Lord Mayor of London
Art Neuendorffer
Hedingham Castle Essex
http://www.castles-abbeys.co.uk/Hedingham-Castle.html
<<After the death of the 18th earl's widow, [the castle reverted by family
arrangement to the widow of the 17th earl - Elizabeth Trentham. It was then
sold for the first time in 550 years in 1713 to Sir William Ashhurst, MP
and Lord Mayor of London.>>
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Elizabeth Weir wrote:
<<Kathman is correct that the Ashbourne is of
Lord Mayor Hammersley,
not Oxford. I put both in a picture editor and the Folger is
right that a Hammersley portrait was altered to make it look
like someone else.
I don't know why Kathman or the Folger don't go online
and find Hugh Hammersley's other portrait posted by the
Hammersley family on their genealogy page. Despite the fact
that his hair has been painted out and his eyebrows reduced,
both paintings are clearly of Hugh Hammersley--the features
are identical. It would be fascinating to know why someone
had a painter alter the Hammersley.>>
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<<And so down to the heart of [Stratford] the nexus of buildings
dominated by the GREY-stone tower of the Gild-Chapel built
by Hugh Clopton. When Leland was here,
'about the body of this chapel was
curiously painted the Dance of Death.'
The interior was sadly ravaged by the Reformation - paintings
white-washed. We have with much effort recovered something
of the painted DOOM upon the chancel-arch.>>
_William Shakespeare, a biography_ by A.L. Rowse. p. 18
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_Sleuthing an enigmatic Latin annotation_ By Paul H. Altrocchi, M.D.
http://www.shakespearefellowship.org/Newsletter/Latin_annotation.pdf
Camden's brief description of Stratford-on-Avon appears
on pages 452 & 453 of the 1590 edition and reads as follows:
"Plenior hinc Avona defertur primùm per Charlcott nobilis & equestris
familiae Luciorum habitationem, quae à Charlcottis iam olim ad illos
haereditario quasi transmigravit: & per Stratford emporiolú non elegans
[sic. This word was misprinted; it should have been "inelegans"], guod
duobus fuis alumnis omnem dignitatem debet loanni de Stratford Archiepiscopo
Cantuariensi qui templu posuit, & Hugoni Clopton Pretori Londinési,
qui A vonae pontem faxeum quatuordecem fornicibus
subnixum non fine maximis impensis induxit."
The English translation is:
"From here the River Avon flows down more strongly first through famous
Charlcott and the house of the knightly family of Lucies which long ago
passed to them from the Charlcotts as it were by heredity, and through the
not (un)distinguished little market town of Stratford, which owes all of its
reputation to its two foster sons, John of Stratford, the Archbishop of
Canterbury who built the church, and Hugh Clopton, the magistrate of London
who began the stone bridge over the Avon supported by fourteen arches,
not without very great expense."
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ClassicNote on Richard III Act Three, Scene Five
<<The Lord Mayor of London arrives at the Tower. Catesby delivers Hastings'
head, at which point both Buckingham and Richard must try to mollify the
Lord Mayor. They tell him that Hastings was plotting against them both, and
that he confessed as much in the Tower. They ask the Lord Mayor to inform
the people of what happened, since he is better placed to placate the masses
then they are.
Richard then sends Buckingham to follow the Lord Mayor. He wants Buckingham
to tell the people that the children of Edward are illegitimate, which would
require that the eldest illegitimate child should take the throne. Richard
then wants Buckingham to convince the people that he is also an illegitimate
child of Edward, and thus he should receive the throne.>>
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http://www.the-quill.com/ShakespearesHouses/NashsPlace.htm
<<John Leland, on his visit to Stratford-upon-Avon around 1540, included in
his description of the town a 'praty howse of brike and tymbar', built by
Hugh Clopton, who would later become Lord Mayor of London, opposite the
Guild Chapel, referred to in his will as his 'Great House', and later as
'New Place'. The Cloptons sold New Place in 1567. Thirty years later, in
1597, it was acquired by William Shakespeare.>>
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THE DICTIONARY OF PHRASE AND FABLE BY E. COBHAM BREWER
<< The chief magistrate of London is The Right Hon. the Lord Mayor, one of
the Privy Council. At the Conquest the sovereign appointed the chief
magistrates of cities. That of London was called the Port-Reeve, but Henry
II. changed the word to the Norman maire (our mayor). John made the office
annual; and Edward III. (in 1354) conferred the title of "The Right Hon. the
Lord Mayor of London." The first Lord Mayor's Show was 1458, when Sir John
Norman went by water in state, to be sworn in at Westminster; and the cap
and sword were given by Richard II. to Sir William Walworth, for killing Wat
Tyler.>>
to rise in undress maisonry upstanded (joygrantit!), a waalworth
of a skyerscape of most eyeful hoyth entowerly, erigenating from
next to nothing and celescalating the himals and all, hierarchitec-
titiptitoploftical, with a burning bush abob off its baubletop and
with larrons o'toolers clittering up and tombles a'buckets clotter
ing down.
http://www.britannia.com/hiddenlondon/marshalsea.html
<<The Peasants' Revolt was the first popular rebellion in England. Lead by
Wat Tyler, it started after a poll tax of one shilling (around a week's
wages for a skilled labourer) was levied in order to help fund numerous
wars. An army of 60,000 peasants marched on London but when Tyler met with
Richard II at Smithfield to propose economic reforms, he was stabbed by the
Lord Mayor of London, William Walworth. Some of Tyler's supporters tried to
save him by carrying him into St. Bartholomew's Hospital but the King's
knights dragged him out again and beheaded him.>>
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http://www.caderbooks.com/exnshake1.html
<<William Shakespeare (1564-1616) lived in a naughty time and worked in a
naughty business. As he began his career in London, sometime in the late
1580s, civic leaders and religious authorities considered the theater
extremely disreputable and even dangerous. In 1594, the Lord Mayor of London
pleaded with Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council to tear down all the theaters,
for they were "places of meeting for all vagrant persons and masterless men
that hang about the City, thieves, horse-stealers, whoremongers, cozeners
[cheaters], cony-catching persons [con men], practicers of treason, and
other such like." (Gurr, 134)
Because London's city fathers were so vehemently opposed to the business,
theatrical impresarios had to locate their playhouses beyond the reach of
the aldermen. So they set up shop in seedy nearby suburbs ("liberties"),
side by side with ale-houses, bordellos, and bear-baiting arenas.
Joining city leaders in the crusade against playhouses were Puritans and
other conservative moralists. Their problem with the theaters went beyond
public behavior to the larger problem of the moral influence. Plays had been
defined for centuries-for a millennium-as a form of instruction; they
please, but they also teach. By depicting virtue rewarded and vice punished,
plays provide not only moral precepts but also patterns for better behavior.
The Puritan critic Phillip Stubbes turns this argument on its head, and
shakes it violently, in his antitheatrical tract The Anatomie of Abuses
(1583):
"You say there are good Examples to be learned in [plays]. Truly, so
there are: if you will learn falsehood; if you will learn cozenage; if you
will learn to deceive; if you will learn to play the hypocrite, to cog, lie,
and falsify; if you will learn to jest, laugh, and leer, to grin, to nod,
and mow; if you will learn to play the vice, to swear, tear, and blaspheme
both Heaven and Earth; if you will learn to become a bawd, unclean, and to
devirginate maids, to deflower honest wives; if you will learn to murder,
flay, kill, pick, steal, rob, and row; if you will learn to rebel against
princes, to commit treasons, to consume treasures, to practice idleness, to
sing and talk of bawdy love and venery; if you will learn to deride, scoff,
mock, & flout, to flatter & smooth; if you will learn to play the
whoremaster, the glutton, drunkard, or incestuous person; if you will learn
to become proud, haughty, & arrogant; and, finally, if you will learn to
contemn God and all his laws, to care neither for heaven nor hell, and to
commit all kind of sin and mischief, you need to go to no other school, for
all these good examples may you see painted before your eyes in interludes
and plays." >>
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http://www.lordmayorsshow.org/help/
<<The office of the Lord Mayor of London was created by King John in 1215,
in gratitude to the city for its support. The city was allowed to choose its
own Mayor, making this one of the first elected posts in the world, but the
King required that each new Mayor travel upriver to swear loyalty to the
Crown in person.
The Lord Mayor's Show is a celebration that gradually grew around the
Mayor's journey. By Elizabethan times it was a well-established public
festival: so much so that it appears in Shakespeare.>>
http://www.lordmayorsshow.org/hist/lit.shtml
<<The Lord Mayor's Show has inspired an extraordinary range of artists over
its eight centuries. One might expect it to crop up in Pepys' diaries, but
the Lord Mayor of London also shows up in three of Shakespeare's plays, and
the Show itself in one.
Can there be another event which appears in a Shakespeare play and a James
Bond book? The show makes a brief appearance in Dr No, and was featured more
prominently in Hitchcock's 'Sabotage', though Hitchcock elected to recreate
it in a field in Northolt rather than filming the real thing.
There have been countless paintings and drawings of the Show - more than we
can possibly display here - but two stand out. Both were created in 1747,
one by Canaletto and one by Hogarth. These were two of the finest painters
of their day, and represent the apotheosis of eighteenth century English and
Italian painting. The fact that they both chose to represent the Lord
Mayor's Show indicates not only its status as an event, but its vibrancy as
an artistic subject.
Canaletto's painting is one of five he painted of the Show, and depicts the
eighteen-oared State Barge , as well as the twelve-oared barges of a number
of Livery companies. Three sailing ships fly the Union Jack, and plumes of
smoke can be seen trailing across the water indicating that salutes have
just been fired.
The canopy of the Lord Mayor's State Barge is covered with blue cloth, which
is significant. Two different types of cloth were used for the awnings of
ceremonial barges: blue cloth which was called "Plunkett", indicating a
civic event; and "Murrey", a red cloth used on Royal occasions.
The painting is an idealisation of London and The Show, taking an imaginary
viewpoint high above the Thames. It presents a vista so broad it could not
be taken in at one glance, but which was created by the superimposition of
two separate views.
Canaletto's brilliant blue sky owes much to his native Venice, and against
it is arranged the architecture of London: Lambeth Palace; Westminster
Abbey; Westminster Hall, the original destination of the Show; and the four
spires of St John's Smith Square, Queen Anne's footstool. But the dominating
architectural feature is the new Westminster Bridge, which was not opened
until two years after the painting was completed. It is shown with the
statues of the river gods, Thames and Isis, over the centre span, but
although planned these were never executed.
The final plate in a series of twelve engravings by Hogarth entitled
'Industry and Idleness'.
By contrast, Hogarth objected to what he called "phizmongering", the
artificial prettification of people and places. London was his universe, and
he showed its high life and low life with a keen and critical eye.
His 'Industry and Idleness' series is a highly moral work, illustrating the
rewards which await those who choose to spend their time wisely, or to enjoy
the easy virtue of London's dissolute underbelly. Two apprentices start
their training together but follow entirely different paths. The Idle
Apprentice is eventually hanged at Tyburn, whilst the Industrious Apprentice
marries his master's daughter and becomes Lord Mayor of London, the highest
position to which he could aspire.
The final engraving in the series sees the Industrious Apprentice in his
coach on Lord Mayor's Day, mobbed by an admiring crowd, and watched from a
balcony by Frederick, Prince of Wales and Princess Augusta. He rides in a
hired coach which was introduced following the incident in 1711 when the
Lord Mayor fell from his horse and broke his leg; today's magnificent coach
was not built until 1757.>>
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http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0852173.html
<<Whittington, Richard, 1358-1423, English merchant and lord mayor of
London. He made his fortune as a mercer and then entered London politics to
become successively councilman, alderman, sheriff, and finally (1397) lord
mayor, an office to which he was elected three times. Like most of the
London merchants, Whittington supported the usurpation of the throne by
Henry IV in 1399, and in 1400 he was made a merchant of the London and
Calais staples. He made several loans to Henry IV and Henry V in return for
lucrative trading concessions. Whittington had no children and left his
fortune in a trust administered by the Mercers' Company, largely for
building purposes in the City of London. The famous story of Dick
Whittington and his cat is far removed from the actual life of the lord
mayor, who was born the son of a Gloucestershire knight. According to the
story, Dick was an orphaned kitchen boy who put his one possession, a cat,
on his master's ship in the hope that it might be traded. He then ran away
but turned back when he heard the prophetic ringing of Bow Bells ("Turn
again, Whittington, lord mayor of London") and found that his cat had been
purchased, for a large fortune, by the ruler of Morocco, whose kingdom was
plagued with rats and mice. Dick was thus able to marry his master's
daughter and become a successful merchant. The story was first recorded in a
play, now lost, that was licensed in 1605.>>
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St Mary le Bow Cheapside, EC2
http://www.offtolondon.com/hiddenlondoncopy/stmlebow.html
<<The Church of St Mary le Bow was one of the first re-buildings erected by
Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of London in 1666. Its massive
steeple, a square tower surmounted by four stories which reaches 235 feet
into the sky, is a well-known landmark in the City, topped as it is by a
weather vane in the shape of a sinuous golden dragon.
Wren's solid-looking structure was raised on the site of what was already a
very ancient church. As far back as the reign of William the Conqueror, the
church of St Mary was known as 'St Marie de Arcubus or Le Bow' because of
its arches of stone. And so the name has come down to us to this day.
Perhaps one of the most famous features of St Mary le Bow is its bells.
These are the bells that a poor runaway boy is said to have heard as he was
resting on Highgate milestone when they called: 'Turn again, Whittington,
Lord Mayor of London.' And popular folklore still maintains that only
Londoners born within the sound of Bow Bells have the right to call
themselves Cockneys.
An interesting historical feature of St Mary's is the balcony in front of
the tower. This is a memorial to an incident in 1331 when a wooden balcony
containing the Queen and her ladies fell during a tournament celebrating the
birth of the Black Prince. The balcony continued to be used as a vantage
point, despite this mishap, and the Henrys and Edwards came to watch all the
great city pageants from here. After Wren rebuilt the church, Queen Anne saw
the Lord Mayor's pageant from the balcony in 1702. It was the final display
to be devised by the last official City poet.
Another and more famous poet to be associated with the church of St. Mary le
Bow is John Milton, who was born in nearby Bread Street. A crumbling plaque
on the exterior wall of the church commemorates this fact. As was common in
those days, Milton frequently published his works from church yards in Fleet
Street. The best-known of these, 'Paradise Lost' was published from St.
Dunstan's, Fleet Street .
This was the district where boot makers worked in goatskin leather. The
leather was known as Cordovan and the workers as cordwainers. A statue of
Captain John Smith (1580 - 1631) a cordwainer who rose to become Governor of
Virginia and Admiral of New England, was therefore appropriately placed here
outside the church>>
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http://www.artoftheprint.com/artistpages/smith_anker_james_northcote_sirwill
iamwalworth.htm
SIR WILLIAM WALWORTH
LORD MAYOR OF LONDON, KILLING WAT TYLER IN SMITHFIELD, 1381
Engraver:
SMITH, ANKER (London, 1759 - 1819)
Designer:
NORTHCOTE, JAMES (Plymouth, 1746 - London, 1831)
Date:
1796
Medium:
ORIGINAL ENGRAVING
Publisher:
JOHN BOYDELL, LONDON
<<James Northcote: A major English painter, illustrator, designer and
author, James Northcote left Plymouth for London in 1771. He studied art
there at the Royal Academy and then became a principle assistant to Sir
Joshua Reynolds. During his successful career Northcote was highly received
for his portraits, historical paintings and depictions of animals. In this
latter category his One Hundred Fables (1828) stands as a classic of wood
engraved illustration. John Northcote was elected an Associate of the Royal
Academy in 1786 and a full Academician in 1787.
Anker Smith: Anker Smith received his education at the Merchant Taylor's
School of London. After being apprenticed to several engravers he worked for
the London publisher, James Heath. First engraving for illustrated books,
Smith was commissioned by many publishers and designers, including
Bartolozzi. His first large, individually published plates were engravings
after the designs of Renaissance masters, such as Leonardo, Titian and
Correggio.
In 1791 Anker Smith began a leading engraver for Boydell's Shakespeare
Gallery. Of particular interest is that his engraving for Sir William
Walworth, Lord Mayor of London, Killing Wat Tyler obtained his election into
the Royal Academy in 1797.
John Boydell: John Boydell is easily one of England's most remarkable 18th
century personalities. Born in poverty, he began his career as an at best
mediocre engraver of small book plates. At this time England was at a very
low ebb as a serious centre for the visual arts (particularly engraving) and
Boydell sought to eradicate this situation by beginning a second career as a
publisher of fine prints. Modest initial experiments in the 1760's led to a
rapid expansion of his business and during the 1770's he published his
striking series of mezzotint engravings, Liber Veritas, engraved by Richard
Earlom after the drawings of Claude Lorrain. This ambitious undertaking put
England back on the printmaking map and was a huge financial success for
John Boydell.
Boydell had now established London as a major centre for the arts and this
once poor and struggling engraver/publisher was acknowledged for his efforts
by being elected no less than Lord Mayor of London, in 1791. The same year
marked the beginning of Boydell's most grandiose undertaking. His new
publishing establishment in Pall Mall. 'The Shakespeare Gallery', began by
commissioning the most esteemed painters and engravers in the country to
create and design large and expensive engravings based upon the plays and
life of William Shakespeare. By this time as well John Boydell's brother,
Joshua, had joined the firm.
This monumental venture continued until Boydell's death thirteen years
later. By that time, The Shakespeare Gallery had created and published one
hundred and seventy engravings on a grand scale. Alas, the expenses for this
vast project had been so large that England's foremost publisher of art
ended his life the way he began, dying penniless.
In its grandiose size and style, Sir William Walworth, Lord Mayor of
London, Killing Wat Tyler, is closely related to Boydell's Shakespeare
prints. It clearly contains both the drama and design elements found in many
of his Shakespearean works. Not surprisingly, both James Northcote and Anker
Smith were commissioned by Boydell at this time to work on a number of
Shakespearean designs. This then was a fascinating attempt to turn an
episode of early English folklore into a scene worthy of Shakespeare's
greatest history plays. It was also a delightful self indulgence by Alderman
Boydell. After all, he, like the protagonist in this wonderful engraving,
was Lord Mayor of London.
One should also note that many of Boydell's Shakespeare engravings were
reprinted in later editions during the nineteenth century. Sir William
Walworth, Lord Mayor of London, Killing Wat Tyler, was an individually
published engraving which was not reprinted in any later editions. It is
thus much more scarce than any other large Boydell engravings. >>
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Simon Eyre - Mayor of London
http://www.brandon-heritage.co.uk/eyre.html
<<Simon Eyre, son of draper John Eyre, was born in Brandon in about 1395.
The story goes that having served seven years as an apprentice he found out
that his master was not in fact a Draper but an Upholder (upholsterer) and
so "after considerable expense and difficulty" (Milford, p58) he started all
over again with another master and served another seven years, finally
becoming a journeyman draper. It seems an unlikely story, but just what took
him to an apprenticeship in London in the first place is unclear. It seems
obvious that he was following in his father's footsteps and according to R P
Mander in the East Anglian Magazine article "A Suffolk Dick Whittington"
"There were several people from Brandon about the time he commenced his
commercial career who occupied important positions in the city and an
introduction from one of them would have secured the required opening with a
city merchant."
In 1418 he married Kathleen Millington, daughter of John Millington, a
brewer and was admitted a freeman of the Draper's company a year later at
the age of 24.
His initial commercial success is largely credited to his wife for it seems
she heard news of a cargo of linens and cambrics that were being sold off
cheaply from a damaged ship in the Port of London. Realising they could be
resold at a significant profit Simon, dressed to impress, managed to bluff
the vendor into letting him have the goods without payment, the bill to be
sent on later. The sale was a great success but the Eyre's were far from
wealthy, or at least as wealthy as Simon thought he needed to be to accept
the office of sheriff when he was proposed in 1434. He argued that his
modest means would not yet sustain such a high honour.
R. P. Mander writes; "One of the aldermen standing nearby said that this
could not be true for Eyre habitually boasted that he broke his fast every
day on a table which he said he would not sell for a thousand pounds. The
Mayor and the two aldermen were so intrigued that they invited themselves to
dinner at Eyre's house. When the reluctant sheriff-elect arrived at his
dwelling with his three guests he asked his wife to prepare the little table
and set refreshment before the visitors. At first his wife demurred but
seeing that her husband was adamant she seated herself on a low stool and
spread a damask napkin over her lap with a venison pasty thereon. Simon
turned to the astonished visitors and said: 'Behold the table for which I
would not take a thousand pounds.'"
Eyre did become Sheriff, however, and in 1444 was made an alderman. A year
later he was elected mayor. Some say that he was also knighted at this time
but, although Eyre probably became Sir Simon at some point, no reference has
yet been found confirming any honour he might have received and in documents
issued in the city after his death he is referred to as plain Simon Eyre. So
not Lord Mayor but simply Mayor of London will have to do for the
time-being.
In any event on reaching this high office Simon and Kathleen Eyre's
celebratory pancake feast at the Mansion House for all the city apprentices
must have been quite an occasion. "The whole party marched there.," writes
Mander "Simon and his wife presided and no guest was allowed to want for
wine or ale".
Also at that time Simon Eyre was instrumental in the financing of the Leaden
Hall city granary. In the early 1300s it had been a private lead-roofed
manor house, belonging to Sir Hugh Nevill. Later it was enfeoffed to Richard
fitzAlan, earl of Arundel, by Nevill's wife Alice and then, in 1380 she
confirmed it to Thomas Gogsall and others. In 1384 it passed to Humphrey de
Bohun, earl of Hereford, and then, in 1408 Robert Rikeden of Essex and his
wife Margaret confirmed it to three-times Lord Mayor of London, Richard
Whittington, with whom Simon Eyre has often been compared.
In 1411 Whittington confirmed it to the mayor and commonalty of London, then
32 years later mayor John Hatherley purchased the licence of Leaden Hall
from the king. A year after that, in 1444, Simon Eyre put up most of the
money to build a granary there. Edward IV granted Letters Patent for the
tronage (weighing) of wares at Leadenhall and another for the tronage of
wool in 1464. This then took the place of an open market that had existed on
that site for over 200 years. Also a gift of Simon Eyre was the tiny chapel
of the Holy Ghost which was for the use of people attending the market and
stood adjacent to the hall.
In his book "The Worthies of England" Thomas Fuller says that over the porch
of Leadenhall "he [Eyre] caused to be written, Dextra Domini exaltavit me
(the Lord's right hand hath exalted me.) He is elsewhere styled Honorandus
et famosus Mercator."
On completing his term of office as mayor Simon Eyre spent the rest of his
life supervising his substantial business interests and carrying out many
public duties from his home in Swan and Hoop Alley (between Lombard Street
and Cornhill, now built over). It was here that he died on 18th September
1459, sadly soon to be followed to the grave by his son and grandson. In his
will he left 5000 marks to charitable uses.
Simon Eyre is buried in the church of St. Mary Woolnorth, Lombard Street,
London.
150 years later the life story of this popular and successful man came to
the attention of an Elizabethan dramatist. In 1600 a play titled "The
Shoemaker's Holiday," was performed before Queen Elizabeth. Set in the reign
of Henry V, in the mayorality of Sir Roger Oatley and the shrievalty of
Eyre, Simon Eyre is the central character, but in this rollicking comedy he
has been transformed from a draper into a shoemaker and his wife's name
changed from Kathleen to Margery. When it was first published, sometime
during that same year, no author's name was given, however, it is generally
thought to have been the work of Thomas Dekker, a contemporary of
Shakespeare's in the Chamberlain's Men company. Following the play's great
success, and not to be outdone, Shakespeare countered with his own comedy -
the Merry Wives of Windsor. Several hundred years later, in 1926, Edith
Evans played Eyre's wife in the first 'modern' production of the play at the
Old Vic Theatre in London. With her starred Balliol Holloway as Eyre a role
also played at one time by Sir Donald Wolfit. More recently Orson Welles
directed a notable production of the play its last recorded performance
having been in 1944.
----------------------------------------------------------
The Place of Shakespeare's Stage in Elizabethan Culture
by Steven Mullaney
http://search.eb.com/shakespeare/esa/660003.html
<<In 1567, John Brayne went east of Aldgate to Stepney, where he erected a
theatre called the Red Lion. It was the first permanent building expressly
designed for dramatic performances to be constructed in Europe since late
antiquity, but the civic authorities of London, who were already unhappy
with playing in the streets and inn-yards of the city proper, were not
amused. Within two years they were complaining about the "great multitudes
of people" gathering out in the "liberties and suburbs" of the city. In 1576
Brayne's brother-in-law, James Burbage, joined the family enterprise by
erecting The Theatre in the liberty of Shoreditch (it was here that
Shakespeare would find his first theatrical home when he came to London,
sometime in the 1580s). The Theatre was joined by the Curtain in 1577, and
in subsequent years the liberties across the Thames would also become sites
of civic outrage, as they became host to the Rose (1587), the Swan (c.
1595), and the Globe (1599), the latter fashioned from timbers of the
original Theatre. By the turn of the century, when the Fortune had completed
the scene, the city was ringed with playhouses posted strategically just
outside its jurisdiction. "Houses of purpose built . . . and that without
the Liberties," as John Stockwood remarked in a sermon delivered at Paul's
Cross (a public site outside of and adjacent to St. Paul's Cathedral, and a
major crossroads of the city) in 1578, "as who would say, 'There, let them
say what they will say, we will play'."
We regard the drama of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as one of the
supreme artistic achievements in literary history; in its own day, however,
it was viewed as a scandal and an outrage--a hotly contested and
controversial phenomenon that religious and civic authorities strenuously
sought to outlaw. In 1572, in fact, players were defined as
vagabonds--criminals subject to arrest, whipping, and branding unless they
were "liveried" servants of an aristocratic household; Burbage's company and
others used this loophole in the law to their advantage, persuading various
lords to lend their name (and often little more) to their enterprise, thus
becoming the Lord Chamberlain's or the Lord Strange's Men. Furthermore,
"popular" drama, performed by professional acting companies for anyone who
could afford the price of admission, was perceived as too vulgar in its
appeal to be considered a form of art. Yet the animus of civic and religious
authorities was rarely directed toward other forms of popular recreation,
such as bearbaiting or the sword-fighting displays that the populace could
see in open-air amphitheatres similar in construction to The Theatre and the
Globe. The city regularly singled out the playhouses and regularly
petitioned the court for permission to shut them down--permission that was
only granted temporarily, in times of plague, in part because Elizabeth I
liked to see well-written and well-rehearsed plays at court during Christmas
festivities but declined to pay for the development and maintenance of the
requisite repertory companies herself.
Attacks on professional popular drama were variously motivated and sometimes
tell us more about the accuser than the accused, yet they should not be
discounted too readily, for they have a great deal to tell us about the
cultural and historical terrain that Shakespeare's theatre occupied in its
own day and time. Nowhere is this more the case than in one of the most
consistent focal points of outrage, sounded regularly from the pulpit and in
Lord Mayors' petitions, toward these "Houses of purpose built . . . and that
without the Liberties"--the place of the stage itself.
The "liberties or suburbs" of early modern London bear little resemblance to
modern suburbs in either a legal or cultural sense. They were a part of the
city, extending up to three miles out from its ancient Roman wall, yet in
crucial aspects were set apart from it; they were also an integral part of a
complex civic structure common to the walled medieval and Renaissance
metropolis, a marginal geopolitical domain that was nonetheless central to
the symbolic and material economy of the city. Free or "at liberty" from
manorial rule or obligations to the crown, the liberties "belonged" to the
city yet fell outside the jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor, the sheriffs of
London, and the Common Council, constituting an ambiguous geopolitical
domain over which the city had authority but, paradoxically, almost no
control. Liberties existed inside the city walls as well--it was in them
that the so-called private or hall playhouses were to be found--but they too
stood "outside" the city's effective domain. Whatever their location, the
liberties formed an equivocal territory that was at once internal and
external to the city, neither contained by civic authority nor fully removed
from it.
Clearly, the freedom from London's legal jurisdiction was crucial to the
survival of the playhouses in a pragmatic sense, but the city's outrage and
sense of scandal cannot be fully explained by jurisdictional frustration
alone. The liberties had for centuries performed a necessary cultural and
ideological function in the city's symbolic economy, one that can only be
briefly summarized here but that made them peculiarly apt ground for early
modern drama to appropriate and turn to its own use and livelihood. Early
modern cities were shaped, their common spaces inscribed with communal
meaning and significance, by a wide variety of ritual, spectacle, and
customary pastimes. Inside the city walls, ritual traditions were organized
around central figures of authority, emblems of cultural coherence; the
marginal traditions of the liberties, by contrast, were organized around
emblems of anomaly and ambivalence. Whatever could not be contained within
the strict order of the community, or exceeded its bounds in a symbolic or
moral sense, resided there, and it was a strikingly heterogeneous zone. In
close proximity to brothels and hospitals stood monasteries--markers, in a
sense, of the space between this life and the next--until such Church
holdings were seized by the crown, following Henry VIII's break with Rome;
gaming houses, taverns, and bearbaiting arenas nestled beside sites for
public execution, marketplaces, and, at the extreme verge of the liberties,
the city's leprosariums. Viewed from a religious perspective, the liberties
were marked as places of the sacred, or of sacred pollution in the case of
the city's lepers, made at once holy and hopelessly contaminated by their
affliction. From a political perspective, the liberties were the places
where criminals were conveyed for public executions, well-attended and
sometimes festive rituals that served to mark the boundary between this life
and the next in a more secular fashion. From a more general point of view,
the margins of the city were places where forms of moral excess such as
prostitution were granted license to exist beyond the bounds of a community
that they had, by their incontinence, already exceeded.
This civic and social structure had been remarkably stable for centuries,
primarily because it made room for what it could not contain. As the
population of London underwent an explosive expansion in the 16th century,
however, the structure could no longer hold, and the reigning hierarchy of
London found the spectacle of its own limits thrust upon it. The dissolution
of the monasteries had made real estate in the liberties available for
private enterprises; the traditional sanctuary and freedom of the city's
margins were thus opened up to new individuals and social practices. Victims
of enclosure, masterless men, foreign tradesmen without guild credentials,
outlaws, and prostitutes joined radical Puritans and players in taking over
and putting the liberties to their own uses, but it was the players who had
the audacity to found a viable and highly visible institution of their own
on the grounds of the city's well-maintained contradictions. And it was the
players, too, who converted the traditional liberty of the suburbs into
their own dramatic license, establishing a liberty that was at once moral,
ideological, and topological--a "liberty" that gave the stage an impressive
freedom to experiment with a wide range of perspectives on its own times.
Playhouses also existed within the city walls, but they operated on a more
limited scale. Acting companies composed entirely of young boys performed
sporadically in the city's intramural liberties from 1576 to 1608, when
repeated offenses to the crown provoked James I to disband all boys'
companies. After 1608, at Blackfriars, Whitefriars, and other hall
playhouses, adult companies from the extramural levies moved into the city
as well, and regularly performed in both the hall and arena playhouses.
The boys' repertory was a highly specialized one: over 85 percent of their
dramatic offerings were comedies, largely satirical--a genre that was
conversely rare on the arena stages. The difference is a significant one.
Although satire frequently outraged its specific targets, its immediate
topicality also limited its ideological range and its capacity to explore
broad cultural issues. As dramatic genres, city comedy and satire were
relatively contained forms of social criticism; in terms of repertory as
well as topology, the hall playhouses produced what might be called an
"interstitial" form of drama, one that was lodged, like the theatres
themselves, in the gaps and seams of the social fabric.
In contrast to the hall theatres, the open-air playhouses outside the city
walls evolved what Nicholas Woodrofe, Lord Mayor of London in 1580, regarded
as an "incontinent" form of drama: "Some things have double the ill, both
naturally in spreading the infection, and otherwise in drawing God's wrath
and plague upon us, as the erecting and frequenting of houses very famous
for incontinent rule [author's italics] out of our liberties and
jurisdiction." Playhouses were regarded not merely as a breeding ground for
the plague but as the thing itself, an infection "pestering the City" and
contaminating the morals of London's apprentices. Theatres were viewed as
Houses of Proteus, and in the metamorphic fears of the city it was not only
the players who shifted shapes, confounded categories, and counterfeited
roles. Drama offered a form of "recreation" that drew out socially
unsettling reverberations of the term, since playhouses offered a place "for
all masterless men and vagabond persons that haunt the highways, to meet
together and to recreate themselves [author's italics]." The fear was not
that the spectators might be entertained but that they might incorporate
theatrical means of impersonation and representation in their own lives--for
example, by dressing beyond their station and thus confounding a social
order reliant on sumptuary codes to distinguish one social rank from another
----------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Art Neuendorffer
[Henry V]: Hol. iii,556: 'The mayor of London, and the alderman, apparelled
in orient grained scarlet, and foure hundred commoners...met the king on
Blackheath' (1415)
[1 Hen. VI]: Lord Mayor John Coventry (1425)
[Richard III]: Lord Mayor Sir Edmund Shaw, or Shaa, brother to Dr. Shaw.
[Henry VIII ii]: Hol. iii, 897 Lord Mayor Sir Thomas Seimour
[Henry VIII v]: Hol. iii, 934 Lord Mayor Sir Stephen Pecocke.
-------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
David L. Webb
"Art Neuendorffer" <aneuendor...@comcast.net>
(aneuendor...@comicass.nut) wrote:
> ----------------------------------------------------
> Hedingham Castle Essex
> http://www.castles-abbeys.co.uk/Hedingham-Castle.html
>
> <<After the death of the 18th earl's widow, [the castle reverted by family
> arrangement to the widow of the 17th earl - Elizabeth Trentham. It was then
> sold for the first time in 550 years in 1713 to Sir William Ashhurst, MP
> and Lord Mayor of London.>>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> Elizabeth Weir wrote:
>
> <<Kathman is correct that the Ashbourne is of
>
> Lord Mayor Hammersley,
>
> not Oxford. I put both in a picture editor and the Folger is
> right that a Hammersley portrait was altered to make it look
> like someone else.
>
> I don't know why Kathman or the Folger don't go online
> and find Hugh Hammersley's other portrait posted by the
> Hammersley family on their genealogy page. Despite the fact
> that his hair has been painted out and his eyebrows reduced,
> both paintings are clearly of Hugh Hammersley--the features
> are identical. It would be fascinating to know why someone
> had a painter alter the Hammersley.>>
Well done, Art! I see that you've quoted an unimpeachabe source on
the subject.
[Many screenfuls of lunatic logorrhea snipped]
Art Neuendorffer
> > ----------------------------------------------------
> > Hedingham Castle Essex
> > http://www.castles-abbeys.co.uk/Hedingham-Castle.html
> >
> > <<After the death of the 18th earl's widow, [the castle reverted by
family
> > arrangement to the widow of the 17th earl - Elizabeth Trentham. It was
then
> > sold for the first time in 550 years in 1713 to Sir William Ashhurst, MP
> > and Lord Mayor of London.>>
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Elizabeth Weir wrote:
> >
> > <<Kathman is correct that the Ashbourne is of
> >
> > Lord Mayor Hammersley,
> >
> > not Oxford. I put both in a picture editor and the Folger is
> > right that a Hammersley portrait was altered to make it look
> > like someone else.
> >
> > I don't know why Kathman or the Folger don't go online
> > and find Hugh Hammersley's other portrait posted by the
> > Hammersley family on their genealogy page. Despite the fact
> > that his hair has been painted out and his eyebrows reduced,
> > both paintings are clearly of Hugh Hammersley--the features
> > are identical. It would be fascinating to know why someone
> > had a painter alter the Hammersley.>>
"David L. Webb" <david....@dartmouth.edu> wrote
> Well done, Art! I see that you've quoted
> an unimpeachabe source on the subject.
Kathman?
Art Neuendorffer
Art Neuendorffer
> [1 Hen. VI]: Lord Mayor John Coventry (1425)
[Henry the Sixth, Part One (Folio) 1.3]
Here Glosters men beat out the Cardinalls men,
and enter in the hurly-burly the Maior
of London, and his Officers.
Maior. Fye Lords, that you being supreme Magistrates,
Thus contumeliously should breake the Peace.
Glost. Peace Maior, thou know'st little of my wrongs: [430]
Here's Beauford, that regards nor God nor King,
Hath here distrayn'd the Tower to his vse.
Winch. Here's Gloster, a Foe to Citizens,
One that still motions Warre, and neuer Peace,
O're-charging your free Purses with large Fines;
That seekes to ouerthrow Religion,
Because he is Protector of the Realme;
And would haue Armour here out of the Tower,
To Crowne himselfe King, and suppresse the Prince.
Glost. I will not answer thee with words, but blowes. [440]
Here they skirmish againe.
Maior. Naught rests for me, in this tumultuous strife,
But to make open Proclamation.
Come Officer, as lowd as e're thou canst, cry:
All manner of men, assembled here in Armes this day,
against Gods Peace and the Kings, wee charge and command
you, in his Highnesse Name, to repayre to your seuerall dwel-
ling places, and not to weare, handle, or vse any Sword, Wea-
pon, or Dagger hence-forward, vpon paine of death.
Glost. Cardinall, Ile be no breaker of the Law: [450]
But we shall meet, and breake our minds at large.
Winch. Gloster, wee'le meet to thy cost, be sure:
Thy heart-blood I will haue for this dayes worke.
Maior. Ile call for Clubs, if you will not away:
This Cardinall's more haughtie then the Deuill.
Glost. Maior farewell: thou doo'st but what thou
may'st.
Winch. Abhominable Gloster, guard thy Head,
For I intend to haue it ere long. Exeunt.
Maior. See the Coast clear'd, and then we will depart. [460]
Good God, these Nobles should such stomacks beare,
I my selfe fight not once in fortie yeere. Exeunt.
[Henry the Sixth, Part One (Folio) 3.1]
Enter Maior.
Maior. Oh my good Lords, and vertuous Henry,
Pitty the Citie of London, pitty vs:
The Bishop, and the Duke of Glosters men, [1290]
Forbidden late to carry any Weapon,
Haue fill'd their Pockets full of peeble stones;
And banding themselues in contrary parts,
Doe pelt so fast at one anothers Pate,
That many haue their giddy braynes knockt out:
Our Windowes are broke downe in euery Street,
And we, for feare, compell'd to shut our Shops.
-------------------------------------------------------------
[Henry the Sixth, Part Two (Quarto) 4.5]
Enter the Lord Skayles vpon the Tower walles walking.
Enter three or foure Citizens below.
Lord Scayles. How now, is Iacke Cade slaine? [2600]
I. Citizen. No my Lord, nor likely to be slaine,
For they haue wonne the bridge,
Killing all those that withstand them.
The Lord Mayor craueth ayde of your honor from the Tower,
To defend the Citie from the Rebels.
[Henry the Sixth, Part Two (Folio) 4.3]
Alarums to the fight, wherein both the Staffords are slaine.
Enter Cade and the rest.
Cade. Where's Dicke, the Butcher of Ashford?
But. Heere sir.
Cade. They fell before thee like Sheepe and Oxen, &
thou behaued'st thy selfe, as if thou hadst beene in thine
owne Slaughter-house: Therfore thus will I reward thee,
the Lent shall bee as long againe as it is, and thou shalt
haue a License to kill for a hundred lacking one.
But. I desire no more. [2520]
Cade. And to speake truth, thou deseru'st no lesse.
This Monument of the victory will I beare, and the bo-
dies shall be dragg'd at my horse heeles, till I do come to
London, where we will haue the Maiors sword born be-
fore vs.
But. If we meane to thriue, and do good, breake open
the Gaoles, and let out the Prisoners.
Cade. Feare not that I warrant thee. Come, let's march
towards London. Exeunt.
------------------------------------------------------------------
> [Henry VIII ii]: Hol. iii, 897 Lord Mayor Sir Thomas Seimour
King Henry VIII Act 2, Scene 1
First Gentleman Yes, but it held not:
For when the king once heard it, out of anger
He sent command to the lord mayor straight
To stop the rumor, and allay those tongues
That durst disperse it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
> [Henry VIII v]: Hol. iii, 934 Lord Mayor Sir Stephen Pecocke.
Act 5, Scene 5
KING HENRY VIII O lord archbishop,
Thou hast made me now a man! never, before
This happy child, did I get any thing:
This oracle of comfort has so pleased me,
That when I am in heaven I shall desire
To see what this child does, and praise my Maker.
I thank ye all. To you, my good lord mayor,
And your good brethren, I am much beholding;
I have received much honour by your presence,
And ye shall find me thankful. Lead the way, lords:
Ye must all see the queen, and she must thank ye,
She will be sick else. This day, no man think
Has business at his house; for all shall stay:
This little one shall make it holiday.
> -------------------------------------------
> [Henry V]: Hol. iii,556: 'The mayor of London, and the alderman,
apparelled
> in orient grained scarlet, and foure hundred commoners...met the king on
> Blackheath' (1415)
King Henry the Fifth (Folio) 5.0]
Enter Chorus. [2850]
Vouchsafe to those that haue not read the Story,
That I may prompt them: and of such as haue,
I humbly pray them to admit th' excuse
Of time, of numbers, and due course of things,
Which cannot in their huge and proper life,
Be here presented. Now we beare the King
Toward Callice: Graunt him there; there seene,
Heaue him away vpon your winged thoughts,
Athwart the Sea: Behold the English beach
Pales in the flood; with Men, Wiues, and Boyes, [2860]
Whose shouts & claps out-voyce the deep-mouth'd Sea,
Which like a mightie Whiffler 'fore the King,
Seemes to prepare his way: So let him land,
And solemnly see him set on to London.
So swift a pace hath Thought, that euen now
You may imagine him vpon Black-Heath:
Where, that his Lords desire him, to haue borne
His bruised Helmet, and his bended Sword
Before him, through the Citie: he forbids it,
Being free from vain-nesse, and selfe-glorious pride; [2870]
Giuing full Trophee, Signall, and Ostent,
Quite from himselfe, to God. But now behold,
In the quick Forge and working-house of Thought,
How London doth powre out her Citizens,
The Maior and all his Brethren in best sort,
Like to the Senatours of th' antique Rome,
With the Plebeians swarming at their heeles,
Goe forth and fetch their Conqu'ring Caesar in:
As by a lower, but by louing likelyhood,
Were now the Generall of our gracious Empresse, [2880]
As in good time he may, from Ireland comming,
Bringing Rebellion broached on his Sword;
How many would the peacefull Citie quit,
To welcome him? much more, and much more cause,
Did they this Harry. Now in London place him.
As yet the lamentation of the French
Inuites the King of Englands stay at home:
The Emperour's comming in behalfe of France,
To order peace betweene them: and omit
All the occurrences, what euer chanc't, [2890]
Till Harryes backe returne againe to France:
There must we bring him; and my selfe haue play'd
The interim, by remembring you 'tis past.
Then brooke abridgement, and your eyes aduance,
After your thoughts, straight backe againe to France.
-------------------------------------------
> [Richard III]: Lord Mayor Sir Edmund Shaw, or Shaa, brother to Dr. Shaw.
[King Richard the Third (Quarto) 3.1]
Glo. My Lo, the Maior of London comes to greete you.
Enter Lord Maior.
Lo:M . God blesse your grace with health and happy daies.
Prin. I thanke you good my Lo: and thanke you all:
I thought my mother, and my brother Yorke,
Would long ere this haue met vs on the way:
Fie, what a slug is Hastings that he comes not
To tell vs whether they will come, or no. ( Enter L. Hast.
[King Richard the Third (Quarto) 3.5]
Enter Duke of Glocester and Buckingham in armour.
. Enter Maior.
Glo. Here comes the Maior.
Buc. Let me alone to entertaine him. Lo: Maior,
Glo. Looke to the drawbridge there. [2100]
Buc. The reason we haue sent for you.
Glo. Catesby ouerlooke the wals.
Buck. Harke, I heare a drumme.
Glo. Looke backe, defend thee, here are enemies.
Buc. God and our innocence defend vs. Enter Catesby
Glo. O, O, be quiet, it is Catesby. ( with Hast. head.
Cat. Here is the head of that ignoble traitor,
The daungerous and vnsuspected Hastings.
Glo. So deare I lou'd the man, that I must weepe: [2110]
I tooke him for the plainest harmelesse man,
That breathed vpon this earth a christian,
Looke ye my Lo: Maior.
Made him my booke, wherein my soule recorded,
The history of all her secret thoughts:
So smoothe he daubd his vice with shew of vertue,
That his apparant open guilt omitted:
I meane his conuersation with Shores wife,
He laid from all attainder of suspect.
Buck. Well well, he was the couertst sheltred traitor
That euer liu'd, would you haue imagined, [2120]
Or almost beleeue, wert not by great preseruation
We liue to tell it you? The subtile traitor
Had this day plotted in the councell house,
To murder me, and my good Lord of Glocester.
Maior. What, had he so?
Glo. What thinke you we are Turkes or Infidels,
Or that we would against the forme of lawe,
Proceede thus rashly to the villaines death,
But that the extreame perill of the case, [2130]
The peace of England, and all our persons safety
Inforst vs to this execution.
Ma. Now faire befall you, he deserued his death,
And you my good Lords both, haue well proceeded
To warne false traitours from the like attempts:
I neuer lookt for better at his hands,
After he once fell in with Mistresse Shore.
Dut. Yet had not we determined he should die,
Vntill your Lordship came to see his death,
Which now the longing haste of these our friends, [2140]
Somewhat against our meaning haue preuented,
Because, my Lord, we would haue had you heard
The traitor speake, and timerously confesse
The maner, and the purpose of his treason,
That you might well haue signified the same
Vnto the Citizens, who happily may
Misconster vs in him, and wayle his death.
Ma. But my good Lord, your graces word shall serue
As well as I had seene or heard him speake,
And doubt you not, right noble Princes both, [2150]
But Ile acquaint your dutious citizens,
With all your iust proceedings in this cause.
Glo. And to that end we wisht your Lordship here
To auoyde the carping censures of the world.
Buc. But since you come too late of our intents,
Yet witnesse what we did intend, and so my Lord adue.
Glo. After, after, coosin Buckingham, Exit Maior.
[King Richard the Third (Quarto) 3.7]
Enter Glocester at one doore, Buckingham at another.
Glo. How now my Lord, what say the Cittizens?
Buc. Now by the holy mother of our Lord,
The Citizens are mumme, and speake not a word.
Glo. Toucht you the bastardy of Edwards children?
Buck. I did, wyth the insatiate greedinesse of his desires,
His tyranny for trifles, his owne bastardy,
As beyng got, your father then in Fraunce:
Withall I did inferre your lineaments,
Beyng the right Idea of your father,
Both in your forme and noblenesse of minde,
[End signature G4. Catchword: Laid]
Laid open all your victories in Scotland:
Your discipline in warre, wisedome in peace:
Your bounty, vertue, faire humility: [2230]
Indeede left nothing fitting for the purpose
Vntoucht, or sleightly handled in discourse:
And when mine oratory grew to an ende.
I bid them that did loue their countries good,
Crie, God saue Richard, Englands royall King.
Glo. And did they so?
Buc. No so God helpe me,
But like dumbe statues or breathing stones,
Gazde each on other and lookt deadly pale:
Which when I saw, I reprehended them, [2240]
And askt the Maior, what meant this wilfull silence?
His answere was, the people were not wont
To be spoke to, but by the Recorder.
Then he was vrgde to tell my tale againe:
Thus, saith the Duke, thus hath the Duke inferd:
But nothing spake in warrant from himselfe:
When he had done, some followers of mine owne
At the lower end of the Hall, hurld vp their caps,
And some ten voices cried, God saue King Richard.
Thankes louing Cittizens and friends quoth I,
This generall applause and louing shoute,
Argues your wisedomes and your loue to Richard:
And so brake off and came away.
Glo. What tonglesse blockes were they, would they not
Buc. No by my troth my Lo: (speake?
Glo. Will not the Maior then, and his brethren come.
Buc. The Maior is here at hand, and intend some feare,
Be not spoken withall, but with mighty suite:
And looke you get a praier booke in your hand, [2260]
And stand betwixt two churchmen good my Lo:
For on that ground Ile build a holy descant:
Be not easily wonne to our request:
Play the maides part, say no, but take it.
Glo. Feare not me, if thou canst pleade as well for them,
As I can say nay to thee, for my selfe?
[End signature G4v. Catchword: No]
No doubt weele bring it to a happie issue.
Buck. You shal see what I can do, get you vp to the leads. Exit.
Now my L. Maior, I dance attendance heare, [2270]
I thinke the Duke will not be spoke withall. Enter Catesby.
Here coms his seruant : how now Catesby what saies he.
Cates. My Lord, he doth intreat your grace
To visit him to morrow or next daie,
He is within with two right reuerend fathers,
Diuinely bent to meditation,
And in no worldly suite would he be mou'd,
To draw him from his holy exercise. [2280]
Buck. Returne good Catesby to thy Lord againe,
Tell him my selfe, the Maior and Cittizens,
In deepe designes and matters of great moment,
No lesse importing then our generall good,
Are come to haue some conference with his grace.
Cates. Ile tell him what you say my Lord. Exit.
Buck. Aha my Lord this prince is not an Edward :
He is not lulling on a lewd day bed,
But on his knees at meditation:
Not dalying with a brace of Curtizans, [2290]
But meditating with two deepe Diuines:
Not sleeping to ingrosse his idle body,
But praying to inrich his watchfull soule.
Happy were England, would this gracious prince
Take on himselfe the souerainty thereon,
But sure I feare we shall neuer winne him to it.
Maior. Marry God forbid his grace should say vs nay.
Buck. I feare he wil, how now Catesby, Enter Cates.
What saies your Lord?
Cates. My Lo. he wonders to what end, you haue assembled
Such troupes of Cittizens to speake with him,
His grace not being warnd thereof before,
My Lord, he feares you meane no good to him.
Buck. Sorrie I am my noble Cosen should
Suspect me that I meane no good to him.
By heauen I come in perfect loue to him,
And so once more returne and tell his grace: Exit Catesby.
When hollie and deuout religious men, [2310]
Are at their beads, tis hard to draw them thence,
So sweet is zealous contemplation.
Enter Rich. with two bishops a lofte.
Maior. See where he stands between two clergie men.
Buck. Two props of vertue for a christian Prince,
To staie him from the fall of vanitie,
Famous Plantaganet, most gracious prince, [2320]
Lend fauorable eares to our request,
And pardon vs the interruption
Of thy deuotion and right Christian zeale.
Glo. My Lord, there needs no such apologie,
I rather do beseech you pardon me,
Who earnest in the seruice of my God,
Neglect the visitation of my friends,
But leauing this, what is your graces pleasure?
Buck. Euen that I hope which pleaseth God aboue,
And all good men of this vngouerned Ile. [2330]
Glo. I do suspect I haue done some offence,
That seemes disgracious in the Citties eies,
And that you come to reprehend my ignorance.
Buck. You haue my Lord, would it please your grace
At our entreaties to amend that fault.
Glo. Else wherefore breath I in a Christian land?
Buck. Then know it is your fault that you resigne
The supreame seat, the throne maiesticall,
The sceptred office of your auncestors, [2340]
The lineall glorie of your roiall house,
To the corruption of a blemisht stocke:
Whilst in the mildnesse of your sleepie thoughts,
Which here we waken to our countries good,
This noble Ile doth want her proper limbes,
Her face defac't with scars of infamie,
And almost shouldred in the swallowing gulph,
Of blind forgetfulnesse and darke obliuion, [2350]
Which to recure we hartily solicit,
Your gratious selfe to take on you the soueraigntie thereof,
Not as Protector steward substitute,
Or lowlie factor for anothers gaine:
But as successiuelie from bloud to bloud,
Your right of birth, your Emperie, your owne:
For this consorted with the Citizens
Your verie worshipfull and louing frinds,
And by their vehement instigation, [2360]
In this iust suite come I to moue your grace.
Glo. I know not whether to depart in silence,
Or bitterlie to speake in your reproofe,
Best fitteth my degree or your condition:
Your loue deserues my thanks, but my desert
Vnmeritable shunes your high request,
First if all obstacles were cut awaie,
And that my path were euen to the crown,
As my ripe reuenew and dew by birth,
Yet so much is my pouerty of spirit, [2380]
So mightie and so many my defects,
As I had rather hide me from my greatnes,
Beeing a Barke to brooke no mightie sea,
Then in my greatnes couet to be hid,
And in the vapour of my glorie smotherd:
But God be thanked there's no need of me,
And much I need to helpe you if need were,
The roiall tree hath left vs roiall fruit,
Which mellowed by the stealing houres of time,
Will well become the seat of maiestie, [2390]
And make no doubt vs happie by his raigne,
On him I laie what you would laie on me:
The right and fortune of his happie stars,
Which God defend that I should wring from him.
Buck. My lord, this argues conscience in your grace,
But the respects thereof are nice and triuiall,
All circumstances well considered:
You saie that Edward is your brothers sonne,
So saie we to, but not by Edwards wife,
For first he was contract to lady Lucy, [2400]
Your mother liues a witnesse to that vowe,
And afterward by substitute betrothed
To Bona sister to the king of Fraunce,
These both put by a poore petitioner
A care-crazd mother of a many children,
A beauty-waining and distressed widow,
Euen in the afternoone of her best daies
Made prise and purchase of his lustfull eye,
Seduc't the pitch and height of al his thoughts,
To base declension and loathd bigamie, [2410]
By her in his vnlawfull bed he got.
This Edward whom our maners terme the prince,
More bitterlie could I expostulate,
Saue that for reuerence to some aliue
I giue a sparing limit to my tongue:
Then good my Lord, take to your royall selfe,
This proffered benefit of dignitie:
If not to blesse vs and the land withall,
Yet to draw out your royall stocke,
From the corruption of abusing time, [2420]
Vnto a lineall true deriued course.
Maior. Do good my Lord, your Cittizens entreat you.
Cates. O make them ioifull grant their lawful suite.
Glo. Alas, why would you heape these cares on me,
I am vnfit for state and dignitie,
I do beseech you take it not amisse,
I cannot nor I will not yeeld to you.
Buck. If you refuse it as in loue and zeale,
Loath to depose the child your brothers sonne, [2430]
As well we know your tendernes of heart,
And gentle kind effeminate remorse,
Which wee haue noted in you to your kin,
And egallie indeed to all estates,
Yet whether you accept our suite or no,
Your brothers sonne shall neuer raigne our king,
But we will plant some other in the throane,
To the disgrace and downfall of your house:
And in this resolution here we leaue you.
Come Citizens, zounds ile intreat no more. [2440]
Glo. O do not sweare my Lord of Buckingham.
Cates. Call them againe, my lord, and accept their sute.
Ano. Doe, good my lord, least all the land do rew it.
Glo. Would you inforce me to a world of care:
Well, call them againe, I am not made of stones,
But penetrable to your kind intreates,
Albeit against my conscience and my soule,
Coosin of Buckingham, and you sage graue men,
Since you will buckle fortune on my backe,
To beare her burthen whether I will or no, [2450]
I must haue patience to indure the lode,
But if blacke scandale or foule-fac't reproch
Attend the sequell of your imposition,
Your meere inforcement shall acquittance mee
From all the impure blots and staines thereof,
For God he knowes, and you may partly see,
How farre I am from the desire thereof.
Mayor. God blesse your grace, we see it, and will say it.
Glo. In saying so, you shall but say the truth. [2460]
Buck. Then I salute you with this kingly title:
Long liue Richard, Englands royall king.
Mayor. Amen.
Buck. To morrow will it please you to be crown'd.
Glo. Euen when you will, since you will haue it so.
Buck. To morrow then we will attend your grace.
Glo. Come, let vs to our holy taske againe :
Farewel good coosine, farwel gentle friends. Exeunt.
-------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer
Elizabeth Weir
This will not be a blog dedicated to Webb or a web log of how
many times Webb has posted on agnes a gob (142), it will be
a Webb log in the sense of the droll British witticism "log"
meaning "piece of excrement." Webb's shit, in other words.
I write, and not to Webb because Webb is on PERMANENT
IGNORE for insinuating that I am under the influence of
Aryan supremacists:
Art wrote:
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Elizabeth Weir wrote:
> >
> > <<Kathman is correct that the Ashbourne is of
> >
> > Lord Mayor Hammersley,
> >
> > not Oxford. I put both in a picture editor and the Folger is
> > right that a Hammersley portrait was altered to make it look
> > like someone else.
> >
> > I don't know why Kathman or the Folger don't go online
> > and find Hugh Hammersley's other portrait posted by the
> > Hammersley family on their genealogy page. Despite the fact
> > that his hair has been painted out and his eyebrows reduced,
> > both paintings are clearly of Hugh Hammersley--the features
> > are identical. It would be fascinating to know why someone
> > had a painter alter the Hammersley.>>
>
> Well done, Art! I see that you've quoted an unimpeachabe source on
> the subject.
Did you notice, Art, that I only said "Kathman is correct" and
"the Folger is right?"
Webb took it for granted that you wouldn't post anything that
didn't support Oxfordian authorship and that I would never
agree with Kathman and the Folger.
He didn't even read it. A definite case of abuser hubris.
Art Neuendorffer
> Did you notice, Art, that I only said "Kathman is correct" and
> "the Folger is right?"
Yes I did, Elizabeth.
In fact, it is a whole crazy quilt tapestry of standard history that
looks OK close up but when you step back and see the big picture it looks
quite bizarre indeed though there seems to be some method to it.
Art
Lorenzo4344
>unimpeachabe source on the subject
>Date: 8/21/2003
>when you step back and see the big picture it looks
>quite bizarre indeed though there seems to be some method to it.
Ahem: though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.
Lorenzo
"Mark the music."
Elizabeth Weir
It's important to keep in mind the fact that we have a
bicameral brain that has not yet adapted to The Text.
We are so easily manipulated by rhetoric--even en masse--
and history is too easy to destroy. The fifth century
Missionary Wars wiped out history--fanatics tore down the
universities, demolished libraries, burned mountains of
manuscripts--we have almost nothing of classical writing
that was not translated into Persian and back into
Greek--the Persians saved what little we have of our past--
and then the fanatics erased the record of the erasure.
I've got at least five examples of the destruction of Bacon's
evidence. If you want to control events you have to get
control of the text and that's what the Strats thought they
had done.
Art Neuendorffer
> I've got at least five examples of the destruction of Bacon's
> evidence. If you want to control events you have to get
> control of the text and that's what the Strats thought they
> had done.
The Stratman was probably Bacon's own idea.
Bacon as author was a fail-safe mechanism.
Art Neuendorffer