Part 2

before the diary entries stopped.

(xliii) [Unnamed play].

‘for a prologe & a epyloge for the corte’, 29 Dec. 1602.

(_b_) _Plays for Worcester’s, 1602–3_

(xliv) [Unnamed play. Collier’s _Robin Goodfellow_ is forged].

A tragedy, Aug. 1602, but perhaps not finished, unless identical, as suggested by Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 229), with the anonymous _Byron_.

(xlv) _1 Lady Jane_, or _The Overthrow of Rebels_.

With Dekker (q.v.), Heywood, Smith, and Webster, Oct. 1602.

(xlvi) _Christmas Comes but Once a Year._

With Dekker, Heywood, and Webster, Nov. 1602.

(xlvii) [Unnamed play. Collier’s _Like Quits Like_ is forged].

With Heywood, Jan. 1603, but apparently not finished, or possibly identical, as suggested by Greg (_Henslowe_, ii. 235), with (xlviii).

(xlviii) _Shore._

With Day, May 1603, but not finished before the diary ended.

THOMAS CHURCHYARD (1520?-1604).

The best account of Churchyard is that by H. W. Adnitt in _Shropshire Arch. Soc. Trans._ iii (1880), 1, with a bibliography of his numerous poems. For his share in the devices of the Bristol entertainment (_1574_) and the Suffolk and Norfolk progress (_1578_), of both of which he published descriptions, cf. ch. xxiv. He was also engaged by the Shrewsbury corporation to prepare a show for an expected but abandoned royal visit in 1575 (_Mediaeval Stage_, ii. 255). His _A Handful of Gladsome Verses given to the Queenes Maiesty at Woodstocke this Prograce_ (1592) is reprinted in H. Huth and W. C. Hazlitt, _Fugitive Tracts_ (1875), i. It is not mimetic. His own account of his work in _Churchyard’s Challenge_ (1593) suggests that he took a considerable part in Elizabethan pageantry. He says that he wrote:

‘The deuises of warre and a play at Awsterley. Her Highnes being at Sir Thomas Greshams’,

and

‘The deuises and speeches that men and boyes shewed within many prograces’.

And amongst ‘Workes ... gotten from me of some such noble friends as I am loath to offend’ he includes:

‘A book of a sumptuous shew in Shrouetide, by Sir Walter Rawley, Sir Robart Carey, M. Chidley, and M. Arthur Gorge, in which book was the whole seruice of my L. of Lester mencioned that he and his traine did in Flaunders, and the gentlemen Pencioners proued to be a great peece of honor to the Court: all which book was in as good verse as euer I made: an honorable knight, dwelling in the Black-Friers, can witness the same, because I read it vnto him.’

The natural date for this ‘shew’ is Shrovetide 1587. I do not know why Nichols, _Eliz._ ii. 279, dates the Osterley device 1579. Elizabeth was often there, but I find no evidence of a visit in 1579. Lowndes speaks of the work as in print, but I doubt whether he has any authority beyond Churchyard’s own notice, which does not prove publication.

ANTHONY CHUTE (_ob. c._ 1595).

Nashe in his _Have With You to Saffron Walden_ (1596, _Works_, iii. 107), attacking Chute as a friend of Gabriel Harvey, says, ‘he hath kneaded and daub’d vp a Commedie, called The transformation of the King of _Trinidadoes_ two Daughters, Madame _Panachaea_ and the Nymphe _Tobacco_; and, to approue his Heraldrie, scutchend out the honorable Armes of the smoakie Societie’. I hesitate to take this literally.

GEORGE CLIFFORD (1558–1605).

George Clifford was born 8 Aug. 1558, succeeded as third Earl of Cumberland 8 Jan. 1570, and died 30 Oct. 1605. A recent biography is G. C. Williamson, _George, Third Earl of Cumberland_ (1920). He married Margaret Russell, daughter of Francis, second Earl of Bedford, on 24 June 1577. His daughter, Anne Clifford, who left an interesting autobiography, married firstly Richard, third Earl of Dorset, and secondly Philip, fourth Earl of Pembroke. Cumberland was prominent in Elizabethan naval adventure and shone in the tilt. He is recorded as appearing on 17 Nov. 1587 (Gawdy, 25) and 26 Aug. 1588 (_Sp. P._ iv. 419). On 17 Nov. 1590 he succeeded Sir Henry Lee (q.v.) as Knight of the Crown. Thereafter he was the regular challenger for the Queen’s Day tilt, often with the assistance of the Earl of Essex. On 17 Nov. 1592 they came together armed into the privy chamber, and issued a challenge to maintain against all comers on the following 26 Feb. ‘that ther M. is most worthyest and most fayrest Amadis de Gaule’ (Gawdy, 67). Cumberland’s tiltyard speeches, as Knight of Pendragon Castle, in 1591 (misdated 1592) and 1593 are printed by Williamson, 108, 121, from manuscripts at Appleby Castle.

His appearance as Knight of the Crown on 17 Nov. 1595 is noted in Peele’s (q.v.) _Anglorum Feriae_. In F. Davison’s _Poetical Rhapsody_ (1602, ed. Bullen, ii. 128) is an ode _Of Cynthia_, with the note ‘This Song was sung before her sacred Maiestie at a shew on horse-backe, wherwith the right Honorable the Earle of Cumberland presented her Highnesse on Maie day last’. This is reprinted by R. W. Bond (_Lyly_, i. 414) with alternative ascriptions to Lyly and to Sir John Davies. But Cumberland himself wrote verses. I do not know why Bullen and Bond assume that the show was on 1 May 1600. The _Cumberland MSS._ at Bolton, Yorkshire, once contained a prose speech, now lost, in the character of a melancholy knight, headed ‘A Copie of my Lord of Combrlandes Speeche to y^e Queene, upon y^e 17 day of November, 1600’. This was printed by T. D. Whitaker, _History of Craven_ (1805, ed. Morant, 1878, p. 355), and reprinted by Nichols, _Eliz._ iii. 522, and by Bond, _Lyly_, i. 415, with a conjectural attribution to Lyly. In 1601 Cumberland conveyed to Sir John Davies a suggestion from Sir R. Cecil that he should write a ‘speech for introduction of the barriers’ (_Hatfield MSS._ xi. 544), and in letters of 1602 he promised Cecil to appear at the tilt on Queen’s Day, but later tried to excuse himself on the ground that a damaged arm would not let him carry a staff (_Hatfield MSS._ xii. 438, 459, 574). Anne Clifford records ‘speeches and delicate presents’ at Grafton when James and Anne visited the Earl there on 27 June 1603 (Wiffen, ii. 71).

JO. COOKE (_c._ 1612).

Beyond his play, practically nothing is known of Cooke. It is not even clear whether ‘Jo.’ stands for John, or for Joshua; the latter is suggested by the manuscript ascription on a copy of the anonymous _How a Man may Choose a Good Wife from a Bad_ (q.v.). Can Cooke be identical with the I. Cocke who contributed to Stephens’s _Characters_ in 1615 (cf. App. C, No. lx)? Collier, iii. 408, conjectures that he was a brother John named, probably as dead, in the will (3 Jan. 1614) of Alexander Cooke the actor (cf. ch. xv). There is an entry in S. R. on 22 May 1604 of a lost ‘Fyftie epigrams written by J. Cooke Gent’, and a ‘I. Cooke’ wrote commendatory verses to Drayton’s _Legend of Cromwell_ (1607).

_Greenes Tu Quoque or The City Gallant. 1611_

1614. Greene’s Tu quoque, or, The Cittie Gallant. As it hath beene diuers times acted by the Queenes Maiesties Seruants. Written by Io. Cooke, Gent. _For John Trundle._ [Epistle to the Reader, signed ‘Thomas Heywood’, and a couplet ‘Upon the Death of Thomas Greene’, signed ‘W. R.’]

1622. _For Thomas Dewe._

N.D. _M. Flesher._

_Editions_ in Dodsley^{1–4} (1744–1875) and by W. Scott (1810, _A. B. D._ ii) and J. S. Farmer (1913, _S. F. T._).

Heywood writes ‘to gratulate the love and memory of my worthy friend the author, and my entirely beloved fellow the actor’, both of whom were evidently dead. Satire of Coryat’s _Crudities_ gives a date between its publication in 1611 and the performances of the play by the Queen’s men at Court on 27 Dec. 1611 and 2 Feb. 1612 (cf. App. B). In Aug. 1612 died Thomas Greene, who had evidently played Bubble at the Red Bull (ed. Dodsley, p. 240):

_Geraldine._ Why, then, we’ll go to the Red Bull: they say Green’s a good clown.

_Bubble._ Green! Green’s an ass.

_Scattergood._ Wherefore do you say so?

_Bubble._ Indeed I ha’ no reason; for they say he is as like me as ever he can look.

Chetwood’s assertion of a 1599 print is negligible. The Queen of Bohemia’s men revived the play at Court on 6 Jan. 1625 (_Variorum_, iii. 228).

AQUILA CRUSO (_c._ 1610).

Author of the academic _Euribates Pseudomagus_ (cf. App. K).

ROBERT DABORNE (?-1628).

Daborne claimed to be of ‘generous’ descent, and it has been conjectured that he belonged to a family at Guildford, Surrey. Nothing is known of him until he appears with Rosseter and others as a patentee for the Queen’s Revels in 1610. Presumably he wrote for this company, and when they amalgamated with the Lady Elizabeth’s in 1613 came into relations with Henslowe, who acted as paymaster for the combination. The Dulwich collection contains between thirty and forty letters, bonds, and receipts bearing upon these relations. A few are undated; the rest extend from 17 April 1613 to 4 July 1615. Most of them were printed by Malone (_Variorum_, iii. 336), Collier (_Alleyn Papers_, 56), and Swaen (_Anglia_, xx. 155), and all, with a stray fragment from _Egerton MS._ 2623, f. 24, are in Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 65, 126. There and in _Henslowe_, ii. 141, Dr. Greg attempts an arrangement of them and of the plays to which they relate, which seems to me substantially sound. They show Daborne, during the twelve months from April 1613, to which they mainly belong, writing regularly for the Lady Elizabeth’s, but prepared at any moment to sell a play to the King’s if he can get a better bargain. Lawsuits and general poverty made him constantly desirous of obtaining small advances from Henslowe, and on one occasion he was in the Clink. In the course of the year he was at work on at least five plays (_vide infra_), alone or in co-operation now with Tourneur, now with Field, Massinger, and Fletcher. Modern conjectures have assigned him some share in plays of the Beaumont and Fletcher series which there is no external evidence to connect with his name. However this may be, it is clear that, unless his

## activity in 1613–14 was abnormal, he must have written much of which

we know nothing. He is still traceable in connexion with the stage up to 1616, giving a joint bond with Massinger in Aug. 1615, receiving an acquittance of debts through his wife Francisce from Henslowe on his death-bed in Jan. 1616 (_Henslowe_, ii. 20), and witnessing the agreement between Alleyn and Meade and Prince Charles’s men on the following 20 March. But he must have taken orders by 1618, when he published a sermon, and he became Chancellor of Waterford in 1619, Prebendary of Lismore in 1620, and Dean of Lismore in 1621. On 23 March 1628 he ‘died amphibious by the ministry’ according to _The Time Poets_ (_Choice Drollery_, 1656, sig. B).

_Collection_

1898–9. A. E. H. Swaen in _Anglia_, xx. 153; xxi. 373.

_Dissertation_: R. Boyle, _D.’s Share in the Beaumont and Fletcher Plays_ (1899, _E. S._ xxvi. 352).

_A Christian Turned Turk. 1609 < > 12_

_S. R._ 1612, Feb. 1 (Buck). ‘A booke called A Christian turned Turke, or the tragicall lyffes and deathes of the 2 famous pyrates Ward and Danseker, as it hath bene publiquely acted written by Robert Daborn gent.’ _William Barrenger_ (Arber, iii. 476).

1612. A Christian turn’d Turke: or, The Tragicall Liues and Deaths of the two Famous Pyrates, Ward and Dansiker. As it hath beene publickly Acted. Written by Robert Daborn, Gentleman. _For William Barrenger._ [Epistle by Daborne to the Reader, Prologue and Epilogue.]

This may, as Fleay, i. 83, says, be a Queen’s Revels play, but he gives no definite proof, and if it is the ‘unwilling error’ apologized for in the epilogue to _Mucedorus_ (1610), it is more likely to proceed from the King’s men. It appears to be indebted to pamphlets on the career of its heroes, printed in 1609. The Epistle explains the publishing of ‘this oppressed and much martird Tragedy, not that I promise to my selfe any reputation hereby, or affect to see my name in Print, vsherd with new praises, for feare the Reader should call in question their iudgements that giue applause in the action; for had this wind moued me, I had preuented others shame in subscribing some of my former labors, or let them gone out in the diuels name alone; which since impudence will not suffer, I am content they passe together; it is then to publish my innocence concerning the wrong of worthy personages, together with doing some right to the much-suffering Actors that hath caused my name to cast it selfe in the common rack of censure’. I do not know why the play should have been ‘martir’d’, but incidentally Daborne seems to be claiming a share in Dekker’s _If It be not Good, the Devil is in It_ (1612).

_The Poor Man’s Comfort, c. 1617_ (?)

[_MS._] _Egerton MS._ 1994, f. 268.

[Scribal signature ‘By P. Massam’ at end.]

_S. R._ 1655, June 20. ‘A booke called The Poore Mans comfort, a Tragicomedie written by Robert Dawborne, M^r of Arts.’ _John Sweeting_ (Eyre, i. 486).

1655. The Poor-Mans Comfort. A Tragi-Comedy, As it was diuers times Acted at the Cockpit in Drury Lane with great applause. Written by Robert Dauborne Master of Arts. _For Rob: Pollard and John Sweeting._ [Prologue, signed ‘Per E. M.’]

The stage-direction to l. 186 is ‘Enter 2 Lords, Sands, Ellis’. Perhaps we have here the names of two actors, Ellis Worth, who was with Anne’s men at the Cockpit in 1617–19, and Gregory Sanderson, who joined the same company before May, 1619. But there is also a James Sands, traceable as a boy of the King’s in 1605. The performances named on the title-page are not necessarily the original ones and the play may have been produced by the Queen’s at the Red Bull, but 1617 is as likely a date as another, and when a courtier says of a poor man’s suit (l. 877) that it is ‘some suit from porters hall, belike not worth begging’, there may conceivably be an allusion to attempts to preserve the Porter’s Hall theatre from destruction in the latter year. In any case, Daborne is not likely to have written the play after he took orders.

_Doubtful and Lost Plays_

The Henslowe correspondence appears to show Daborne as engaged between 17 April 1613 and 2 April 1614 on the following plays:

(_a_) _Machiavel and the Devil_ (17 April-_c._ 25 June 1613), possibly, according to Fleay and Greg, _Henslowe_, ii. 152, based on the old _Machiavel_ revived by Strange’s men in 1592.

(_b_) _The Arraignment of London_, probably identical with _The Bellman of London_ (5 June–9 Dec. 1613), with Cyril Tourneur, possibly, as Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 75, suggests, based on Dekker’s tract, _The Bellman of London_ (1608).

(_c_) An unnamed play with Field, Massinger, and Fletcher, the subject of undated correspondence (_Henslowe Papers_, 65 and possibly 70, 84) and possibly also of dated letters of July 1613 (_H. P._ 74).

(_d_) _The Owl_ (9 Dec. 1613–28 March 1614). A comedy of this name is in Archer’s list of 1656, but Greg, _Masques_, xcv, thinks that Jonson’s _Mask of Owls_ may be meant.

(_e_) _The She Saint_ (2 April 1614).

Daborne has been suggested as a contributor to the _Cupid’s Revenge_, _Faithful Friends_, _Honest Man’s Fortune_, _Thierry and Theodoret_, and later plays of the Beaumont (q.v.) and Fletcher series, and attempts have been made to identify more than one of these with (_c_) above.

SAMUEL DANIEL (_c._ 1563–1619).

Daniel was born in Somerset, probably near Taunton, about 1563. His father is said to have been John Daniel, a musician; he certainly had a brother John, of the same profession. In 1579 he entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford, but took no degree. He visited France about January 1585 and sent an account of political affairs from the Rue St. Jacques to Walsingham in the following March (_S. P. F._ xix. 388). His first work was a translation of the _Imprese_ of Paulus Jovius (1585). In 1586 he served Sir Edward Stafford, the English ambassador in Paris, and as a young man visited Italy. He was domesticated at Wilton, and under the patronage of Mary, Lady Pembroke, wrote his sonnets to Delia, the publication of which, partial in 1591 and complete in 1592, gave him a considerable reputation as a poet. The attempt of Fleay, i. 86, to identify Delia with Elizabeth Carey, daughter of Sir George Carey, afterwards Lord Hunsdon, breaks down. Nashe in _The Terrors of the Night_ (1594, ed. McKerrow, i. 342) calls her a ‘second Delia’, and obviously the first was not, as Fleay suggests, Queen Elizabeth, but the heroine of the sonnets. Delia dwelt on an Avon, but the fact that in 1602 Lord Hunsdon took the waters at Bath does not give him a seat on the Avon there. Lady Pembroke’s _Octavia_ (q.v.) inspired Daniel’s book-drama _Cleopatra_ (1594). Other poems, notably _The History of the Civil Wars_ (1595), followed. Tradition makes Daniel poet laureate after Spenser’s death in 1599. There was probably no such post, but it is clear from verses prefixed to a single copy (B.M.C. 21, 2, 17) of the _Works_ of 1601, which are clearly addressed to Elizabeth, and not, as Grosart, i. 2, says, Anne, that he had some allowance at Court:

I, who by that most blessed hand sustain’d, In quietnes, do eate the bread of rest. (Grosart, i. 9.)

Possibly, however, this grant was a little later than 1599. Daniel acted as tutor to Anne Clifford, daughter of the Earl of Cumberland, at Skipton Castle, probably by 1599, when he published his _Poetical Essays_, which include an _Epistle_ to Lady Cumberland. It might have been either Herbert or Clifford influence which brought him into favour with Lady Bedford and led to his selection as poet for the first Queen’s mask at the Christmas of 1603. No doubt this preference aroused jealousies, and to about this date one may reasonably assign Jonson’s verse-letter to Lady Rutland (_The Forest_, xii) in which he speaks of his devotion to Lady Bedford:

though she have a better verser got, (Or Poet, in the court-account), than I, And who doth me, though I not him envy.

In 1619 Jonson told Drummond that he had answered Daniel’s _Defence of Ryme_ (?1603), that ‘Samuel Daniel was a good honest man, had no children; but no poet’, and that ‘Daniel was at jealousies with him’ (Laing, 1, 2, 10). All this suggests to me a rivalry at the Jacobean, rather than the Elizabethan Court, and I concur in the criticisms of Small, 181, upon the elaborate attempts of Fleay, i. 84, 359, to trace attacks on Daniel in Jonson’s earlier comedies. Fleay makes Daniel Fastidious Brisk in _Every Man Out of his Humour_, Hedon in _Cynthia’s Revels_, and alternatively Hermogenes Tigellius and Tibullus in _The Poetaster_, as well as Emulo in the _Patient Grissel_ of Dekker and others. In most of these equations he is followed by others, notably Penniman, who adds (_Poetaster_, xxxvii) Matheo in _Every Man In his Humour_ and Gullio in the anonymous _1 Return from Parnassus_. For all this the only basis is that Brisk, Matheo, and Gullio imitate or parody Daniel’s poetry. What other poetry, then, would affected young men at the end of the sixteenth century be likely to imitate? Some indirect literary criticism on Daniel may be implied, but this does not constitute the imitators portraits of Daniel. Fleay’s further identifications of Daniel with Littlewit in _Bartholomew Fair_ and Dacus in the _Epigrams_ of Sir John Davies are equally unsatisfactory. To return to biography. In 1604 Daniel, for the first time so far as is known, became connected with the stage, through his appointment as licenser for the Queen’s Revels by their patent of 4 Feb. Collier, _New Facts_, 47, prints, as preserved at Bridgewater House, two undated letters from Daniel to Sir Thomas Egerton. One, intended to suggest that Shakespeare was a rival candidate for the post in the Queen’s Revels, is a forgery, and this makes it impossible to attach much credit to the other, in which the writer mentions the ‘preferment of my brother’ and that he himself has ‘bene constrayned to live with children’. Moreover, the manuscript was not forthcoming in 1861 (Ingleby, 247, 307). Daniel evidently took a part in the management of the Revels company; the indiscretion of his _Philotas_ did not prevent him from acting as payee for their plays of 1604–5. But his connexion with them probably ceased when _Eastward Ho!_ led, later in 1605, to the withdrawal of Anne’s patronage. The irrepressible Mr. Fleay (i. 110) thinks that they then satirized him as Damoetas in Day’s _Isle of Gulls_ (1606). Daniel wrote one more mask and two pastorals, all for Court performances. By 1607 he was Groom of Anne’s Privy Chamber, and by 1613 Gentleman Extraordinary of the same Chamber. In 1615 his brother John obtained through his influence a patent for the Children of the Queen’s Chamber of Bristol (cf. ch. xii). He is said to have had a wife Justina, who was probably the sister of John Florio, whom he called ‘brother’ in 1611. The suggestion of Bolton Corney (_3 N. Q._ viii. 4, 40, 52) that this only meant fellow servant of the Queen is not plausible; this relation would have been expressed by ‘fellow’. He had a house in Old Street, but kept up his Somerset connexion, and was buried at Beckington, where he had a farm named Ridge, in Oct. 1619.

_Collections_

1599. The Poeticall Essayes of Sam. Danyel. Newly corrected and augmented. _P. Short for Simon Waterson._ [Includes _Cleopatra_.]

1601. The Works of Samuel Daniel Newly Augmented. _For Simon Waterson._ [_Cleopatra._]

1602. [Reissue of 1601 with fresh t.p.]

1605. Certaine Small Poems Lately Printed: with the Tragedie of Philotas. Written by Samuel Daniel. _G. Eld for Simon Waterson._ [_Cleopatra_, _Philotas_.]

1607. Certain Small Workes Heretofore Divulged by Samuel Daniel one of the Groomes of the Queenes Maiesties priuie Chamber, and now againe by him corrected and augmented. _I. W. for Simon Waterson._ [Two issues. _Cleopatra_, _Philotas_, _The Queen’s Arcadia_.]

1611. Certain Small Workes.... _I. L. for Simon Waterson._ [Two issues. _Cleopatra_, _Philotas_, _The Queen’s Arcadia_.]

1623. The Whole Workes of Samuel Daniel Esquire in Poetrie. _Nicholas Okes for Simon Waterson._ [_Cleopatra_, _Philotas_, _The Queen’s Arcadia_, _Hymen’s Triumph_, _The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses_. This was edited by John Daniel.]

1635. Drammaticke Poems, written by Samuel Danniell Esquire, one of the Groomes of the most Honorable Privie Chamber to Queene Anne. _T. Cotes for John Waterson._ [Reissue of 1623 with fresh t.p.]

1718. _For R. G. Gosling, W. Mears, J. Browne._

1885–96. The Complete Works in Verse and Prose of Samuel Daniel. Edited by A. B. Grosart. 5 vols. [Vol. iii (1885) contains the plays and masks.]

PLAYS

_Cleopatra > 1593_

_S. R._ 1593, Oct. 19. ‘A booke intituled The Tragedye of Cleopatra.’ _Symond Waterson_ (Arber, ii. 638).

1594. Delia and Rosamond augmented. Cleopatra. By Samuel Daniel. _James Roberts and Edward Allde for Simon Waterson._ [Two editions. Verse Epistle to Lady Pembroke.]

1595. _James Roberts and Edward Allde for Simon Waterson._

1598. _Peter Short for Simon Waterson._

Also in _Colls._ 1599–1635.

_Edition_ by M. Lederer (1911, _Materialien_, xxxi).

The play is in the classical manner, with choruses. The Epistle speaks of the play as motived by Lady Pembroke’s ‘well grac’d _Antony_’; the Apology to _Philotas_ shows that it was not acted. In 1607 it is described as ‘newly altered’, and is in fact largely rewritten, perhaps under the stimulus of the production of Shakespeare’s _Antony and Cleopatra_. The 1607 text is repeated in 1611, and the Epistle to Lady Pembroke is rewritten. But the text of 1623 is the earlier version again.

_Philotas. 1604_

_S. R._ 1604, Nov. 29 (Pasfield). ‘A Booke called the tragedie of Philotus wrytten by Samuel Daniell.’ _Waterson and Edward Blunt_ (Arber, iii. 277).

1605. [Part of _Coll._ 1605. Verse Epistle to Prince Henry, signed ‘Sam. Dan.’; Apology.]

1607. The Tragedie of Philotas. By Sam. Daniel. _Melch. Bradwood for Edward Blount._ [Shortened version of Epistle to Henry.]

Also in _Colls._ 1607–35.

The play is in the classical manner, with choruses. From the Apology, motived by ‘the wrong application and misconceiving’ of it, I extract:

‘Above eight yeares since [1596], meeting with my deare friend D. Lateware, (whose memory I reverence) in his Lords Chamber and mine, I told him the purpose I had for _Philotas_: who sayd that himselfe had written the same argument, and caused it to be presented in St. John’s Colledge in Oxford; where as I after heard, it was worthily and with great applause performed.... And living in the Country, about foure yeares since, and neere halfe a yeare before the late Tragedy of ours (whereunto this is now most ignorantly resembled) unfortunately fell out heere in England [Sept., 1600], I began the same, and wrote three Acts thereof,--as many to whom I then shewed it can witnesse,--purposing to have had it presented in Bath by certaine Gentlemens sonnes, as a private recreation for the Christmas, before the Shrovetide of that unhappy disorder [Feb. 1601]. But by reason of some occasion then falling out, and being called upon by my Printer for a new impression of my workes, with some additions to the Civill Warres, I intermitted this other subject. Which now lying by mee, and driven by necessity to make use of my pen, and the Stage to bee the mouth of my lines, which before were never heard to speake but in silence, I thought the representing so true a History, in the ancient forme of a Tragedy, could not but have had an unreproveable passage with the time, and the better sort of men; seeing with what idle fictions, and grosse follies, the Stage at this day abused mens recreations.... And for any resemblance, that thorough the ignorance of the History may be applied to the late Earle of Essex, it can hold in no proportion but only in his weaknesses, which I would wish all that love his memory not to revive. And for mine owne part, having beene perticularly beholding to his bounty, I would to God his errors and disobedience to his Sovereigne might be so deepe buried underneath the earth, and in so low a tombe from his other parts, that hee might never be remembered among the examples of disloyalty in this Kingdome, or paraleld with Forreine Conspirators.’

The Apology is fixed by its own data to the autumn of 1604, and the performance was pretty clearly by the Queen’s Revels in the same year. Daniel was called before the Privy Council on account of the play, and used the name of the Earl of Devonshire in his defence. The earl was displeased and a letter of excuse from Daniel is extant (Grosart, i. xxii, from _S. P. D. Jac. I, 1603–10_, p. 18) in which, after asserting that he had satisfied Lord Cranborne [Robert Cecil], he says:

‘First I tolde the Lordes I had written 3 Acts of this tragedie the Christmas before my L. of Essex troubles, as diuers in the cittie could witnes. I saide the maister of the Revells had pervsed it. I said I had read some parte of it to your honour, and this I said having none els of powre to grace mee now in Corte & hoping that you out of your knowledg of bookes, or fauour of letters & mee, might answere that there is nothing in it disagreeing nor any thing, as I protest there is not, but out of the vniuersall notions of ambition and envie, the perpetuall argumentes of books or tragedies. I did not say you incouraged me vnto the presenting of it; yf I should I had beene a villayne, for that when I shewd it to your honour I was not resolud to haue had it acted, nor should it haue bene had not my necessities ouermaistred mee.’

_The Queen’s Arcadia. 1605_

_S. R._ 1605, Nov. 26 (Pasfield). ‘A book called The Quenes Arcadia. Presented by the university of Oxon in Christchurch.’ _Waterson_ (Arber, iii. 305).

1606. The Queenes Arcadia. A Pastorall Trage-comedie presented to her Maiestie and her Ladies, by the Vniuersitie of Oxford in Christs Church, In August last. _G. Eld for Simon Waterson._ [Dedicatory verses to the Queen.]

See _Collections_.

The performance was by Christ Church men on 30 Aug. 1605 during the royal visit to Oxford (cf. ch. iv). The original title appears to have been _Arcadia Reformed_. Chamberlain told Winwood (ii. 140) that the other plays were dull, but Daniel’s ‘made amends for all; being indeed very excelent, and some parts exactly acted’.

_Hymen’s Triumph. 1614_

[_MS._] _Drummond MS._ in Edinburgh Univ. Library. [Sonnet to Lady Roxborough, signed ‘Samuel Danyel’. The manuscript given to the library by William Drummond of Hawthornden, a kinsman of Lady Roxborough, in 1627, is fully described by W. W. Greg in _M. L. Q._ vi. 59. It is

## partly holograph, and represents an earlier state of the text than

the quarto of 1615. A letter of 1621 from Drummond to Sir Robert Ker, afterwards Earl of Ancrum, amongst the _Lothian MSS._ (_Hist. MSS._ i. 116), expresses an intention of printing what appears to have been the same manuscript.]

_S. R._ 1615, Jan. 13 (Buck). ‘A play called Hymens triumphes.’ _Francis Constable_ (iii. 561), [The clerk first wrote ‘Hymens pastoralls’.]

1615. Hymens Triumph. A Pastorall Tragicomaedie. Presented at the Queenes Court in the Strand at her Maiesties magnificent intertainement of the Kings most excellent Maiestie, being at the Nuptials of the Lord Roxborough. By Samuel Daniel. _For Francis Constable._ [Dedicatory verses to the Queen, signed ‘Sam. Daniel’, and Prologue.]

See _Collections_.

Robert Ker, Lord Roxborough, was married to Jean Drummond, daughter of Patrick, third Lord Drummond, and long a lady of Anne’s household. The wedding was originally fixed for 6 Jan. 1614, and the Queen meant to celebrate it with ‘a masque of maids, if they may be found’ (Birch, i. 279). It was, however, put off until Candlemas, doubtless to avoid competition with Somerset’s wedding, and appears from the dedication also to have served for a house-warming, to which Anne invited James on the completion of some alterations to Somerset House. Finett (_Philoxenis_, 16), who describes the complications caused by an invitation to the French ambassador, gives the date as 2 Feb., which is in itself the more probable; but John Chamberlain gives 3 Feb., unless there is an error in the dating of the two letters to Carleton, cited by Greg from _Addl. MS._ 4173, ff. 368, 371, as of 3 and 10 Feb. In the first he writes, ‘This day the Lord of Roxburgh marries M^{rs}. Jane Drummond at Somerset House, whither the King is invited to lie this night; & shall be entertained with shews & devices, specially a Pastoral, that shall be represented in a little square paved Court’; and in the second, ‘This day sevennight the Lord of Roxburgh married M^{rs}. Jane Drummond at Somerset House or Queen’s Court (as it must now be called). The King tarried there till Saturday after dinner. The Entertainment was great, & cost the Queen, as she says, above 3000£. The Pastoral made by Samuel Daniel was solemn & dull; but perhaps better to be read than represented.’ Gawdy, 175, also mentions the ‘pastoral’. There is nothing to show who were the performers.

_Doubtful Play_

Daniel has been suggested as the author of the anonymous _Maid’s Metamorphosis_.

MASKS

_The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses. 8 Jan. 1604_

1604. The true discription of a Royall Masque. Presented at Hampton Court, vpon Sunday night, being the eight of Ianuary, 1604. And Personated by the Queenes most Excellent Majestie, attended by Eleuen Ladies of Honour. _Edward Allde._

1604. The Vision of the 12. Goddesses, presented in a Maske the 8 of Ianuary, at Hampton Court: By the Queenes most Excellent Maiestie, and her Ladies. _T. C. for Simon Waterson._ [A preface to Lucy, Countess of Bedford, is signed by Daniel, who states that the publication was motived by ‘the unmannerly presumption of an indiscreet Printer, who without warrant hath divulged the late shewe ... and the same very disorderly set forth’. Lady Bedford had ‘preferred’ Daniel to the Queen ‘in this imployment’.]

See _Collections_.

_Editions_ by Nichols, _James_, i. 305 (1828), E. Law (1880), and H. A. Evans (1897, _English Masques_).

The maskers, in various colours and with appropriate emblems, were twelve Goddesses, and were attended by torchbearers (cf. Carleton, _infra_); the presenters, ‘for the introducing this show’, Night, Sleep, Iris, Sibylla, and the Graces; the cornets, Satyrs.

The locality was the Hall at Hampton Court. At the lower end was a mountain, from which the maskers descended, and in which the cornets played; at the upper end the cave of Sleep and, on the left (Carleton), a temple of Peace, in the cupola of which was ‘the consort music’, while viols and lutes were ‘on one side of the hall’.

The maskers presented their emblems, which Sibylla laid upon the altar of the temple. They danced ‘their own measures’, then took out the lords for ‘certain measures, galliards, and corantoes’, and after a ‘short departing dance’ reascended the mountain.

This was a Queen’s mask, danced, according to manuscript notes in a copy of the Allde edition (B.M. 161, a. 41) thought by Mr. Law to be ‘in a hand very like Lord Worcester’s’ (_vide infra_), and possibly identical with the ‘original MS. of this mask’ from which the same names are given in Collier, i. 347, by the Queen (Pallas), the Countesses of Suffolk (Juno), Hertford (Diana), Bedford (Vesta), Derby (Proserpine), and Nottingham (Concordia), and the Ladies Rich (Venus), Hatton (Macaria), Walsingham (Astraea), Susan Vere (Flora), Dorothy Hastings (Ceres), and Elizabeth Howard (Tethys).

Anticipations of masks at Court during the winter of 1603–4 are to be found in letters to Lord Shrewsbury from Arabella Stuart on 18 Dec. (Bradley, ii. 193), ‘The Queene intendeth to make a Mask this Christmas, to which end my Lady of Suffolk and my Lady Walsingham hath warrants to take of the late Queenes best apparell out of the Tower at theyr discretion. Certain Noblemen (whom I may not yet name to you, because some of them have made me of theyr counsell) intend another. Certain gentlemen of good sort another’; from Cecil on 23 Dec. (Lodge, iii. 81), ‘masks and much more’; and from Sir Thomas Edmondes on 23 Dec. (Lodge, iii. 83):

‘Both the King’s and Queen’s Majesty have a humour to have some masks this Christmas time, and therefore, for that purpose, both the young lords and chief gentlemen of one part, and the Queen and her ladies of the other part, do severally undertake the accomplishment and furnishing thereof; and, because there is use of invention therein, special choice is made of Mr. Sanford to direct the order and course for the ladies’;

also in the letters of Carleton to Chamberlain on 27 Nov. (Birch, i. 24; _Hardwicke Papers_, i. 383), ‘many plays and shows are bespoken, to give entertainment to our ambassadors’, and 22 Dec. (_S. P. D. Jac. I_, v. 20; Law, 9):

‘We shall have a merry Christmas at Hampton Court, for both male and female maskes are all ready bespoken, whereof the Duke [of Lennox] is _rector chori_ of th’ one side and the La: Bedford of the other.’

I suppose Mr. Sanford to be Henry Sanford, who, like Daniel, had been of the Wilton household (cf. Aubrey, i. 311) and may well have lent him his aid.

The masks of lords on 1 Jan. and of Scots on 6 Jan. are not preserved. The latter is perhaps most memorable because Ben Jonson and his friend Sir John Roe were thrust out from it by the Lord Chamberlain (cf. ch. vi). Arabella Stuart briefly told Shrewsbury on 10 Jan. that there were three masks (Bradley, ii. 199). _Wilbraham’s Journal_ (_Camden Misc._ x), 66, records:

‘manie plaies and daunces with swordes: one mask by English and Scottish lords: another by the Queen’s Maiestie and eleven more ladies of her chamber presenting giftes as goddesses. These maskes, especialli the laste, costes 2000 or 3000^l, the aparells: rare musick, fine songes: and in jewels most riche 20000^l, the lest to my judgment: and her Maiestie 100,000^l. After Christmas was running at the ring by the King and 8 or 9 lordes for the honour of those goddesses and then they all feasted together privatelie.’

But the fullest description was given by Carleton to Chamberlain on 15 Jan. (_S. P. D. Jac. I_, vi. 21, printed by Law, 33, 45; Sullivan, 192).

‘On New yeares night we had a play of Robin goode-fellow and a maske brought in by a magicien of China. There was a heaven built at the lower end of the hall, owt of which our magicien came downe and after he had made a long sleepy speech to the King of the nature of the cuntry from whence he came comparing it with owrs for strength and plenty, he sayde he had broughte in cloudes certain Indian and China Knights to see the magnificency of this court. And theruppon a trauers was drawne and the maskers seen sitting in a voulty place with theyr torchbearers and other lights which was no vnpleasing spectacle. The maskers were brought in by two boyes and two musitiens who began with a song and whilst that went forward they presented themselves to the King. The first gave the King an Impresa in a shield with a sonet in a paper to exprese his deuice and presented a jewell of 40,000£ valew which the King is to buy of Peter Van Lore, but that is more than euery man knew and it made a faire shew to the French Ambassadors eye whose master would have bin well pleased with such a maskers present but not at that prise. The rest in theyr order deliuered theyr scutchins with letters and there was no great stay at any of them saue only at one who was putt to the interpretacion of his deuise. It was a faire horse colt in a faire greene field which he meant to be a colt of Busephalus race and had this virtu of his sire that none could mount him but one as great at lest as Alexander. The King made himself merry with threatening to send this colt to the stable and he could not breake loose till he promised to dance as well as Bankes his horse. The first measure was full of changes and seemed confused but was well gone through with all, and for the ordinary measures they tooke out the Queen, the ladies of Derby, Harford, Suffolke, Bedford, Susan Vere, Suthwell th’ elder and Rich. In the corantoes they ran over some other of the young ladies, and so ended as they began with a song; and that done, the magicien dissolved his enchantment, and made the maskers appear in theyr likenes to be th’ Erle of Pembroke, the Duke, Mons^r. d’Aubigny, yong Somerset, Philip Harbert the young Bucephal, James Hayes, Richard Preston, and Sir Henry Godier. Theyr attire was rich but somewhat too heavy and cumbersome for dancers which putt them besides ther galliardes. They had loose robes of crimsen sattin embrodered with gold and bordered with brood siluer laces, dublets and bases of cloth of siluer; buskins, swordes and hatts alike and in theyr hats ech of them an Indian bird for a fether with some jewells. The twelfe-day the French Ambassador was feasted publikely; and at night there was a play in the Queens presence with a masquerado of certaine Scotchmen who came in with a sword dance not vnlike a matachin, and performed it clenly.... The Sunday following was the great day of the Queenes maske.’

This Carleton describes at length; I only note points which supplement Daniel’s description.

‘The Hale was so much lessened by the workes that were in it, so as none could be admitted but men of apparance, the one end was made into a rock and in several places the waightes placed; in attire like savages. Through the midst from the top came a winding stayre of breadth for three to march; and so descended the maskers by three and three; which being all seene on the stayres at once was the best presentacion I have at any time seene. Theyre attire was alike, loose mantles and petticotes but of different colors, the stuffs embrodered sattins and cloth of gold and silver, for which they were beholding to Queen Elizabeth’s wardrobe.... Only Pallas had a trick by herself for her clothes were not so much below the knee, but that we might see a woman had both feete and legs which I never knew before.’

He describes the torchbearers as pages in white satin loose gowns, although Daniel says they were ‘in the like several colours’ to the maskers. The temple was ‘on the left side of the hall towards the upper end’. For the ‘common measures’ the lords taken out were Pembroke, Lennox, Suffolk, Henry Howard, Southampton, Devonshire, Sidney, Nottingham, Monteagle, Northumberland, Knollys, and Worcester.

‘For galliardes and corantoes they went by discretion, and the yong Prince was tost from hand to hand like a tennis bal. The Lady Bedford and Lady Susan tooke owt the two ambassadors; and they bestirred themselfe very liuely: speceally the Spaniard for the Spanish galliard shewed himself a lusty old reueller.... But of all for goode grace and goode footmanship Pallas bare the bell away.’

The dancers unmasked about midnight, and then came a banquet in the presence-chamber, ‘which was dispatched with the accustomed confusion’.

Carleton also mentions the trouble between the Spanish and French ambassadors, which is also referred to in a letter of O. Renzo to G. A. Frederico (_S. P. D. Jac. I_, vi. 37; cf. Sullivan, 195), and is the subject of several dispatches by and to the Comte de Beaumont (_King’s MSS._ cxxiv, ff. 328, 359^v, 363, 373, 381, 383^v, 389; cf. Reyher, 519, Sullivan, 193–5). was the object of the Court not to invite both ambassadors together, as this would entail an awkward decision as to precedence. Beaumont was asked first, to the mask on 1 Jan. He hesitated to accept, expressing a fear that it was intended to ask De Taxis to the Queen’s mask on Twelfth Night, ‘dernier jour des festes de Noël selon la facon d’Angleterre et le plus honnorable de tout pour la cérémonie qui s’y obserue de tout temps publiquement’. After some negotiation he extracted a promise from James that, if the Spaniard was present at all, it would be in a private capacity, and he then dropped the point, and accepted his own invitation, threatening to kill De Taxis in the presence if he dared to dispute precedence with him. On 5 Jan. he learnt that Anne had refused to dance if De Taxis was not present, and that the promise would be broken. He protested, and his protest was met by an invitation for the Twelfth Night to which he had attached such importance. But the Queen’s mask was put off until 8 Jan., a Scottish mask substituted on 6 Jan., and on 8 Jan. De Taxis was present, revelling it in red, while Anne paid him the compliment of wearing a red favour on her costume.

Reyher, 519, cites references to the Queen’s mask in the accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber and of the Office of Works. E. Law (_Hist. of Hampton Court_, ii. 10) gives, presumably from one of these, ‘making readie the lower ende with certain roomes of the hall at Hampton Court for the Queenes Maiestie and ladies against their mask by the space of three dayes’.

Allde’s edition must have been quickly printed. On 2 Feb. Lord Worcester wrote to Lord Shrewsbury (Lodge, iii. 87): ‘Whereas your Lordship saith you were never particularly advertised of the mask, I have been at sixpence charge with you to send you the book, which will inform you better than I can, having noted the names of the ladies applied to each goddess; and for the other, I would likewise have sent you the ballet, if I could have got it for money, but these books, as I hear, are all called in, and in truth I will not take upon me to set that down which wiser than myself do not understand.’

_Tethys’ Festival. 5 June 1610_

1610. Tethys Festiual: or the Queenes Wake. Celebrated at Whitehall, the fifth day of June 1610. Deuised by Samuel Daniel, one of the Groomes of her Maiesties most Honourable priuie Chamber. _For John Budge._ [Annexed with separate title-page to _The Creation of Henry Prince of Wales_ (q.v.). A Preface to the Reader criticizes, though not by name, Ben Jonson’s descriptions of his masks.]

_Edition_ in Nichols, _James_ (1828), ii. 346.

The maskers, in sky-blue and cloth of silver, were Tethys and thirteen Nymphs of as many English Rivers; the antimaskers, in light robes adorned with flowers, eight Naiads; the presenters Zephyrus and two Tritons, whom with the Naiads Daniel calls ‘the Ante-maske or first shew’, and Mercury. Torchbearers were dispensed with, for ‘they would have pestered the roome, which the season would not well permit’.

The locality was probably the Banqueting Room at Whitehall. The scene was supplemented by a Tree of Victory on a mount to the right of ‘the state’. A ‘travers’ representing a cloud served for a curtain, and was drawn to discover, within a framework borne on pilasters, in front of which stood Neptune and Nereus on pedestals, a haven, whence the ‘Ante-maske’ issued. They presented on behalf of Tethys a trident to the King, and a sword and scarf to Henry, and the Naiads danced round Zephyrus. The scene was then changed, under cover of three circles of moving lights and glasses, to show five niches, of which the central one represented a throne for Tethys, with Thames at her feet, and the others four caverns, each containing three Nymphs.

The maskers marched to the Tree of Victory, at which they offered their flowers, and under which Tethys reposed between the dances. Of these they gave two; then took out the Lords for ‘measures, corantos, and galliardes’; and then gave their ‘retyring daunce’. Apparently as an innovation, ‘to avoid the confusion which usually attendeth the desolve of these shewes’, the presenters stayed the dissolve, and Mercury sent the Duke of York and six young noblemen to conduct the Queen and ladies back ‘in their owne forme’.

This was a Queen’s mask, and Daniel notes ‘that there were none of inferior sort mixed among these great personages of state and honour (as usually there have been); but all was performed by themselves with a due reservation of their dignity. The maskers were the Queen (Tethys), the Lady Elizabeth (Thames), Lady Arabella Stuart (Trent), the Countesses of Arundel (Arun), Derby (Darwent), Essex (Lee), Dorset (Air), and Montgomery (Severn), Viscountess Haddington (Rother), and the Ladies Elizabeth Gray (Medway), Elizabeth Guilford (Dulesse), Katherine Petre (Olwy), Winter (Wye), and Windsor (Usk). The antimaskers were ‘eight little Ladies’. The Duke of York played Zephyrus, and two gentlemen ‘of good worth and respect’ the Tritons. ‘The artificiall part’, says Daniel, ‘only speakes Master Inago Jones.’

On 13 Jan. 1610 Chamberlain wrote to Winwood (iii. 117, misdated ‘February’) that ‘the Queen would likewise have a mask against Candlemas or Shrovetide’. Doubtless it was deferred to the Creation, for which on 24 May the same writer (Winwood, iii. 175) mentions Anne as preparing and practising a mask. Winwood’s papers (iii. 179) also contain a description, unsigned, but believed by their editor to be written by John Finett, as follows:

‘The next day was graced with a most glorious Maske, which was double. In the first, came first in the little Duke of Yorke between two great Sea Slaves, the cheefest of Neptune’s servants, attended upon by twelve [eight] little Ladies, all of them the daughters of Earls or Barons. By one of these men a speech was made unto the King and Prince, expressing the conceipt of the maske; by the other a sword worth 20,000 crowns at the least was put into the Duke of York’s hands, who presented the same unto the Prince his brother from the first of those ladies which were to follow in the next maske. This done, the Duke returned into his former place in midst of the stage, and the little ladies performed their dance to the amazement of all the beholders, considering the tenderness of their years and the many intricate changes of the dance; which was so disposed, that which way soever the changes went the little Duke was still found to be in the midst of these little dancers. These light skirmishers having done their _devoir_, in came the Princesses; first the Queen, next the Lady Elizabeth’s Grace, then the Lady Arbella, the Countesses of Arundell, Derby, Essex, Dorset, and Montgomery, the Lady Hadington, the Lady Elizabeth Grey, the Lady Windsor, the Lady Katherine Peter, the Lady Elizabeth Guilford, and the Lady Mary [Anne] Wintour. By that time these had done, it was high time to go to bed, for it was within half an hour of the sun’s, not setting, but rising. Howbeit, a farther time was to be spent in viewing and scrambling at one of the most magnificent banquets that I have seen. The ambassadors of Spaine, of Venice, and of the Low Countries were present at this and all the rest of these glorious sights, and in truth so they were.’

Brief notices in Stowe’s _Annales_ (902, paged 907 in error) and in letters by Carleton to Sir Thomas Edmondes (Birch, i. 114) and by John Noies to his wife (_Hist. MSS. Various Colls._ iii. 261) add nothing to Finett’s account. There were no very serious ambassadorial complications, as the death of Henri IV put an invitation to the French ambassador out of the question (cf. Sullivan, 59). Correr notes with satisfaction that, as ambassador from Venice, he had as good a box as that of the Spanish ambassador, while, to please Spanish susceptibilities, that of the Dutch ambassador was less good (_V. P._ xi. 507).

The mask was ‘excessively costly’ (_V. P._ xii. 86). Several financial documents relating to it are on record (Reyher, 507, 521; Devon, 105, 127; Sullivan, 219, 221; _S. P. D. Jac. I_, liii. 4, 74; lix. 12), including a warrant of 4 March, which recites the Queen’s pleasure that the Lord Chamberlain and Master of the Horse ‘shall take some paines to look into the emptions and provisions of all things necessarie’, another of 25 May for an imprest to Inigo Jones, an embroiderer’s bill for £55, and a silkman’s for £1,071 5_s._, with an endorsement by Lord Knyvet, referring the prices to the Privy Council, and counter-signatures by the Lord Chamberlain and the Master of the Horse. In this case the dresses of the maskers seem to have been provided for them. An allusion in a letter of Donne to Sir Henry Goodyere (_Letters_, i. 240) makes a sportive suggestion for a source of revenue ‘if Mr. Inago Jones be not satisfied for his last masque (because I hear say it cannot come to much)’.

JOHN DAVIDSON (1549?-1603).

A Regent of St. Leonard’s College, St. Andrew’s, and afterwards minister of Liberton and a bitter satirist on behalf of the extreme Kirk party in Scotland.

_The Siege of Edinburgh Castle. 1571_

James Melville writes s.a. 1571: ‘This yeir in the monethe of July, Mr. Jhone Davidsone an of our Regents maid a play at the mariage of Mr. Jhone Coluin, quhilk I saw playit in Mr. Knox presence, wherin, according to Mr. Knox doctrine, the castell of Edinbruche was besiged, takin, and the Captan, with an or two with him, hangit in effigie.’[656]

This was in intelligent anticipation of events. Edinburgh Castle was held by Kirkcaldy of Grange for Mary in 1571. On 28 May 1573 it was taken by the English on behalf of the party of James VI, and Kirkcaldy was hanged.

Melville also records plays at the ‘Bachelor Act’ of 1573 at St. Andrews.

SIR JOHN DAVIES (1569–1626).

Davies was a Winchester and Queen’s College, Oxford, man, who entered the Middle Temple on 3 Feb. 1588, served successively as Solicitor-General (1603–6) and Attorney-General (1606–19) in Ireland, and was Speaker of the Irish Parliament in 1613. His principal poems are _Orchestra_ (1594) and _Nosce Teipsum_ (1599). He was invited by the Earl of Cumberland (q.v.) to write verses for ‘barriers’ in 1601, and contributed to the entertainments of Elizabeth by Sir Thomas Egerton (cf. ch. xxiv) and Sir Robert Cecil (q.v.) in 1602.

_Collections_

_Works_ by A. B. Grosart (1869–76, _Fuller Worthies Library_. 3 vols.).

_Poems_ by A. B. Grosart (1876, _Early English Poets_. 2 vols.).

_Dissertation_: M. Seemann, _Sir J. D., sein Leben und seine Werke_ (1913, _Wiener Beiträge_, xli).

R. DAVIES (_c._ 1610).

Contributor to _Chester’s Triumph_ (cf. ch. xxiv, C).

FRANCIS DAVISON (_c._ 1575–_c._ 1619).

He was son of William Davison, Secretary of State, and compiler of _A Poetical Rapsody_ (1602), of which the best edition is that of A. H. Bullen (1890–1). He entered Gray’s Inn in 1593: for his contribution to the Gray’s Inn mask of 1595, see s.v. ANON. _Gesta Grayorum_.

JOHN DAY (_c._ 1574–_c._ 1640).

Day was described as son of Walter Dey, husbandman, of Cawston, Norfolk, when at the age of eighteen he became a sizar of Gonville and Caius, Cambridge, on 24 Oct. 1592; on 4 May 1593 he was expelled for stealing a book (Venn, _Caius_, i. 146). He next appears in Henslowe’s diary, first as selling an old play for the Admiral’s in July 1598, and then as writing busily for that company in 1599–1603 and for Worcester’s in 1602–3. Most of this work was in collaboration, occasionally with Dekker, frequently with Chettle, Hathway, Haughton, or Smith. From this period little or nothing survives except _The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green_. Greg, _Henslowe Papers_, 126, doubts whether an acrostic on Thomas Downton signed ‘John Daye’, contributed by J. F. Herbert to _Sh. Soc. Papers_, i. 19, and now at Dulwich, is to be ascribed to the dramatist. Day’s independent plays, written about 1604–8, and his _Parliament of Bees_ are of finer literary quality than this early record would suggest. But Ben Jonson classed him to Drummond in 1619 amongst the ‘rogues’ and ‘base fellows’ who were ‘not of the number of the faithfull, i.e. Poets’ (Laing, 4, 11). He must have lived long, as John Tatham, who included an elegy on him as his ‘loving friend’ in his _Fancies Theater_ (1640), was then only about twenty-eight. He appears to have been still writing plays in 1623, but there is no trace of any substantial body of work after 1608. Fleay, i. 115, suggests from the tone of his manuscript pamphlet _Peregrinatio Scholastica_ that he took orders.

_Collection_

1881. A. H. Bullen, _The Works of John Day_.

_The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green. 1600_

_S. R._ 1657, Sept. 14. ‘A booke called The pleasant history of the blind beggar of Bednall Greene, declaring his life and death &c.’ _Francis Grove_ (Eyre, ii. 145).

1659. The Blind Beggar of Bednal-Green, with The merry humor of Tom Strowd the Norfolk Yeoman, as it was divers times publickly acted by the Princes Servants. Written by John Day. _For R. Pollard and Tho. Dring._

_Editions_ by W. Bang (1902, _Materialien_, i) and J. S. Farmer (1914, _S. F. T._).

The Prince’s men of the title are probably the later Prince Charles’s (1631–41), but these were the ultimate successors of Prince Henry’s, formerly the Admiral’s, who produced, between May 1600 and Sept. 1601, three parts of a play called indifferently by Henslowe _The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green_ and _Thomas Strowd_. Payments were made for the first part to Day and Chettle and for the other two to Day and Haughton. On the assumption that the extant play is