortone, and the two laste by Thomas Sackuyle. Sett forthe as the same was shewed before the Quenes most excellent Maiestie, in her highnes Court of Whitehall, the .xviij. day of Ianuary, Anno Domini .1561. By the Gentlemen of Thynner Temple in London. _William Griffith._ [Argument; Dumb-Shows.]

N.D. [_c._ 1571] The Tragidie of Ferrex and Porrex, set forth without addition or alteration but altogether as the same was shewed on stage before the Queenes Maiestie, about nine yeares past, _viz._, the xviij day of Ianuarie 1561, by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple. Seen and allowed, &c. _John Day._ [Epistle by ‘The P. to the Reader’.]

1590. _Edward Allde for John Perrin._ [Part of _The Serpent of Division_.]

_Editions_ in Dodsley^{1–3} (1744–1825), and by Hawkins (1773, _O. E. D._ ii), W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ i), W. D. Cooper (1847, _Sh. Soc._), R. W. Sackville-West, _Works of Sackville_ (1859), L. T. Smith (1883), J. M. Manly (1897, _Spec._ ii. 211), J. S. Farmer (1908, _T. F. T._), J. W. Cunliffe and H. A. Watt (1912, _E. E. C. T._).--_Dissertations_: E. Köppel (_E. S._ xvi. 357); Koch, _F. und P._ (1881, _Halle diss._); H. A. Watt, _G.; or F. and P._ (1910, _Wisconsin Univ. Bulletin_, 351).

Day’s epistle says that the play was ‘furniture of part of the grand Christmasse in the Inner Temple first written about nine yeares agoe by the right honourable Thomas now Lorde Buckherst, and by T. Norton, and after shewed before her Maiestie, and neuer intended by the authors therof to be published’. But one W. G. printed it in their absence, ‘getting a copie therof at some yongmans hand that lacked a litle money and much discretion’. Machyn, 275, records on 18 Jan. 1561 ‘a play in the quen hall at Westmynster by the gentyll-men of the Tempull, and after a grett maske, for ther was a grett skaffold in the hall, with grett tryhumpe as has bene sene; and the morow after the skaffold was taken done’. Fleay, ii. 174, doubts Norton’s participation--Heaven knows why.

Malone (_Var._ iii. 32) cites the unreliable Chetwood for a performance of _Gorboduc_ at Dublin Castle in 1601.

For the Inner Temple Christmas of 1561, at which Robert Dudley was constable-marshal and Christopher Hatton master of the game, cf. _Mediaeval Stage_, i. 415. It was presumably at the mask of 18 Jan. that Hatton danced his way into Elizabeth’s heart.

THOMAS NUCE (_ob._ 1617).

Translator of Seneca (q.v.).

OWEN AP JOHN (_c._ 1600).

A late sixteenth-century MS. (_Peniarth MS._ 65 = _Hengwrt MS._ 358) of _The Oration of Gwgan and Poetry_ is calendared as his in _Welsh MSS._ (_Hist. MSS. Comm._), i. 2. 454, and said to be ‘in the form of interludes’. He may be merely the scribe.

PHILIP PARSONS (1594–1653).

Fellow of St. John’s, Oxford, and later Principal of Hart Hall (_D. N. B._), and author of the academic _Atalanta_ (cf. App. K).

MERCURIUS (?) PATEN (_c._ 1575).

Gascoigne names a ‘M. [Mr.] Paten’ as a contributor to the Kenilworth entertainment (cf. ch. xxiv, C.). He might be the Patten described in _D. N. B._ as rector of Stoke Newington (but not traceable in Hennessy) and author of an anonymous _Calendars of Scripture_ (1575). But I think he is more likely to have been Mercurius, son of William Patten, teller of the exchequer and lord of the manor of Stoke Newington, who matriculated at Trinity, Cambridge, in 1567 and was Blue Mantle pursuivant in 1603 (_Hist. of Stoke Newington_ in _Bibl. Top. Brit._ ii; _Admissions to T. C. C._ ii. 70).

GEORGE PEELE (_c._ 1557–96).

As the son of James Peele, clerk of Christ’s Hospital and himself a maker of pageants (vol. i, p. 136; _Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 166), George entered the grammar school in 1565, proceeded thence to Broadgates Hall, Oxford, in 1571, and became a student of Christ Church in 1574, taking his B.A. in 1577 and his M.A. in 1579. In Sept. 1579 the court of Christ’s Hospital required James Peele ‘to discharge His howse of his sonne George Peele and all other his howsold which have bene chargable to him’. This perhaps explains why George prolonged his residence at Oxford until 1581. In that year he came to London, and about the same time married. His wife’s business affairs brought him back to Oxford in 1583 and in a deposition of 29 March he describes himself as aged 25. During this visit he superintended the performance before Alasco at Christ Church on 11 and 12 June of the _Rivales_ and _Dido_ of William Gager, who bears testimony to Peele’s reputation as wit and poet in two sets of Latin verses _In Iphigeniam Georgii Peeli Anglicanis versibus redditam_ (Boas, 166,180). Presumably the rest of his life was spent in London, and its wit and accompanying riot find some record in _The Merry Conceited Jests of George Peele_ (S. R. 14 Dec. 1605: text in Bullen and in Hazlitt, _Jest Books_, ii. 261, and Hindley, i), although this is much contaminated with traditional matter from earlier jest books. It provided material for the anonymous play of _The Puritan_ (1607), in which Peele appeared as George Pyeboard. His fame as a dramatist is thus acknowledged in Nashe’s epistle to Greene’s _Menaphon_ (1589):

‘For the last, though not the least of them all, I dare commend
him to all that know him, as the chief supporter of pleasance
now living, the Atlas of poetry, and _primus verborum artifex_;
whose first increase, the Arraignment of Paris, might plead to
your opinions his pregnant dexterity of wit and manifold variety
of invention, wherein (_me iudice_) he goeth a step beyond all
that write.’

Some have thought that Peele is the

Palin, worthy of great praise,
Albe he envy at my rustic quill,

of Spenser’s _Colin Clout’s Come Home Again_ (1591). It seems difficult to accept the suggestions of Sarrazin that he was the original both of Falstaff and of Yorick. An allusion in a letter to Edward Alleyn (cf. ch. xv) has unjustifiably been interpreted as implying that Peele was actor as well as playwright, and Collier accordingly included his name in a forged list of housekeepers at an imaginary Blackfriars theatre of 1589 (cf. vol. ii, p. 108). He was, however, clearly one of the three of his ‘quondam acquaintance’ to whom Greene (q.v.) addressed the attack upon players in his _Groats-worth of Wit_ (1592). In 1596 Peele after ‘long sickness’ sent a begging letter by his daughter to Lord Burghley, with a copy of his _Tale of Troy_. He was buried as a ‘householder’ at St. James’s, Clerkenwell, on 9 Nov. 1596 (_Harl. Soc. Registers_, xvii. 58), having died, according to Meres’s _Palladis Tamia_, ‘by the pox’. He can, therefore, hardly be the Peleus of _Birth of Hercules_ (1597 <).

_Collections_

1828–39. A. Dyce. 3 vols.

1861, 1879. A. Dyce. 1 vol. [With Greene.]

1888. A. H. Bullen. 2 vols.

_Dissertations_: R. Lämmerhirt, _G. P. Untersuchungen über sein Leben und seine Werke_ (1882); L. Kellner, _Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamides_ (1889, _E. S._ xiii. 187); E. Penner, _Metrische Untersuchungen zu P._ (1890, _Archiv_, lxxxv. 269); A. R. Bayley, _P. as a Dramatic Artist_ (_Oxford Point of View_, 15 Feb. 1903); G. C. Odell, _P. as a Dramatist_ (1903, _Bibliographer_, ii); E. Landsberg, _Der Stil in P.’s sicheren und zweifelhaften dramatischen Werken_ (1910, _Breslau diss._); G. Sarrazin, _Zur Biographie und Charakteristik von G. P._ (1910, _Archiv_, cxxiv. 65); P. H. Cheffaud, _G. P._ (1913).

PLAYS

_The Arraignment of Paris, c. 1584_

1584. The Araygnement of Paris A Pastorall. Presented before the Queenes Maiestie, by the Children of her Chappell. _Henry Marsh._ [Prologue and Epilogue.]

_Editions_ by O. Smeaton (1905, _T. D._) and H. H. Child (1910, _M. S. R._).--_Dissertation_: F. E. Schelling, _The Source of P.’s A. of P._ (1893, _M. L. N._ viii. 206).

Fleay, ii. 152, assigns the play to 1581 on the assumption that the Chapel stopped playing in 1582. But they went on to 1584. Nashe’s allusion (_vide supra_) and the ascription of passages from the play to ‘Geo. Peele’ in _England’s Helicon_ (1600) fix the authorship.

_The Battle of Alcazar, c. 1589_

[_MS._] _Addl. MS._ 10449, ‘The Plott of the Battell of Alcazar’. [Probably from Dulwich. The fragmentary text is given by Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 138, and a facsimile by Halliwell, _The Theatre Plats of Three Old English Dramas_ (1860).]

1594. The Battell of Alcazar, fought in Barbarie, betweene Sebastian king of Portugall, and Abdelmelec king of Marocco. With the death of Captaine Stukeley. As it was sundrie times plaid by the Lord high Admirall his seruants. _Edward Allde for Richard Bankworth_. [Prologue by ‘the Presenter’ and dumb-shows.]

_Edition_ by W. W. Greg (1907, _M. S. R._).

Interest in Sebastian was aroused in 1589 by the expedition of Norris and Drake to set Don Antonio on the throne of Portugal. This started on 18 April, and Peele wrote _A Farewell_, in which is a reference to this amongst other plays (l. 20, ed. Bullen, ii. 238):

Bid theatres and proud tragedians,
Bid Mahomet’s Poo and mighty Tamburlaine,
King Charlemagne, Tom Stukeley and the rest,
Adieu.

There are some possible but not very clear allusions to the Armada in the play. From 21 Feb. 1592 to 20 Jan. 1593 Strange’s men played fourteen times for Henslowe _Muly Mollocco_, by which this play, in which Abdelmelec is also called Muly Mollocco, is probably meant (Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 149). The ‘plot’ must belong to a later revival by the Admiral’s, datable, since both Alleyn and Shaw acted in it, either in Dec. 1597 or in 1600–2 (cf. ch. xiii).

The authorship has been assigned to Peele, both on stylistic evidence and because ll. 467–72 appear over his name in R. A.’s _England’s Parnassus_ (1600), but R. A. has an error in at least one of his ascriptions to Peele, and he ascribes l. 49 of this play to Dekker (Crawford, _E. P._ xxxv. 398, 474; _M. S. C._ i. 101).

_Edward I > 1593_

_S. R._ 1593, Oct. 8. ‘An enterlude entituled the Chronicle of Kinge Edward the firste surnamed Longeshank with his Retourne out of the Holye Lande, with the lyfe of Leublen Rebell in Wales with the sinkinge of Quene Elinour.’ _Abel Jeffes_ (Arber, ii. 637).

1593. The Famous Chronicle of king Edwarde the first, sirnamed Edwarde Longshankes, with his returne from the holy land. Also the life of Lleuellen, rebell in Wales. Lastly, the sinking of Queene Elinor, who sunck at Charingcrosse, and rose againe at Potters-hith now named Queenehith. _Abel Jeffes, sold by William Barley._ [At end, ‘Yours. By George Peele, Maister of Artes in Oxenford’.]

1599. _W. White._

_Edition_ by W. W. Greg (1911, _M. S. R._).--_Dissertations_: W. Thieme, _P.’s Ed. I und seine Quellen_ (1903, _Halle diss._); E. Kronenberg, _G. P.’s Ed. I_ (1903, _Jena diss._).

Fleay, ii. 157, makes the date 1590–1, on the ground that lines are quoted from _Polyhymnia_ (1590). A theory that Shakespeare acted in the play is founded on ll. 759–62, where after Baliol’s coronation Elinor says:

Now, brave John Baliol, Lord of Galloway
And King of Scots, shine with thy golden head!
Shake thy spears, in honour of his [i.e. Edward’s] name,
Under whose royalty thou wearest the same.

This is not very convincing.

A play called _Longshank, Longshanks_, and _Prince Longshank_ was played fourteen times by the Admiral’s, from 29 Aug. 1595 to 14 July 1596. It is marked ‘ne’, and unless there had been substantial revision, can hardly be Peele’s play. ‘Longe-shanckes sewte’ is in the Admiral’s inventory of 10 March 1598. On 8 Aug. 1602 Alleyn sold the book of the play to the Admiral’s with another for £4. (Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 176; _Henslowe Papers_, 113.)

_David and Bethsabe > 1594_

_S. R._ 1594, May 14. ‘A booke called the book of David and Bethsaba.’ _Adam Islip_ (Arber, ii. 649). [Islip’s name is cancelled and Edward White’s substituted.]

1599. The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe. With the Tragedie of Absalon. As it hath ben divers times plaied on the stage. Written by George Peele. _Adam Islip._ [Prologue.]

_Editions_ by T. Hawkins (1773, _O. E. D._ ii), J. M. Manly (1897, _Specimens_, ii. 419), and W. W. Greg (1912, _M. S. R._).--_Dissertations_: B. Neitzel (1904, _Halle diss._); M. Dannenberg, _Die Verwendung des biblischen Stoffes von David und Bathseba im englischen Drama_ (1905, _Königsberg diss._).

Fleay, ii. 153, dates the play _c._ 1588 on the ground of some not very plausible political allusions. The text as it stands looks like a boildown of a piece, perhaps of a neo-miracle type, written in three ‘discourses’. It had choruses, of which two only are preserved. One is ll. 572–95 (at end of sc. iv of _M. S. R._ ed.). The other (ll. 1646–58; _M. S. R._ sc. xv) headed ‘Chorus 5’, contains the statement:

this storie lends vs other store,
To make a third discourse of Dauids life,

and is followed by a misplaced fragment of a speech by Absalon.

In Oct. 1602 Henslowe (ii. 232) laid out money for Worcester’s on poles and workmanship ‘for to hange Absolome’; but we need not assume a revival of Peele’s play.

_The Old Wive’s Tale. 1591 < > 4_

_S. R._ 1595, Apr. 16. ‘A booke or interlude intituled a pleasant Conceipte called the owlde wifes tale.’ _Ralph Hancock_ (Arber, ii. 296).

1595. The Old Wiues Tale. A pleasant conceited Comedie, played by the Queenes Maiesties players. Written by G. P. _John Danter, sold by Ralph Hancock and John Hardie._

_Editions_ by F. B. Gummere (1903, _R. E. C._), W. W. Greg (1908, _M. S. R._), W. A. Neilson (1911, _C. E. D._), F. R. Cady (1916).--_Dissertation_: H. Dutz, _Der Dank des Tödten in der englischen Literatur_ (1894).

The Queen’s men had presumably produced the play by 1594, when they left London. Peele borrowed some lines and the name Sacrapant from Greene’s _Orlando Furioso_ (1591). The hexameters of Huanebango are a burlesque of Gabriel Harvey.

_Lost Plays_

_Iphigenia. c. 1579_

A translation of one of the two plays of Euripides, probably written at Oxford, is only known by some laudatory verses of William Gager, _In Iphigeniam Georgii Peeli Anglicanis versibus redditam_, printed by Bullen, i. xvii.

_Hunting of Cupid > 1591_

_S. R._ 1591, July 26 (Bp. of London). ‘A booke intituled the Huntinge of Cupid wrytten by George Peele, Master of Artes of Oxeford. Provyded alwayes that yf yt be hurtfull to any other Copye before lycenced, then this to be voyde.’ _Richard Jones_ (Arber, ii. 591).

Probably the play--I suppose it was a play--was printed, as Drummond of Hawthornden includes jottings from ‘The Huntinge of Cupid by George Peele of Oxford. Pastoral’ amongst others from ‘Bookes red anno 1609 be me’, and thereby enables us to identify extracts assigned to Peele in _England’s Parnassus_ (1600) and _England’s Helicon_ (1600) as from the same source. The fragments are all carefully collected by W. W. Greg in _M. S. C._ i. 307.

_The Turkish Mahomet and Hiren the Fair Greek > 1594_

The _Merry Conceited Jests_ (Bullen, ii. 394) gives this as the title of a ‘famous play’ of Peele’s. Conceivably it, rather than Greene’s _Alphonsus_ (q.v.), may be the ‘Mahomet’s Poo’ of Peele’s _Farewell_ of 1589 (_vide supra_, s.v. _Battle of Alcazar_). An Admiral’s inventory of 10 March 1598 includes ‘owld Mahemetes head’. The Admiral’s had played _Mahomet_ for Henslowe from 16 Aug. 1594 to 5 Feb. 1595, and a play called _The Love of a Grecian Lady_ or _The Grecian Comedy_ from 5 Oct. 1594 to 10 Oct. 1595. In Aug. 1601 Henslowe bought _Mahemett_ from Alleyn, and incurred other expenses on the play for the Admiral’s (Henslowe, ii. 167; _Henslowe Papers_, 116). Possibly all the three titles of 1594–5 stand for Peele’s play. Jacob Ayrer wrote a play on the siege of Constantinople and the loves of Mahomet and Irene. This may have had some relation on the one hand to Peele’s, and on the other to a play of the siege of Constantinople used by Spencer (cf. ch. xiv) in Germany during 1612–14 (Herz, 73). Pistol’s ‘Have we not Hiren here?’ (_2 Hen. IV_, II. iv. 173) is doubtless from the play.

_The Knight of Rhodes_

This also is described in the _Merry Jests_ (cf. ch. xxiv, s.v. _Soliman and Perseda_).

_Doubtful Plays_

Peele’s hand has been sought in nearly every masterless play of his epoch: _Alphonsus of Germany_, _Captain Thomas Stukeley_, _Clyomon and Clamydes_, _Contention of York and Lancaster_, _George a Greene_, _Henry VI_, _Histriomastix_, _Jack Straw_, _Troublesome Reign of King John_, _Knack to Know a Knave_, _Leire_, _Locrine_, _Mucedorus_, _Soliman and Perseda_, _Taming of A Shrew_, _True Tragedy of Richard III_, _Wily Beguiled_, _Wisdom of Dr. Dodipoll_ (cf. ch. xxiv).

ENTERTAINMENTS

_Dixie Pageant. 29 Oct. 1585_

1585. The Device of the Pageant borne before Woolstone Dixi Lord Maior of the Citie of London. An. 1585. October 29. _Edward Allde._ [At end, ‘Done by George Peele, Master of Arts in Oxford’.]

_Editions_ in Nichols, _Eliz._ (1823), ii. 446, and F. W. Fairholt, _Lord Mayor’s Pageants_ (1843, _Percy Soc._ xxxviii).

_Polyhymnia. 17 Nov. 1590_

See s.v. Lee.

_Descensus Astreae. 29 Oct. 1591_

1591. Descensus Astreae. The Deuice of a Pageant, borne before M. William Web, Lord Maior of the Citie of London on the day he tooke his oath; beeing the 29. of October. 1591. Wherevnto is annexed A Speech deliuered by one clad like a Sea Nymph, who presented a Pinesse on the water brauely rigd and mand, to the Lord Maior, at the time he tooke Barge to go to Westminster. Done by G. Peele Maister of Arts in Oxford. _For William Wright._

_Edition_ in F. W. Fairholt, _Lord Mayor’s Pageants_ (1843, _Percy Soc._ xxxviii).

_Anglorum Feriae. 1595_

[_MS._] _Brit. Mus. Addl. MS._ 21432 (autograph). ‘Anglorum Feriae, Englandes Hollydayes, celebrated the 17th of Novemb. last, 1595, beginninge happyly the 38 yeare of the raigne of our soveraigne ladie Queene Elizabeth. By George Peele M^r of Arte in Oxforde.’

_S. R._ 1595, Nov. 18. ‘A newe Ballad of the honorable order of the Runnynge at Tilt at Whitehall the 17. of November in the 38 yere of her maiesties Reign.’ _John Danter_ (Arber, iii. 53). [This is not necessarily Peele’s poem.]

_Edition_ by R. Fitch (n.d. _c._ 1830).

This is a blank-verse description of tilting, like _Polyhymnia_; on the occasion, cf. s.v. Bacon.

_Lost Entertainment. 1588_

_S. R._ 1588, Oct. 28. ‘Entred for his copie vppon Condicon that it maye be lycenced, ye device of the Pageant borne before the Righte honorable Martyn Calthrop lorde maiour of the Cytie of London the 29th daie of October 1588 George Peele the Authour.’ _Richard Jones_ (Arber, ii. 504).

In the _Merry Conceited Jests_ it is said that Peele had ‘all the oversight of the pageants’ (Bullen, ii. 381).

_Doubtful Entertainment_

For the ascription to Peele of a Theobalds entertainment in 1591, see s.v. Cecil.

JOHN PENRUDDOCK (_c._ 1588).

The Master ‘Penroodocke’, who was one of the directors for the _Misfortunes of Arthur_ of Thomas Hughes (q.v.) in 1588, was presumably John Penruddock, one of the readers of Gray’s Inn in 1590, and the John who was admitted to the inn in 1562 (J. Foster, _Admissions to Gray’s Inn_).

WILLIAM PERCY (1575–1648).

Percy was third son of Henry Percy, eighth Earl of Northumberland, and educated at Gloucester Hall, Oxford. He was a friend of Barnabe Barnes, and himself published _Sonnets to the Fairest Coelia_ (1594). His life is obscure, but in 1638 he was living in Oxford and ‘drinking nothing but ale’ (_Strafford Letters_, ii. 166), and here he died in 1648.

PLAYS

[_MS._] Autograph formerly in collection of the Duke of Devonshire, with t.p. ‘Comædyes and Pastoralls ... By W. P. Esq.... Exscriptum Anno Salutis 1647’. [Contains, in addition to the two plays printed in 1824, the following:

_Arabia Sitiens, or A Dream of a Dry Year_ (1601).
_The Aphrodysial, or Sea Feast_ (1602).
_Cupid’s Sacrifice, or a Country’s Tragedy in Vacuniam_ (1602).
_Necromantes, or The Two Supposed Heads_ (1602).]

[_Edition_] 1824. The Cuck-Queanes and Cuckolds Errants or The Bearing down the Inne. A Comædye. The Faery Pastorall, or Forrest of Elves. By W. P. Esq. (_Roxburghe Club_). [Preface by [Joseph] H[aslewood].]--_Dissertations_: C. Grabau, _Zur englischen Bühne um 1600_ (1902, _Jahrbuch_, xxxviii. 230); V. Albright, _P.’s Plays as Proof of the Elizabethan Stage_ (1913, _M. P._ xi. 237); G. F. Reynolds, _W. P. and his Plays_ (1914, _M. P._ xii. 241).

Percy’s authorship appears to be fixed by a correspondence between an epigram in the MS. to Charles Fitzgeffrey with one _Ad Gulielmum Percium_ in _Fitzgeoffridi Affaniae_ (1601), sig. D 2. 6.

_The Cuck-Queanes and Cuckolds Errants_ is dated 1601 and _The Faery Pastorall_ 1603. The other plays are unprinted and practically unknown, although Reynolds gives some account of _The Aphrodysial._ There are elaborate stage-directions, which contain several references to Paul’s, for which the plays, whether in fact acted or not, were evidently intended, as is shown by an author’s note appended to the manuscript (cf. ch. xii, s.v. Paul’s).

I feel some doubt as to the original date of these plays. It seems to me just conceivable that they were originally produced by the Paul’s boys before 1590, and revised by Percy after 1599 in hopes of a revival. Some of the s.ds. are descriptive in the past tense (cf. ch. xxii), which suggests actual production. The action of _C. and C. Errant_ is during the time of the Armada, but the composition must be later than the death of Tarlton, as his ghost prologizes. Here the author notes, ‘Rather to be omitted if for Powles, and another Prologue for him to be brought in Place’. _Faery Pastoral_ uses (p. 97) the date ‘1647’; it is in fairy time, but points to some revision when the MS. was written. There are alternative final scenes, with the note, ‘Be this the foresayd for Powles, For Actors see the Direction at later end of this Pastorall, which is separate by itself, Extra Olens, as they say’. Similarly in _Aphrodysial_ a direction for beards is noted ‘Thus for Actors; for Powles without’, and another s.d. is ‘Chambers (noise supposd for Powles) For Actors’. A reference to ‘a showre of Rose-water and confits, as was acted in Christ Church in Oxford, in Dido and Aeneas’ is a reminiscence of Gager’s play of 12 June 1583, and again makes a seventeenth-century date seem odd.

PETER (?) PETT (_c._ 1600).

Henslowe’s diary records a payment of £6 on 17 May 1600 for the Admiral’s ‘to pay Will: Haulton [Haughton] and Mr. Pett in full payment of a play called straunge newes out of Poland’. Fleay, i. 273, says: ‘Pett is not heard of elsewhere. Should it not be Chett., _i.e._ Chettle? The only Pett I know of as a writer is Peter Pett, who published _Time’s journey to seek his daughter Truth_, in verse, 1599.’ To which Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 213, replies: ‘Henslowe often has Cett for Chettle, which is even nearer, but only where he is crowded for room and he never applies to him the title of Mr.’

JOHN PHILLIP (> 1570–> 1626).

John Phillip or Phillips was a member of Queens’ College, Cambridge, and author of various ballads, tracts, and elegies, published between 1566 and 1591. I do not know whether he may be the ‘Phelypes’, who was apparently concerned with John Heywood and a play by Paul’s (q.v.) in 1559. A John Phillipps, this or another, is mentioned (1619) as a brother-in-law in the will of Samuel Daniel (_Sh. Soc. Papers_, iv. 157).

_Dissertation_: W. W. Greg, _J. P._--_Notes for a Bibliography_ (1910–13, _3 Library_, i. 302, 395; iv. 432).

_Patient Grissell. 1558–61_

_S. R._ 1565–6. ‘An history of meke and pacyent gresell.’ _Thomas Colwell_ (Arber, i. 309).

1568–9. ‘The history of payciente gresell &c.’ _Thomas Colwell_ (Arber, i. 385).

N.D. The Commodye of pacient and meeke Grissill, Whearin is declared, the good example, of her patience towardes her husband: and lykewise, the due obedience of Children, toward their Parentes. Newly. Compiled by Iohn Phillip. Eight persons maye easely play this Commody.... _Thomas Colwell._ [Preface; Epilogue, followed by ‘Finis, qd. Iohn Phillipp’.]

_Edition_ by R. B. McKerrow and W. W. Greg (1909, _M. S. R._).

The characters include Politic Persuasion, the ‘Vice’. Elizabeth is mentioned as Queen in the epilogue, and a reference (51) to the ‘wethercocke of Paules’ perhaps dates before its destruction in 1561.

JOHN PICKERING (_c._ 1567–8).

Brie records several contemporary John Pickerings, but there is nothing to connect any one of them with the play.

_Horestes. 1567–8_

1567. A Newe Enterlude of Vice Conteyninge, the Historye of Horestes, with the cruell reuengment of his Father’s death, vpon his one naturtll Mother. By John Pikeryng.... The names deuided for VI to playe.... _William Griffith._ [On the back of the t.p. is a coat of arms which appears to be a slight variant of that assigned by Papworth and Morant, _Ordinary of British Armorials_, 536, to the family of Marshall. Oddly enough, there was a family of this name settled at Pickering in Yorkshire, but they, according to G. W. Marshall, _Miscellanea Marescalliana_, i. 1; ii. 2, 139, had quite a different coat.]

_Editions_ by J. P. Collier (1866, _Illustrations of Old English Literature_), A. Brandl (1898, _Q. W. D._), J. S. Farmer (1910, _T. F. T._).--_Dissertation_: F. Brie, _Horestes von J. P._ (1912, _E. S._ xlvi. 66).

The play has a Vice, and ends with prayer for Queen Elizabeth and the Lord Mayor of ‘this noble Cytie’. Feuillerat, _Eliz._ 449, thinks it too crude to be the Court _Orestes_ of 1567–8, but the coincidence of date strongly suggests that it was.

JOHN POOLE (?).

Possible author of _Alphonsus, Emperor of Germany_ (cf. ch. xxiv).

HENRY PORTER (_c._ 1596–9).

Porter first appears in Henslowe’s diary as recipient of a payment of £5 on 16 Dec. 1596 and a loan of £4 on 7 March 1597, both on account of the Admiral’s. It may be assumed that he was already writing for the company, who purchased five plays, wholly or partly by him, between May 1598 and March 1599. Meres, in his _Palladis Tamia_ of 1598, counts him as one of ‘the best for Comedy amongst vs’. He appears to have been in needy circumstances, and borrowed several small sums from the company or from Henslowe personally (Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 304). On 28 Feb. 1599, when he obtained £2 on account of _Two Merry Women of Abingdon_, ‘he gaue me his faythfulle promysse that I shold haue alle the boockes w^{ch} he writte ether him sellfe or w^{th} any other’. On 16 April 1599, in consideration of 1_s._ he bound himself in £10 to pay Henslowe a debt of 25_s._ on the following day, but could not meet his obligation. Porter is not traceable as a dramatist after 1599. His extant play, on the title-page of which he is described as ‘Gent.’, suggests a familiarity with the neighbourhood of Oxford, and I see no _a priori_ reason why he should not be the Henry Porter, son of a London gentleman, who matriculated from Brasenose on 19 June 1589 (Boase and Clark, ii. 2, 170), or the Henricus Porter, apparently a musician, of John Weever’s _Epigrammes_ (1599), v. 24, or the Henry Porter of Christ Church who became B.Mus. in July 1600 (Wood, _Fasti Oxon._ i. 284), or the Henry Porter who was a royal sackbut on 21 June 1603 (Nagel, 36), or the Henry Porter whose son Walter became Gentleman of the Chapel Royal on 5 Jan. 1616 and has left musical works (_D. N. B._). Gayley’s argument to the contrary rests on the unfounded assumption that the musician could not have been writing Bankside plays during the progress of his studies for his musical degree.

_The Two Angry Women of Abingdon > 1598_

1599. The Pleasant Historie of the two angrie women of Abington. With the humorous mirthe of Dicke Coomes and Nicholas Prouerbes, two Seruingmen. As it was lately playde by the right Honorable the Earle of Nottingham, Lord High Admirall, his seruants. By Henry Porter Gent. _For Joseph Hunt and William Ferbrand._ [Prologue. Greg shows this to be Q_{1}.]

1599. _For William Ferbrand._

_Editions_ in Dodsley^4 (1874), and by G. M. Gayley (1903, _R. E. C._ i), J. S. Farmer (1911, _T. F. T._), W. W. Greg (1912, _M. S. R._).

The play shows no signs of being a sequel, and is presumably the First Part, to which Porter wrote a Second Part (_vide infra_) in the winter of 1598–9. It was an Admiral’s play, and therefore one would expect to find it in Henslowe’s very full, if not absolutely exhaustive, chronicle of the company’s repertory. Of the plays named as his by Henslowe, _Love Prevented_ seems the only likely title. But he was in the pay of the company before the diary began to record the authorship of plays, and Part i may therefore be among the anonymous plays of 1596–7 or an earlier season. Gayley suggests _The Comedy of Humours_, produced 11 May 1597, but that is more plausibly identified with Chapman’s _Humorous Day’s Mirth_ (q.v.). Another possibility is _Woman Hard to Please_, produced 27 Jan. 1597.

_Lost Plays_

Henslowe’s diary records the following plays for the Admiral’s men, in which Porter had a hand in 1598 and 1599:

(i) _Love Prevented._

May 1598. _Vide Two Angry Women of Abingdon, supra._

(ii) _Hot Anger Soon Cold._

With Chettle and Jonson, Aug. 1598.

(iii) _2 Two Angry Women of Abingdon._

Dec. 1598–Feb. 1599.

(iv) _Two Merry Women of Abingdon._

Feb. 1599.

(v) _The Spencers._

With Chettle, March 1599.

THOMAS POUND (1538?-1616?).

Pound was of Beaumonds in Farlington, Hants, the son of William Pound and Anne Wriothesley, daughter of Thomas, first Earl of Southampton. William Pound had a brother Anthony, whose daughter Honora married Henry, fourth Earl of Sussex (_V. H. Hants_, iii. 149; _Harl. Soc._ lxiv. 138; Berry, _Hants Genealogies_, 194; _Recusant Rolls_ in _Catholic Record Soc._ xviii. 278, 279, 330, 334). Thomas was in youth a Winchester boy, a Lincoln’s Inn lawyer, and a courtier of repute. About 1570 he left the world and became a fervent Catholic, and the record of his recusancy, of his relations with the Jesuit order, which he probably joined, of the help he gave to Edmund Campion, and of his long life of imprisonment and domiciliary restraint is written in H. Morus, _Historia Missionis Anglicanae Societatis Jesu_ (1660); D. Bartoli, _Dell’ Istoria della Compagnia di Gesu: L’Inghilterra_ (1667); N. Sanders and E. Rishton, _De Origine Schismatis Anglicani_ (1586); M. Tanner, _Societas Jesu Apostolorum Imitatrix_ (1694); R. Simpson in _2 Rambler_ (1857), viii. 29, 94; H. Foley, _Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus_, iii (1878), 567; J. H. Pollen, _English Catholics in the Reign of Elizabeth_ (1920), 333 _sqq._ I am only concerned with his worldly life and his quitting of it. As a Winchester _alumnus_, he is said to have delivered a Latin speech of welcome to Elizabeth (Bartoli, 51), presumably at her visit of 1560 (App. A), but he can hardly still have been a schoolboy; perhaps he was at New College. He had already been entered at Lincoln’s Inn on 16 Feb. 1560 (_Adm. Reg._ i. 66), and it was on behalf of Lincoln’s Inn that he wrote and pronounced two mask orations which are preserved in _Bodl. Rawl. Poet. MS._ 108, ff. 24, 29, whence they are described in E. Brydges, _British Bibliographer_, ii. 612. Both seem to have been before Elizabeth (cf. vol. i, p. 162, and App. A). The first, at the wedding of his cousin Henry, Earl of Southampton, in Feb. 1566, is headed in the manuscript ‘The copye of an oration made and pronounced by Mr. Pownde of Lyncolnes Inne, with a brave maske out of the same howse, all one greatte horses att the mariage off the yonge erle of South hampton to the Lord Mountagues dawghter abowt Shrouetyde 1565’. The second, at the wedding on 1 July 1566 of another cousin, Frances Radcliffe, is similarly headed ‘The copye of an oration made and pronounced by Mr. Pownd of Lincolnes Inne, with a maske att y^e marriage of y^e Earl of Sussex syster to Mr. Myldmaye off Lyncolnes Inne 1566’. From this, which is in rhyming quatrains, Brydges quotes 119 lines; they are of no merit. In 1580 Pound wrote from his prison at Bishop’s Stortford to Sir Christopher Hatton (_S. P. D. Eliz._ cxlii. 20) commending a petition to the Queen, ‘for her poeticall presents sake, which her Majesty disdayned not to take at poore Mercuries hands, if you remember it, at Killiegeworth Castle’. The reference must be to the Kenilworth visit of 1568, rather than 1573 or 1575, for soon after Thomas Pound’s days of courtly masking came to an abrupt end. The story is told in Morus, 46:

‘Natales Christi dies, ut semper solemnes, ita anno sexagesimo quarto fuere celeberrimi; dabantur in Curia ludi apparatissimi Thoma Pondo instructore. Inter saltandum, nudam eius manum manu nuda prensat Regina, tum ei caput, abrepto Leicestrie Comitis pileo, ipsa tegit, ne ex vehementi motu accensus subito refrigeraretur. Imposita ei videbatur laurea: cum (secundo eandem saltationis formam flagitante Regina) celerrime de more uno in pede circumuolitans, pronus concidit; Plausu in risum mutato, surge, inquit Regina, Domine Taure; ea voce commotus, surrexit quidem; at flexo ad terram poplite, vulgatum illud latine prolocutus, _sic transit gloria mundi_, proripuit se, et non longo interuallo Aulam spesque fallaces deseruit, consumptarum facultatum et violatae Religionis praemium ludibrium consecutus.’

There is a little difficulty as to the date. Morus puts it in 1564, but goes on to add that Pound was in his thirtieth year, and he was certainly born in 1538 or 1539. And Bartoli, 51, followed by Tanner, 480, gives 1569, citing, probably from Jesuit archives, a letter written by Pound himself on 3 June 1609. No doubt 1569, which may mean either 1568–9 or 1569–70, is right.

THOMAS PRESTON (> 1569–1589 <).

A Thomas Preston entered King’s, Cambridge, from Eton in 1553, and became Fellow in 1556, taking his B.A. in 1557 and his M.A. in 1561. At Elizabeth’s visit in 1564 he disputed with Thomas Cartwright before her in the Philosophy Act, and also played in _Dido_, winning such favour that she called him her ‘scholar’ and gave him a pension of £20 a year from the privy purse (Cunningham, xx; Nichols, _Eliz._ i. 270; Fuller, _Cambridge_, 137; Wordsworth, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_, iv. 322). He held his fellowship at King’s until 1581. In 1583 a newswriter reported him to be ‘withdrawen into Scotland as a malcontent and there made much of by the King’ (Wright, _Eliz._ ii. 215). In 1584 he became Master of Trinity Hall, and in 1589 was Vice-Chancellor. In 1592, with other Heads of Houses, he signed a memorial to Burghley in favour of the stay of plays at Cambridge (_M. S. C._ i. 192). It seems to me incredible that he should, as is usually taken for granted, have been the author of _Cambyses_, about which there is nothing academic, and I think that there must have been a popular writer of the same name, responsible for the play, and also for certain ballads of the broadside type, of which _A Lamentation from Rome_ (Collier, _Old Ballads_, _Percy Soc._) was printed in 1570, and _A Ballad from the Countrie, sent to showe how we should Fast this Lent_ (_Archiv_, cxiv. 329, from _Bodl. Rawl. Poet. MS._ 185) is dated 1589. Both are subscribed, like _Cambyses_, ‘Finis Quod Thomas Preston’. A third was entered on S. R. in 1569–70 as ‘A geliflower of swete marygolde, wherein the frutes of tyranny you may beholde’.