A Iirnil'RTO UNRECOGNIZED CAVALIER DRAMATIST: JAMES COMPTON, THIRD EARL OF NORTHAMPTON

H I I. ION K KI t.tllF.R

ON 8 March K)78 there was offered for sale at Christie's, as lot 293, a large collection oric:inatinG; trom Castle .\shb\ in Northamptonshire of plays and other writings in manuscript that had largely been lost sight of since Thomas Percy, the literary historian and editor ot the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry^ first noted their existence during his residence in the area as Vicar of Easton Maudit between 1753 and 1782. They had been rccoxered as recently as September 1977 by the present Marquess of Northampton from the back ot a drawer in the house, and their rediscovery had been announced in '//;(• Tunes Literary Supplement of 9 December that year by Professor William P. \\ illianis, an .American scholar whose inquiry regarding their whereabouts had prompted this tortunate event.' Percy's list of nine ofthe plays in this collection occurs among the annotations that he made in a copy of Langbaine's Account of the English Dramatic Poets (Oxford, r6(ji) that is now preserved in F^dinburgh University Library.^ It was to Cosmo \lanucci or Manuche, the author of two of the pieces in his list as also of a iliird not rccnrdcd b\ him that Percy had, as he later recalled in his notes, been inclined to ascribe all ihu plays when he saw them together. Christie's cataloguer was more cautious, ascribing all but those manuscripts that bear Manuche's signed dedications to the 3rd l",arl of Northampton to an 'unidentified Cavalier Dramatist, circa 1640 to 1050', though mentioning a possibility that they might be the work of one Samuel Holland, the manuscripts of whose two-part masque entitled The Enchanted Groi\\-^ also dedicated to Northampton and now lost (though perhaps not beyond hope of recovery), Percy had also seen at Castle Asbby. A very little work carried out shortly before the sale by the present writer showed, however, that several of these manuscripts were uritten in the variable but unmistakable hand of James Compton, Earl of Northampton, himself; and the fact that a number of them are clearly autograph drafts b\ their author ine\itabl\ led to the conclusion that probably all are the work of Northampton, whose name may therefore be added to the list of known seventeenth- century, or more particularly of Cavalier, playwrights. The whole collection was subsequently purchased by the British Library (Add. MSS. 60273-85), along with various other items trom the same source including, at a further sale of 5 July that

158 year (lot 47), a translation in stanzaic verse of Virgil's Aeneid, Book IV, that has credibly been ascribed to Sir John Harington of Kelston.*^ Scholars everywhere owe a debt of gratitude to Christie's for allowing the integrity ofthe Castle Ashby collection of plays to be preserved by not dividing it into individual lots, with consequent risk of dispersal. The importance of this step will be the more apparent when it is said that Professor Williams's researches into the family papers at Castle Ashby strongly suggest that the notebooks into which Northampton and Manuche copied their respective plays were made up from stocks of paper held in the Earl's household between about 1642 and 1666.^ This tends to confirm what the dedications already hinted, namely that a small coterie of dramatists had formed around Northampton and his first Countess during the later 1640s and the Interregnum, centring on London or Castle Ashby. What follows is a preliminary attempt to describe the career and literary productions of the 3rd Earl. A fuller appreciation of his literary merits, his place in contemporary closet-drama, and his debts to previous authors, both English and foreign, must await the patient researches of more competent literary historians and critics.

THE COMPTON FAMILY AND THE THEATRE The purpose of the present biographical notes is to provide a background to the brief examination of Northampton's writings that is attempted in the latter part ofthis article, and to emphasize his family's connection with the theatre during the first half of the seventeenth century.^ In his handsomely produced History of the Comptons the 6th Marquess published a detailed account of his ancestors that need not be abstracted here. Suffice it to say that despite their title and adoption of Castle Ashby as their principal residence during the reign of James I the Comptons were a Warwickshire family who had been seated at Compton Wyniates near Banbury since at least the thirteenth century. By the marriage of Earl James's grandfather. Lord William Compton, later (1628) ist Earl of Northampton, to the only child ofa very wealthy merchant and Lord Mayor of London, Sir John Spencer, they had added to their title and favoured standing at Elizabeth's court considerable riches and landed property: as a consequence Spencer Compton, the 2nd Earl (1630), inherited lands in no fewer than eleven counties, as well as three houses in London and the tw^o in the country that were mentioned above, and was able to settle ^20,000 for the portions of his younger children. It was only to be expected that talented men, such as they were, should have become involved in amateur theatricals at the courts of Elizabeth and her successors, but the ist Earl and his descendants showed, in their different ways, a distinct flair for the drama that exceeded the normal level of aristocratic accomplishment. As a young man James's grandfather had appeared as a tilter in Sir Henry Lee's Tilt Yard Entertainment held on the Queen's Day, 17 November 1590, his entry being described by George Peele in glowing terms; while at the wedding ofthe Earl of Somerset in 1613 he took part in a masque by Campion and a tilt by Jonson.^ He revealed

159 Fig. I. Portrait of James, 3rd Karl of Northampton. From: William Bingham Compton, Marquess of Northampton, Htstory ofthe Comptons (London, 1930) histrionic abilities of quite a different order, however, when the court celebrated at Salisbury in August 1620 the anniversary ofthe failure ofthe Gowrie conspiracy with 'a show or play of twelve parts' in which he portrayed a 'cobbler and teacher of Birds to whistle.'^ This talent for comedy seems to have passed to his son Spencer, who on the same occasion played a tailor, and as a Fellow Commoner at Queens' College, Cambridge, while not yet thirteen years of age had taken on three roles in the Latin comedy of Ignoramus^ written by George Ruggle of Clare, when it was presented before King James and Prince Charles at Trinity College on 8 March 1614/5.^ One of these was the part of Surda, a female servant, which young Spencer had taken over in place of his tutor whose Puritan scruples about wearing women's clothes could not be overcome. The part of Dulman was taken by John Towers who later, as chaplain to Lord Compton, was presented to the Rectory of Castle Ashby and eventually became Bishop of Peterborough. John Chamberlain, writing to Dudley Carleton, remarked that the 'thing was full of mirth and variety, with many excellent actors; among whom the Lord Compton's son, though least, yet was not worst, but more than half marred by extreme length'. James, however, was so delighted with the play that on his return in the following May he commanded a second performance. The young Spencer is rightly described by his descendant as having been 'educated at Cambridge and abroad', for David Lloyd wrote of him that 'his parts were so great, and his appetite for knowledge so large, that it was as much as four several Tutors, at Home, at Cambridge^ and in France, and Italy^ each taking his respective hour for the Art and Science he professed, to keep pace with his great proficiency'.^° In December 1619 he was granted a licence to travel abroad for two years but was back by October 1621 when he married Mary, daughter of Sir Francis Beaumont, a very distant kinsman of the dramatist. Spencer's heir, James Compton, was born on 19 August 1622, the eldest of six sons of whom four were to distinguish themselves as royalist commanders in the civil war and the youngest of all as Bishop of London after the Restoration. He seems to have been schooled at Eton from about 1633 to 1636. During one of his summer holidays, in August 1634, the King and court stayed four nights at Castle Ashby while on a progress, and though there is some doubt about whether Prince Charles's Company remained with them thus far into the month it is more than likely that the visit involved some theatricals.^ ^ In February 1635/6 he received an M.A. at Cambridge zsjilius nobilis when he visited the University in the train ofthe Elector Palatine, ^^ though it was not until almost a year after this, on 21 January 1636/7, that he was formally admitted to his father's old College. Early in this year the authorities at Cambridge began to assemble a collection of congratulatory verses, Musarum Cantabrigiensium Z'wojSa, on the birth ofthe princess Anne that eventually took place on 17 March. Northampton's contribution, which curiously enough was the only one received from Queens', comes third in the printed volume, following verses by the Vice-Chancellor and by two younger sons of the Duke of Lennox, both of whom were subsequently killed fighting for the King. His four-line Latin epigram is distinguished from the elegant literary tributes of Crashaw, Cowley, Marvell and their fellows by its fierce topicality.

161 Ad Rcgi'm, Classe tuani gcntctn, munis tu Carole prolc; Quac tamcn ex partu est, dulcior ilia salus. Grata magis populo quac sit, non quaere; crumcnam Altcra eum pulsct, eonstat at haec nihilo. (You Siitcguard your people, Char!cs, both with your fleet and otfspring, though the safety tbat cotncs trom childbirth is the sweeter. Do not ask which is more p!casing to your subjects, bowcvcr; whilc the one injures their purse, the other costs them nothing.) These were dangerously cynical sentiments to put into print about the attitude of Englishmen who had opposed the King's demand for Ship Money, even though they followed closely on the favourable answer ofthe twelve judges to the questions of legality set out in Charles's letter. This brief epigram, the only piece of verse that Northampton is known ever to have published, shows at an early stage of his career his contempt for those who were unwilling to put their resources, as later their lives, at the service ofthe King. As James Compton's name does not appear in the cast-list of William Johnson's Latin comedy / aletudinarium that was staged entirely by Queens' men on 6 February 1637/8,' ^ he may have seized tbe opportunity to accompany his father who was appointed to escort tbe Palatine brothers to The Hague in the previous July, travelling thence through France, Spain, and Italy. The tour that he now undertook is his only known period of travel outside England and Wales, and it may well be that his sojourn abroad, probably with a tutor-companion, produced or confirmed in him that taste for the literature of France and Italy that is evident throughout his later WTitings. He was presumably at the end of his journey when his father wrote urgently to him in the Low Countries in September 1640 to return and stand as member for Warwickshire in opposition to the Parliamentary and Puritan interest represented by the other local magnate. Lord Brooke of Warwick Clastic. The first return was voided, but James was nevertheless re-elected on 2 November and took his seat in the Long Parliament under the title of Lord Compton. His involvement with national politics soon began in earnest, for at the debate held on the Bill of Attainder against Strat!ord on 21 April 1641 he voted against the motion along with somewhat over a quarter ofthe House of Commons, and as a consequence his name appeared, in second place, in the list of'Stratfordians, betrayers of their country' that was surreptitiously posted up in the Old Palace Yard.^'* By this action he came in for a share of the overwhelming public indignation against the unfortunate Earl. When the King raised his standard at Nottingham in August 1642 he was joined from York by Spencer, Earl of Northampton, and his sons James, just then turned twenty, William, C:har!es, and Spencer the younger. On 23 October they all took part in the battle of Edgehill, as a result of which the three younger brothers were knighted two months later. For James this was not the first taste of action, for in mid-August he had been wounded in the face while firing the first shot against Warwick Castle, in what Aubrey called the first 'brush' ofthe civil war.'^ After the taking of Banbury on 27 October he spent the winter there with his father who had been appointed governor

162 ot the garrison, and on i6 February was deprived of his seat in the Commons for being in actual war against Parliament. On 19 March he was present at, and retired hurt from, the battle of Hopton Heath in which his tather, having engaged himself too far, was surrounded and killed refusing quarter. He shortly after sought'** and was granted all the latter's commands. The course of his movements throughout the rest of the war is chronicled in various places.''' To summarize briefly, as commander of his own troop of horse and later offour regiments of cavalry, he fought in the Midlands and the West Country, taking part in the first battle of Newbury (20 September 1643) and that of Cropredy Bridge (30 June 1644), raising the first seige of Banbury (25 October 1644), being routed by Cromwell at Islip (April 1645), fighting at Naseby (14 June 1645) and, after heading 1,500 horse in Wales, retiring to Oxford. The chronology ofthe events that followed is curious when we consider his outraged condemnation in The Marli/d Monarch of those who deserted the King in the final stages of the war. In a petition of May 1647 he claimed to have been willing to submit to Parliament as early as August 1645, and it is certain that on the following 16 February he was granted a pass by the Committee of Both Kingdoms to go abroad with twenty gentlemen 'that came with him trom Oxtord', and given leave to send up a deputy to negotiate the terms on which his confiscated estates might be returned to him.^^ However, on 23 March he obtained permission to come himself before the Committee at Derby House, and five weeks later made his application to compound for his estates.' ^ AH this time his brothers Sir William and Sir Spencer Compton were holding out in Banbury and surrendered only when they heard that the King had given himself up to the Scots on 6 May. Despite his pass, the Earl seems to have remained in England, settling his account with the new regime and restoring his houses: by December 1651 the various County Committees were informed ofthe discharge of his sequestration and he was thereafter permitted to enjoy the income from his estates.^*' It may be no coincidence that the following year saw the dedication to him of two printed works, and that his active patronage of playwrights begins in the mid-i65os. The fourteen years that elapsed between Northampton's laying down his arms and the Restoration of Charles II are of considerable interest to us also as being the likeliest period for the composition of at least a number of his literary works, and the chronology of his life is therefore of some importance. On 5 July 1647 he married at St. James's Clerkenwell Lady Isabella Sackville, daughter of Richard, 3rd Earl of Dorset and the formidable Anne Clifford, Countess of Cumberland, to whose large estates she was coheiress. In this match Lady Isabella was seemingly permitted to follow her own liking, to the satisfaction of her mother and the annoyance of her stepfather, the Earl of Pembroke. Over the next fourteen years six children were born to them—in May 1649, May 1653, July 1655, December 1656, April 1659 and 1661 respectively —though only the last of these. Lady Alethea Compton, survived into adulthood, dying in 1678 as the heir of her grandmother. It is clear, moreover, from some verses 'Upon the Countesse of Northampton's recovery though not yet delivered''' that were composed in January 1651 by the Suffolk poet Clement Paman, then Vicar of Thatcham, Berkshire, that at

163 least one other child was conceived. During this period the Earl and Countess resided principally at Canonbury House, then in the countryside to the north of London, from time to time visiting C^astle Ashby and Compton, a freedom that had been confirmed to them by C^romwell's order of 15 January 1649/50: it was said, indeed, that 'General Cromwell hath been very kind to Lord Northampton about his composition'.^^ Nevertheless, the latter was not allowed to proceed entirely unmolested about his private affairs, as tbe poetaster Richard Flecknoe reflected in an epigram To James Earl of Northampton' that was first published in his Epigrams of all sorts (London, 1671). During the Interregnum he spent several periods in prison on various charges: first in October 1651, probably for suspected implication in a royalist plot; then in June 1653 on a matter of compensation for an act of war ten years previously; again in the summer of 1655 for refusal to pay taxes; and finally in September 1659 on suspicion of complicity in Sir George Booth's rising. At other times, notably in June 1653, May July 1654, and June 1657, alone or with his family, James visited his mother-in-law at her castles in the north, and on 5 April 1659 is recorded^^ as calling on John Evelyn at Wotton in company witb John Michael Wright, the portrait-painter. Lite under the restored monarchy, as one would expect, began well for the Earl, who greeted Charles II at his entry into London at the head of 200 gentlemen dressed in blue and grey. He was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire and Recorder of Coventry, holding both posts until his death; and in the new Parliament sat with only a single period of absence, in May 1662, until its eighth session in 1669, though with somewhat less regularity thereafter. His only notable action in the Lords was his introduction in December 1667 of an act calling for the perpetual banishment of C^larendon, who had tied to F"ranee in the previous month. Pepys called this a 'thing of vanity and to insult over him; which is mighty poor I think, and so doth everybody else . . .\-^ but it became law nevertheless on 19 December. In May 1663 Northampton was elected a l'ellow of the newly formed Royal Society, and in March 1672 a Privy Councillor, though he did not figure in Charles's reformed list of April 1679. In his capacity as Constable ofthe Tower, a post that he held from July 1675 until 1679, he was jailer to the four lords, Buckingham, Shaftesbury, Salisbury, and Wharton, when they were committed in February 1677 for questioning the legality of the long prorogation. Little more remains to be said in this brief summary. Northampton's wife, who is credited with having raised ;C6,ooo in arms to assist the King's restoration, died in their house in the north-west corner of Lincoln's Inn F'ields in October 1661, and was buried at her own request in the church at Compton that had been despoiled by the rebels and rebuilt by her husband. About 1664 the Earl married again. His new wife. Lady Mary, eldest daughter of Baptist Hicks, 3rd Viscount Campden by the third of his four Viscountesses, was considerably his junior and survived him by thirty-eight years. At her death she bequeathed as an heirloom to Castle Ashby the portrait of her husband ascribed to Lely, that is reproduced in the History ofthe Comptons: it shows a handsome, sad-eyed man dressed in armour of the civil war (fig. i), and is a pair to that of his first Countess, by whose side he himself was buried at his death on 15 December 1681.

164 NORTHAMPTON AND THE PLAYERS Northampton's experience of the theatre before the outbreak of civil war would have been varied but probably not very considerable. His early acquaintance with it at school and university, as well as no doubt at home, probably supplemented with occasional visits to London and the court, must have been complemented by what he saw abroad; but his regular playgoing would be confined to the period of rather less than two years during which he lived in London as Member of Parliament between November 1640 and the summer of 1642. The Caroline court theatre was then in its decline, but he might have attended any one of several public and private houses before their closure in September ofthe latter year. Interestingly enough, his first recorded association with playwrights seems to have begun in the time ofthe Commonwealth, with two who had held minor commands in the royalist forces, while yet another is said to have been attached to the garrison at Banbury. The most important of these dramatists is Cosmo Manuche,-^^ who according to a certificate of 12 December 1661 served the King as captain and major of foot 'from the beginning of the late wars in England to their ending', and afterwards in Ireland and the Scilly Isles until both were deserted by royalist forces. After the war he made a living by boarding scholars and in 1656, when this prop was removed from his growing family, turned informer to Thurloe. In 1652 he dedicated to the Earl and Countess of Northampton his first play. The Just General, which was entered in the Stationers' Register on 29 November 1651; Thomason's copy bears the date of 4 April of the following year. The Earl's gracious acceptance of the compliment is recalled in Manuche's dedication of the Castle Ashby autograph manuscript of The Banished Shepherdess, a pastoral allegory of the restoration of Charles II, and continued by similar dedications in The Feast, composed about t664, and Love in Travel, which may be somewhat later.^^ Another Cavalier patronized by Northampton was Samuel Holland, of whom little is known beyond what Percy recorded in the Edinburgh copy of Langbaine: 'I suppose this Major Holland (as well as Cosmo Manuche) was an Officer in the Regiment raised by the st//d Earl of Northampton in the cause of K;«g Charles I: if so, it was a very poetical Corps." Possibly this Holland is the 'esquire' named in the list of the garrison at Worcester^ "^ at its surrender to Parliament in July 1646, and he may perhaps be identified with the 'Samuel Holland Gent.' who wTote the quixotic Wit and Fancy in a Maze., a Mock Romance (1656), otherwise published as Don Zara del Fogo and Romancio-mastix, a copy of which in the last-mentioned edition (1660) still survives in the library at Castle Ashby. If tradition is to be believed, Northampton's Corps was rendered even more poetical by the presence in it as chaplain^^ to the Earl or his father of Peter Hausted, a Queens' man belonging to the generation between the two Comptons, who was Vicar of Gretton in Northampton- shire in 1640 and Rector ofthe Wold in the same county in 1643. However, as Kirby Hall, the residence of Northampton's 'old friend' Christopher, Baron Hatton, was in the parish of Gretton, while the advowson of Wold belonged to him,'^ Hausted would seem more likely to have been Hatton's chaplain, especially since this nobleman is said

165 h) .\UIMC) lo iia\c cniploNcd him to compose the epitaph for the monument that he raised to 'Iliomas Randolph a story that earlier rivalry between the two dramatists does not necessarily disprove. The further tradition, recorded by Anthony Wood, that Haustcd died at lianbury during the siege of 1644 is not confirmed by the church registers, though as the building was being used as a magazine and gun-emplacement b\ the Parliamentary forces this may not be so surprising.-'*' During the early 1650s Northampton was the recipient of dedications of several printed works also. The first of these was Bernard Alsop's reprint of the novel entitled '/'//(' Trouhlcsomc and Hard fdirnlurcs in Lovc\ adapted from Montemayor's Diana by *R. C..' |R. C'.arr?! and first published in i5()4. Though the title-page bears the date 1652 Thomason acquired his copy on 21 November 1651. Alsop, the successor of the original publisher, Thomas Creed, was a royalist printer who had evidently consulted the Earl's tastes. Two years later Northampton and his Countess figured jointly in a dedication that was clearly the result of theatrical interests and connections.-*^ William Hemings, the son of Shakespeare's friend and co-editor, and former leader of the King's Company, died in the London parish of St. Giles in the Fields at some time in 1653. His play The Fatal Contract^ written in the mid-i63os, had been acted by Queen Henrietta's men at the Phoenix or C-ockpit in Drury Lane, and several of the actors lived in the same parish. It seems likely that two of these were the 'A. P.' (Andrew Pennecuick) and W. T.' (Anthony Turner) who caused the play to be printed in 1653 or 1654 with a dedication to the Northamptons, the more especially since Turner appears after the Restoration as an actor in John Rhodes's company at that theatre. The printer 'J- M.' ma> well ha\e been John Marriot of St. Dunstan's Churchyard, whose son and partner Richard entered in the Stationers' Register on 29 December 1653 twenty-one plays including 'The I'Ainuch, a Traged\\ a title under which The Fatal Contract was republished in 16S7. Ci. 1',. Hentley has argued, against W'. W. Greg, that the two are in fact identical. Some additional support for his thesis may come from the fact that another of the p!a\s included in this list, Henry Glapthorne's supposititious Revenge j or //(>n(itii\ iir The Parricide (1654), published by \4arriot in George Chapman's name, is also dedicated to the I'.arl and his Countess on a leaf that is inserted, 'in the form of a New dear's presentation', in the Pforzheimer copy of the play, a reissue of the same year but without the printer's name.-'- This leaf is thought to be the w^ork of Thomas Ma\e\, who in 1653 had printed the first edition of The Complete Angler for Marriot, while the dedication is signed by William Cartwright and Curtis Greville. The former had been an actor, like Pennecuick and Turner, in Queen Henrietta's Company, and was b\ this date resident in St. Giles's parish: Aubrey mentions him as a bookseller in Turnstile .Alley during the civil war and Interregnum, and on the Restoration he became famous as a member of the King's Company.^^ By the same token we may perhaps guess at the subsequent career of Greville, who in 1634 had been a member of the Revels Company.^"* It seems highly probable that the dedication in the Pforzheimer cop\ of The Revenge for Honour was only one of several printed off'by Maxey for the actors who subscribed it. At a time when the stage was in difficulties and actors were

166 uncertain of regular employment they would be especially grateful of the opportunity to supplement their incomes in this way, and consequently it was a practice in which several ofthe Cockpit troupe indulged, Pennecuick in particular carrying it to the lengths of multiple dedication.^^ The fact that the four actors who thus dedicated plays to Northampton apparently all lived in St. Giles may be of little or no significance, for the Earl is not known to have been resident in that parish before April 1659, by which date he was renting a house in the north-west corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields, although his mother died in March 1657 in one of the newly-built houses in (Great) Queen Street, which runs between that part ofthe Fields and Drury Lane. On the other hand, it probably suggests some connection with the Cockpit theatre, where the second part of that classic Cavalier drama. The Siege of Rhodes, was produced in 1658, and which was a favourite resort of the nobility and gentry. We must also consider that, despite Parliament's ban, performances were still being given at this period in the Salisbury Court, the Fortune in Golden Lane, and the Red Bull in Clerkenwell, the two last being closest to Canonbury House where Northampton lived when in London for at least the earlier years of the Interregnum. It would be agreeable to suppose that, like his neighbour Mildmay Fane, Earl of Westmorland at Apthorpe,^^ Northampton was in the habit of putting on plays at his own house, whether at Canbury (as it was then called) or at Castle Ashby, which is architecturally suited for both outdoor and indoor performances, and that from time to time professional actors might have been invited to take part—possibly even in the staging of his own or Manuche's works. This, however, is mere speculation. The chief remaining source of information about Northampton's literary tastes and connections is the library at Castle Ashby, the contents of which are partly accessible to us through the medium of Professor Williams's recent list ofthe Short-Title-Catalogue books there.^^ We are probably safe enough in taking all the books printed between The Battaile of Hopton Heath (1643) and the year of Northampton's death (1681) as having formed part, at least, of his own (or his wives') collection, though ofcourse this may have been depleted over the centuries; and to these may in all probability be added the majority of works published in the earlier seventeenth century that reflect his known interests. Of some 190 volumes falling into this reckoning no fewer than no were printed before the Restoration, and these may be categorized as follows. Seventeen are dramatic works, including a First Folio and the Works of Jonson (1616); eleven are romances, all but three being translations from French or Italian; sixteen are poetry, of which eleven are by authors contemporary with Northampton himself, and all, ofcourse, markedly royalist in sympathy. A further nineteen are volumes of ancient and modern history, while the rest comprise mostly works of religion, with a scattering of mathematics, science, and political theory, the last being represented by Hobbes's Leviathan and Philosophical Rudiments (1651) and Harington's Oceana (1656). Thus approximately one- half of the books apparently in Northampton's library up to 1660 are literary or historical though after the Restoration the proportion falls to about one-third, including only one romance and no ancient history. The explanation of the increase in the number of

167 scicntiHc works is doubilcss the FarFs appointment as a Fellow of the Royal Society at its first meeting, and his occupying a place on the twenty-strong Council thereafter. In addition, various hints concerning his acquaintance among literary men may be drawn trom some seven presentation-copies that are found among his hooks, including Edward Henlowcs's Theophila (1652) and Henry Oxinden's Rcligionis Funus (1647), and from the degree to which individual authors are represented there, such as Jeremy Taylor (four works, 1647 f) I), Robert iioyle. Earl of Orrery (six scientific works, 1651-68), Margaret C".a\cndish, Duchess of Newcastle (five works, 1662-75), and Henry Carey, 2nd Earl ot Monmouth (three translations, 1641 56) who had been impeached with Northamp- ton's father in 1642.^^^ In this connection one may mention that Easton Maudit Hall, situated within easy walking-distance of Castle Ashby, was at this period the home of Sir Christopher Velverton, Bart., who had inherited the fine library begun by his grandfather.-^'^

NORTHAMPTON'S WRITINGS IN MANUSCRIPT Although what has been said of Northampton's career attests his activity in promoting the drama, printed literature, and scientific projects of his time, hardly anything was known to survive until the recovery of the present collection that could have supplied posterit) w ith a hint of the full nature and extent of his involvement in the first of these, as a translator and original author. His only-known comments on his own inclination and fitness for the profession of letters were made privately while he was on active service against the rebels, in the course of a rather acrimonious correspondence with his neighbour Christopher, Lord Hatton. On 2g July 1645 he was stung by some observations of the other into remarking"**^ that 'your Lordship is better read, and may know what was in |St. Paul's parchments, left at Troas] concerning the sequestration of impropriation' better than himself, but that 'the pen is not my weapon, to retort in railing not ni\ \ocation\ Hatton's rejoinder produced, six days later, a more detailed defence:"*' . . . my Lord for your Lordships being better read then my selfe why should you thinke I jeere you, arc not sou riper in yeares then I and allwaics applied your selfe to your study, whiche I have don but slightly and truantlyke . . . my Lord you againe fly high in xpressions, I contemn not the pen, in any noble way, as those brave men you mentiond used it, but rather not put it to so vile an use as rayling there being braver and more noble waies to vindicate honor, I have not so muche contcmnd it as to shew my selfe illiterate, or that I am not a lover of learning, and count it a virtue necessary to all military actions . . . We may be confident that these self-deprecatory comments are genuine and not merely intended to sharpen the edge of irony. All the same one would scarcely have guessed from them that the writer was to compose four original (if now imperfect) closet-dramas in \crse and prose, to complete successfully translations or adaptations of three other plays and to embark, at the least, on a further two—much less that his interests ranged from classical Latin to Renaissance Italian and contemporary French drama. 168 Something should be said by way of introduction to the manuscripts themselves. The general affinity to be found between the hands of Earl Spencer*^ and his eldest son is not unusual in families, but the far stronger resemblances to be seen between the hands of at least three of the brothers suggest that they were formed under the guidance of the same writing-master.**"^ Earl James's hand, though careful and even precise in execution, tends to be rather poorly controlled, its non-cursive character being increased by the fact that it sprawls through several angles at once. It seems never to have settled into one recognizable form, so that dating by development becomes hazardous, if not impossible, especially over the period of his middle life. Striking instances of this variation in character occur even in letters written within a month of each other, as in those sent to Lord Hatton on i8 April 1643 and to Prince Rupert of about the same date and of 8 May (fig. 2), each of which differs from the others.'^'^ Again, the contrasts presented by the sophisticated version used in his autograph fair-copy of The Mandrake (fig. 3) and the hand of Bassianus (fig. 4) could scarcely be greater. Finally, of the three secretaries that Northampton employed to transcribe his plays the one that copied out the Hercules Furens (Add. MS. 60277) wrote a consistently large if rather old-fashioned hand, while the scribe of the fragmentary text o{ Leontius (Add. MS. 60278) appears to be taking some pains to imitate the hand of the third copyist (Add. MS. 60279) whose meticulously neat script marks him out as perhaps the only professional among them. It should be pointed out that in the brief extracts quoted here from Northampton's autographs common contractions such as 'y*^'' and 'y"^' and ampersands have been expanded.

THE POLITICAL WRITINGS Northampton's political writings as they survive among the present collection are as varied in form as may be. They comprise a brief and inevitably partisan account of the life and reign of Charles I; a diplomatically worded 'address' in support of a proposed Act of Oblivion for royalists; a few pages surviving from a drama about the Earl of Strafford (see below, p. 176); and rough drafts of two verse-satires on self-styled cavaliers and on the Presbyterian party. The Martir^d Monarch (Add. MS. 60282) appears to have been written between the publication of Eikon Basilike on 9 February 1649 (from a reference on fol. 19) and Cromwell's appointment as Commander-in-Chief of the Army on 26 June 1650 (see fol. 13^). It opens with a summary account of Charles's early career and of the events that led him to set up his standard at Nottingham. The first civil war is treated compendiously and without reference to the part played in it by the writer himself, while the later pages are more immediately concerned with the King's conduct, sufferings, and death. Historians are unlikely to discover anything very novel here, though as a summary of political motives as they appeared to a royalist commander, and as a piece of hagiographical prose, it is not without interest. On the whole he writes about events and persons, with the notable exception of the Presbyterians, in a fairly detached manner, though he finds room to criticize the character and policies of the

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2. Northampton, Letter to Prinee Rupert, 8 May 1643. Add. MS. 18980, fol. 58 King's advisers. The following passage regarding the proposal made by the Root-and- Branch party in May 1641 for the removal of the Bishops from the Ht)usc of Lords, though unusually virulent, shows a talent for deploying imagery in defence of a dearly held cause (fol. 7): It past the house of Commons but was rejected by the Lords, at whiche they the more enraged put in a bill, for the utter extirpation of episcopacie, it enterd the house very lean and bare, a slender bodie of two sheets of paper, but being where a creature of that nature might in ail conjeetures find a heartie entertainement, its welcommers endeavoring to feed it fat, so cramd it, with poison vented from their malice, that it soone sweld to above two or three hundred sheets and so died, in the committee's hands, being sinee dispersd to the piemakers in hell. The condemnation that Northampton reserved for the alleged cowardice and self-seeking of the King's followers is given more animated expression in some verses entitled The Cavaliers that survive in draft in Add. MS. 60276, fols. 43-4^'. Though the metre is rough his imagistic style and conversational manner are lively enough, while the drama is never very far from his mind: . . . some more daring; marche to the field And then come back to tell how they have killd, Let others do as muche I've done enough What? eaught eold, lamed your horse and spoiled your buff. Charged like Scot[c]he Douglas in Falstatfs play Made halfe a thrust, turne[d] about and away The other brief prose-work (Add. MS. 60282, fol. 39) of about the same period may be the only one of Northampton's writings from the present collection ever to have reached a wider audience. He himself refers to these two pages as an 'address', though in what manner it was intended to be delivered is not known. The occasion of his writing lay in rumours that were current at the time regarding a 'new representative' and an act of oblivion or indemnity for royalists, and his intention was partly to awake the majority of Parliament to the threatened assumption of power by a smaller body —possibly the Council of State, first mooted on 7 February 1649/50 —and partly to urge the passing of the measure that eventually became law on 25 April of the same year.'*-^ Altogether his 'address' is a triumph of tactful argument that at its outset makes no flattering concessions to the de facto power, 'I holding it for granted that those who inwardly repine must now outwardly submit . . . neither can I thinke [mine oratory deleted] a fluent pen sufficient to blunt a sharpe sword . . .'.

THE PLAYS IN TRANSLATION Little need be said concerning Northampton's verse-translations of Seneca's Agamemnon and Hercules Furens, which are consistently close to the originals even in the use of metres, blank verse being the vehicle for the main body of the plays where Seneca wrote in iambic trimeters, and verses of eight and six syllables without rhyme where the Latin 171 text adopts more constricted forms. Strangely enough, all the set choruses between the acts arc omitted from these versions. One finds difficulty in believing that Northampton felt himself unequal to the task of translating them if only because of the ingenuity that is shown in those ofhis Murinninc (see below, pp. 176 7), while the omission is all the more surprising because the poetic quality and philosophical content of several of the original choruses made them so popular with readers of the P^nglish Renaissance. There survive, however, drafts of a 'Prologue' in rhyming couplets and a 'Chorus to the first act' in four-line stanzas (Add. MS. 60276, fols. 33, 34) that seem to be the translator's own work. The Agamemnon was subsequently recopied by Northampton himself into another manuscript (Add. MS. 60277) which also includes somewhat over a third of the IUTIUICS Furcus written in the hand of a scribe. The final version, for such it seems to be, of the former was transcribed from the earlier text with only very occasional changes, but the latter differs at so many points from its predecessor that one must postulate a lost intermediary. To conclude Northampton's classical translations, two leaves only survive from his prose rendering of Plautus's Captivi, and these suggest that the work was never carried beyond the second act (Add. MS. 60281, fols. 73-4). 11 is more than mere coincidence that the small quarto notebook that includes his draft translations of the Seneca plays opens with an autograph fair-copy with current revisions of a prose drama in five acts concerning Saint Hermenigildus, for this turns out to be a translation of the Latin Hermenigildus of the Jesuit Nicholas Caussin, first published at Paris in 1620.'*^ Its subject, the eldest son of the Arian Visigothic King Leovigild, having been converted to Catholicism by his wife, the French princess Ingundis, rebelled against his father by whom he was ultimately put to death. Little can be said in fa\nur of the historical Hermenigildus"^^ but his fame as a Catholic martyr, which in 15S5, on the thousandth anniversary of his death, led Sixtus V to extend veneration of his feast throughout Spain, owed much to his mention in Gregory the Great's Dnilogucs (Book III, chap. \\\i). It is difficult to see how this particular version of the story came into Northampton's hands when the prose Hermemgilde (1643) of La Calprenede was surely more current, especially since the latter is an author represented in the Castle Ashby library by two huge romances in translation."*^ It may, however, be significant that the British Library copy of Caussin's Tragoediae Sacrae (1620) is paired with I'arnaby's edition of Seneca's plays (1624) in a contemporary binding, for Northampton could have seen a similar volume; while another possibility might be that he had met the author in Paris during an undocumented trip there,"^^ and this theory receives some apparent support from the fact ofhis having rendered into rhymed heroic verse the first three scenes of Corneille's Don Sancho d\4ragon, a drama that was first produced at Paris in 1649 and printed in the following year, despite its failure on the stage. One reason for its lack of success w as that the Queen Mother of France feared —with a sideways glance at Cromwell-that it unduly favoured glorious subjects at the expense of their rulers,"^ a view that Northampton of all men can hardly have wished to promote. At all events, he was not only the first by far to attempt a translation of this particular play but must be considered one of the earliest English translators of Corneille. His

172 version, so far as it goes, is scrupulously faithful to the original and the verse itself does him credit. The masterpiece of Northampton's work in this field is undoubtedly his adaptation of Machiavelli's La Mandragola, the first great comedy of the Italian stage. Authorities differ as to the exact date of composition of the original, setting it at various times between 1513 and 1520; the earliest published translation in English, the work of the American Stark Young, dates from i<)27, so that Northampton's manuscript version is possibly the earliest in the language. The text is mercifully complete and survives in an autograph fair-copy (Add. MS. 60278) evidently transcribed at speed from another, possibly a draft, for minor errors such as omission of words and running together of final and initial letters occur from time to time. The Mandrake remains, so far as we know, Northampton's only full-blown excursion into the genre of comedy, for his translation of Plautus's Captivi is not merely imperfect as it stands but apparently unfinished. The fact of his attempting a translation from racy Italian of the Florentine dialect suggests in itself a good knowledge of the language, and bearing in mind his father's appetite for learning it is possible that he had in his childhood been privately tutored in Italian, and that he had perfected his mastery of it during his foreign travels. He may, however, in this instance have had some assistance from Cosmo Manuche, a third-generation immigrant whom, though without any evidence, we may perhaps assume to have been bilingual. At all events, there are some minor errors of the sort that could result from somewhat less than complete familiarity with native idioms: thus chel tuo sangue si affa col mio is rendered as *there is some relation of blood betweene us' (fol. 9) rather than 'we're so much of a mind'. Northampton's Mandrake is to be viewed rather as an adaptation of the original than as a simple translation, in that although the text of the Italian is followed closely at all times the setting is removed from Renaissance Florence to Commonwealth London and Machiavelli's satire on the friars in the person of Fra Timoteo is converted into a satire on Puritan zealots as exemplified by Renchtext. To make the transference complete Westminster Hall, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and Spring Gardens take the place of the original localities mentioned by the author, while Northampton digs at that favourite institution of Commonwealth England, the committee. One is tempted to date his work to the early years of the Restoration, though there can be no certainty about this from the internal evidence, since mention of the exact time that has elapsed since 'the civill wars begun in England' is carefully suppressed, unlike the opening passage in the original, while a reference to Prynne's Works of 1655 supplies only a terminus a quo. Of course The Mandrake is not primarily a political drama, and it may not be too sweeping an assumption to find the raison d'etre of Northampton's adaptation in the splendid opportunity that Renchtext provided for ridiculing the Presbyterians whom he despised so much. If the result is so peculiarly successful it is because of the completeness of the transformation, and his portrait deserves to be added to the gallerv of English religious zealots, to stand beside those of pious Ananias and Zeal-of-the- ^ A few instances will suffice to illustrate this painstaking care for detail.

173 Mandrake. Northampton's autograph adaptation of Machiavelli, La Mandragola. Add. MS. 60278, fol. r6 Machiavelli's friar swears by his cloth and says that the sin of eating meat on a I'Viday may be washed away by holy water, while Renchtext, swearing by the Holy Covenant, deplores the sin of seeing a play, which however, 'two sermons wipes ofT.' Northampton's masterstroke is probably the opening speech of Act 5, which follows in a literal rendering of the original:-^^

I have been so longing to know how Callimaco and the others got on that I couldn't close an eye all night. I tried to kill time in one way after another: I said matins, read a life of one of the Fathers, went into the ehurch and lit a lamp that had gone out, and changed the veil on a Madonna who works miracles.—How many times have I told these monks to keep her clean! And then they are surprised when devotion falls off! I remember wen she had five hundred ex votos, and today there aren't twenty; and this is our own fault, for not knowing how to keep up her reputation. Why, we used to go there in proeession every evening after compline, and have lauds sung there every Saturday. We used to make ex votos ourselves so that there were always fresh ones to be seen; we used to get offerings for her out of the ladies through the confessional—and out of the men too. There's nothing like that now—and then we marvel that devotion is so eold! Oh, what a stupid lot my brother monks are!

Some of the details are naturally pruned in Northampton's version but the essence is preserved with a wry fidelity that can only be fully appreciated when it is examined together with the original, though that of course is a pleasure that belongs rather to the closet than to the living stage.

I could not close an ey all this night, I so long to heare what is don, I have endeavord severall waies to spend my time. I have praide, read in Mr Prins workes, walked to see if I could find any night congregations, to hearken after a new light, brusht my cloake I use to preache in, how often have I besought the elect to bee more neat and decent, we should then have five hundred, where wee have but twenty in our congregations. It is our owne faults, wee used every night after our exercise to go and sing Psalmes at our congregationers private houses, there were wee welcome, there were fresh and new lights discoursed of, wee eonfirmd the men and mstructed the women. Now this is g:ivcn over, yet wee wonder at the coldness of zeale. Oh how my fellow laborers want wit . . .

Once only does the adaptor exceed his brief, in adding a sentence to the final speech of the play, the farewell of Renchtext to the audience: '. . . I can say nothing to wish you to stay for mee, when where there is like to bee suche plenty of the creature, the future of its operation is to mee unknowne.' The occasion is the invitation of the whole party to a banquet at the house of the cuckolded husband, and the meaning seems to be that the anticipated profusion of wine ('the creature') at the meal makes his return a matter of some doubt, the language, as with 'the future of its operation', parodyitig the devout Puritan manner of speaking in such phrases as 'the operations of the spirit.' The interpolation of these lines is the more significant when we consider that Northampton excluded any mention of the audience in Renchtext's speech at the end of the previous act, incidentally changing his hint of sexual envy of the expectant 'hero' to its very opposite, presumably as more in keeping with the fastidious Puritan ethic.

175 All in all. The Mandrake is probably the one drama in the present collection that might bring Norihampion to the notice of modern theatre-goers, recreating an established masterpiece of Italian drama as a (Caroline comedy of manners.

THE ORIGINAL DRAMAS We turn finally to those dramas that are fairly certainly of Northampton's own creation. From the fact that all that survives of his attempt at a political drama on a contemporary theme, six pages of text (Add. MS. 60281, fols. 75-7^) belonging to the first and the openmg of the second acts, centres on the period immediately preceding the impeachment of the l'',arl of Straffbrd, it is sufficiently clear that he is the principal focus of the drama. The only other feasible subject, the course of the civil war as far as the execution of Charles I, could hardly have been adequately covered in the three-and-a-half acts that remained. Northampton's is thus the earliest known play concerning the fate of this nobleman, and perhaps the only one to have been written before the time of Browning. The fact that its author was himself a participant in the events that he was writing about makes it especially unfortunate that so little survives of this closet-drama whose real subject is thinh disguised under a classical setting. Naturally enough it is an extremely tendentious piece of work, the pseudo-Greek names of the characters identifying in the simplest manner the points of view that they represent. Thus Calophilus (lover of beauty) is Charles and Sophius (the shrewd one) Strafford, neither of whom actually appears in the surviving pages; while Pseudolon (the liar) and Dolarchion (hatcher of plots) are Strafford's enemies, two of his chief accusers being referred to only by the abbreviated forms 'Mega:' and 'Pro:': the latter is evidently Pym. Act II opens with a meeting of two members of the 'grand councell': Timolethes (honourer of truth) is a \()ungish royalist who has spent several years abroad and 'Mega' a leading member of the popular party, dissatisfied with both (Church and State who, however, cannot see that he is the dupe of others more unscrupulous. There is every possibility that, despite his modest silence in The Martir'd Monarchy the author himself is intended in the character of Timolethes. Northampton's Marianine (Add. MS. 60280) may, until definite evidence to the contrary appears, be accepted as an original work, for it does not seem to be an adaptation of any of the half-dozen plays on this subject, written in no fewer than five modern European languages, that evidently preceded it in date of composition.^-* The story of Mariamne, the first wife of Herod the Great, is recounted in a single chapter (xi, in Book XV) of Thomas Lodge's translation of Josephus, of which a copy, in the edition of 1602, still survives in the library at Castle Ashby. It includes the same elements of plot and character that seem to have attracted Northampton to the drama of Hermenigildus: in both a transparently innocent victim is overwhelmed by the malice of calumniators, imprisoned, tried, and executed, the cause of their fates being not merely the credulity of a father or the jealousy of a husband but their own desire to embrace martyrdom rather than compromise. The present version is related to those of

176 Alexandre Hardy and Tristan L'Hermite by a feature prominent in the classical mode of French drama, the portrayal of inner struggle, in this case in the mind of Herod between his love for Mariamne and his inability to bear her contempt for his person and his crimes. In form Mariamne is a biblical drama constructed on the Greek model, with stanzaic choruses spoken by personifications such as Justice, Policy, and Innocence in the manner of English Senecan drama, long passages of stychomythia and a catastrophe that, unlike the execution of Hermenigildus, takes place offstage and is related to Herod by a messenger. The body of the play is written in rhyming couplets, but in the fourth or prison act the heroine is given a soliloquy that runs to 156 decasyllabic verses or fifty-two stanzas each having a single rhyme. An elaborate verse-form employed for the chorus at the end of this act makes these metrically the most innovative pages in Northampton's plays. Unfortunately, the work is once again imperfect as it stands, owing to the loss of the upper third portion of the first seven leaves of text. Two further plays that may confidently be identified as original work are likewise imperfect in the surviving copies, though far less so than the Strafford fragment. Christie's cataloguer described the contents of the folio manuscript that is now Add. MS. 60281 as 'Macrinus', an 'Unfinished Five Act Tragedy in Blank Verse'. Macrinus does indeed make the first long speech of the play but the subject is rather the reign and crimes of the Emperor Antoninus Bassianus Aurelius, nicknamed Caracalla (A.D. 188-217), who murdered his brother Geta to become sole ruler in Rome, and the play will hereafter be spoken of as Bassianus, the name by which Northampton refers to the protagonist throughout. The principal sources for the Emperor's reign are the Roman History of Dion Cassius, the History of Herodian and the Scnptores Historiae Augustae, in addition Bassianus was the subject of at least one neo-Latin drama, the anonymous work Antomnus Bassianus Caracalla of about 1618 that is associated with Christ Church, Oxford, and survives in two manuscript copies,-^'^ one of them an actor's text comprising the part of Bassianus alone. The main elements of Northampton's drama are to be traced to Herodian, a copy of whose work in the English translation of 1629 still survives in the library at Castle Ashby. Herodian, however, does not men- tion the marriage of the Empress Julia (Domna) with her stepson, or the involvement of Papinianus in the plot. Dion Cassius is likewise silent about the marriage, though he does say that Bassianus persuaded Julia to summon Geta to her appartment on the pre- text of wishing to be reconciled with him, and there slew him. This is the version of the murder that Northampton prefers, for obvious dramatic and moral reasons, to that of the Latm play which, however, incorporates the (unhistorical) story of the marriage. Certain elements in the Latin, such as the scene in which Bassianus is tormented by desire for his stepmother, suggest that Northampton may have known the play, but so far as we can be certain Herodian remains the chief source of this drama. Northampton's version is in various ways somewhat simpler than that of either the Latm play or the Roman sources. The number of characters has been reduced, and his handlmg of plot and characterization show considerable sophistication and sense of theatre. Thus, it is for artistic rather than moral considerations that he prefers the

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Fig. 4. Northampton's autograph draft of his drama Bassianus. Add. MS. 60281, fol. 9 tradition that Julia was merely Bassianus's stepmother, since it makes the death of Geta, her own son, more poignant and of course renders her decision to marry his slayer even more unnatural. In his version Maternianus, finding Bassianus overcome by the pangs of desire, merely prepares the way for his master's wooing, while in the Latin drama Julia is won by proxy and the Emperor's agonizing transferred to his uncertainty about the outcome. Instead of following Herodian in making Macrinus suborn Martialis to kill Bassianus in the knowledge that the murderer himself will probably lose his life, Northampton takes great pains to depict the growth of a friendship between the two soldiers that results in a noble rivalry for the honour of ending the shameful tyrrany. Martialis is, moreover, made the younger brother of the lawyer Papinianus who was murdered by the Emperor's order for daring publicly to condemn his conduct. By touches such as these the elements are drawn more compactly together and the individual characters and their actions acquire greater psychological credibility. It is therefore a great pity that the play as we have it should be imperfect, and it would have been interesting, at the least, to see how within the compass of the comparatively few pages remaining to him its author could have wound up both the main- and sub-plots. The text stops short at a scene in the Parthian camp, following the treacherous attempt of Caracalla to murder King Artabanus and his daughter Zelinda: what remained to be accomplished was not only the death of Bassianus and the election of Macrinus as his successor but also, if the play remained true to the historical outline, the imposition of a peace on the Romans by their enemies. The apparent status of the present text as a heavily revised fair-copy implies the existence of an earlier draft that may well have been complete, and possibly Northampton was interrupted at this point and never found time to return and finish the revision. It is equally possible, however, that, like Leontius, the play survived in another finished copy. This Roman play gives ample evidence of Northampton's ability to create drama out of historical events, of his skill in character-drawing, and his competence in writing the rather debased blank-verse current in the middle of the century as a result of widespread imitation of Fletcher. The real affiliations of the piece seem not to be with Renaissance neo-classical drama but with Shakespeare's Roman plays, though oddly enough the model to which Northampton turned for the delineation of Bassianus himself was Richard III. Early in the play the Emperor is made to remark (fols. 6, 6^) that . . . nature hath mee to deformed made so that I cannot frame my selfe to fawne nor hide with smiles the dictates of my heart. thus recalling Richard's speeches in Act I, scenes i and 3, of Shakespeare's play. Bassianus's wooing of his stepmother after the murder of his half-brother finds an obvious parallel and precursor in Richard's wooing Prince Edward's widow. Lady Anne Neville, even to his offering her his sword to slay him with. Similarly, verbal echoes oi Julius Caesar occurring in the play of Leontius, King of Cyprus, which is now to be discussed, leave no doubt as to the extent of Northampton's familiarity with Shakespeare's

179 dramas of tyranny and conspiracy. The scene towards the beginning of Act III, where Lucius leaves his bed, having had a premonition of the coming assault, and is chided for it by his new bride Olinda, is clearly modelled in part on the nocturnal exchange between Brutus and Portia (Act II, sc. i), in the same way as Lucius's statement to Garamantus that 'I confesse you are an older soldier, but not better' is borrowed from the quarrel between Brutus and Cassius (Act IV, sc. 3, I. 56). A similar debt is apparent in Phorbas's remark in Act I, scene i (fol. 4) that nothing but smiles, and affability can bee a cloake to hide conspiracie . . . with which ma\ be compared Act II, scene i, lines 81, 82 of Julius Caesar. It may, nc\crthclcss, be said that Northampton's borrowings from Shakespeare never go beyond a few local touches, and that verbal reminiscences such as these, which play a very small part in Bassianus and Leontius, are far less important in terms of the drama than the plot and characterization that are wholly Northampton's own. Northampton's most considerable achievement in the field of original drama is Leontius, king of Cyprus. As the title suggests, this is an heroic drama of the type popular with Cavalier and Restoration playwrights, a tale of love and jealousy set against the background of international and civil strife.^^ While it seems impossible to arrive at a firm dating for the work, the relative status of the two surviving texts is fairly easy to establish. The loss of probably not more than a single bifolium at the beginning and end of the finished copy in Add. MS. 60279, which runs to some 25,000 words and occupies sixty-four closely written pages, is not serious as regards the opening of the piece, for that is duplicated by the very partial copy that survives in the same notebook as The Mandrake, but it docs deprive us of the last page or two of text. The partial copy, which breaks off just before the first scene of Act I and seems to have been transcribed either from the other before correction by Northampton or possibly from the same original, is deficient in several respects, notably in its omission of all stage directions and some names of speakers. Northampton's personal supervision of the fuller text ran not only to supplying minor hiatuses at various points and to the restoration of the sense by the insertion of negatives frequently, and inexplicably, overlooked by the scribe (see fols. 7^-10^), but also to the addition of punctuation throughout the first act. A curious oversight in both texts is that the two opening speeches of the play, those of Leontius and Lucius, are written out as prose, whereas Northampton is elsewhere consistent in giving blank verse to the nobles and reserving prose for the common soldiers. It will be as well to outline the plot. Leontius, King of Cyprus, has been driven to take refuge in his capital by an army consisting partly of rebellious subjects led by the ambitious Phylanax and partly of the forces of his neighbour the King of Sicily, under the command of their general Melantius, who, however, has little relish for the task. When the play opens Leontius's forces under Prince Lucius have just scored a notable victory and in gratitude Lucius is granted the hand of the princess Olinda, much to the annoyance of the other leading light in the Cypriot army, Garamantus, who thereupon

180 defects to the enemy camp. He offers to lead them to the weakest point of the garrison, but the surprise attack fails, Phylanax is killed and Garamantus misses his object, the abduction of Olinda, who nevertheless is taken prisoner along with Lucius himself. Melantius is much struck with her beauty and promptly falls in love with her, but conquers a brief impulse to take advantage of her plight. He then learns that the old king, his master, has died and that his successor commands him to change sides and support Leontius. The news is joyfully received in the city and the combined forces of Lucius and Melantius defeat the rebels, who have taken as their leader the wounded Garamantus. The latter stabs himself, while Melantius turns his affections upon Hianisbe, a princess who had come to his camp disguised as a soldier, seeking revenge on her former suitor Garamantus for his desertion of her. The text ends abruptly in the middle of this scene. True to the normal practice of the Cavalier playwrights Northampton creates no comic sub-plot, properly so called, and several scenes involving the common soldiers of either army serve the main theme of the drama, the author's insistent refrain of the impiousness of subjects raising war against their sovereign. The individual characters expound this theme again and again: it is the mainstay of Melantius's philosophy, to which he returns on no fewer than three important occasions, while the dying Phylanax is made to curse his unlawful ambition at some length. Similarly, the point of the camp scenes is manifestly to show the sordidness and pointlessness of war in an unjust cause by displaying the cowardice and lack of conviction among the rank and file of the rebel soldiers. To this extent the play becomes an instrument for the propagation of the author's political views and for his aristocratic interpretation of life. According to this, war is not always wrong: in a just quarrel the hero can legitimately display his valour and, like Lucius, drive back whole battalions single-handed. Moreover, it is valour and virtue that entitle him to the hand of the chaste and constant princess, not the force of his love or his personal attractions. In its absence of scenes of love-making, if we discount that of married love mentioned above, the play conforms to the pattern of Cavalier heroic drama: love is a by-product of valour, not an emotion in its own right. The suddenness, in one who has never feU the flames before, of Melantius's captivity to desire and his noble mastery of passion after a brief moment of weakness, is intended to provide an edifying comparison with the base lust shown by Garamantus. The main body of the drama is written not in the rhyming couplets of the French or the English Restoration heroic plays but in blank verse, though of the looser sort that is encountered also in Bassianus, which may fairly be characterized as little more than prose cut about into rather uneven lengths, with a pulse that is feeble and irregular. All the same Northampton must be given credit for maintaining a consistently high standard of poetic invention that would not altogether shame a professional playwright, while the common soldiers speak a prose that is never flaccid and not absolutely removed from the best work of his predecessors and contemporaries. As an illustration of Northampton's handling of the latter, with a sample of his verse, a diplomatic text of the beginning of the third act is printed below from the final fair-copy (Add. MS. 6o27<>, fols. 10^-12): the spellings are of course scribal, but in some instances corrections lia\c been made and punctuation added by the author. Though this passage can hardly be claimed as in any way representative of the majority of his work, it gives some idea of what he was capable of and may tempt someone to further study of the recently rccoNcred corpus of this very interesting playwright.

LEONTIUS (Add. MS. 60279), fhls. 10^ 12 Actus 3"^ Knter Dardanus, Corinnus, Phylon Dar: I low like sou this wee must venture knocks againe I like not this scaling worke it doth not sympathize with y'' constitucon of my body I had rather be in y^ field with halfe y^ numher, then to venture up stone walls how like an asse a man will looke when he fastens both his hands upon a battlement, and is scambling to get in, to have a scoundreU roiiuc with a piece of untemperd iron, knocke him ore his noddle, and send him w^^^out .in\ more a doe to Lymbo lake. Cor: The jest is something unsavory; but are they aware of our coming. Philon: I hope not I would not for all y'' world have them pri-pared theyd give such entertain- ment m\ judgment in no wise would approve of, twcre madnesse to venture if they were in any maner provided for our assault, wee had as good knocke our heads against y^ walls. Cor: 1 beleeve our heads will knocke y^ walls, and be knocked; but I have noe conceit of y^ businesse. Dar: tlow thou dull fellow noc coneeit of y'' businesse? Cor: 1 meane noe pood conceit, but a plaguy mistrust wee shall only as wee did last time rctiirnc with cart loads of poore scdueed people, who meerely out of a good conscience, jrui want (tf money will venture theyr Soules, and bodies they know not why nor w hcrcforc. I'hilon: I cannot chuse but laugh to thinke what simple answers they [will] give grave Radamanthus when he examines them what they come for, and how they died. Cor: \\ hat answer would you give. Phil: W ho I, that for my Contries libertie valiantly fighting my daies I ended opprest by the sword of m\ resisting foe. Dar: Hut should you be taken and gently end your life with a twirle two, or three, and a swing, or two grinning, and making a most intoUerable wry face, your legs hanging, and capering, seeking to find theyr mother earth, being held some three foote from it by a gentle threed of twisted hempe, wrapt about your necke in stead of the chaine of pearle you tooke from the Ladies house you were last quarterd att, only for saying shee wishd y"" good King well, or rather because you liked it; what answer would you give then? Philon: Idc say, I know not what to say. COT: But now setting all thoughts of death aside, prythee tell mc what reason can you give why this Prince should eome forth, and profer his .service to betray the Towne. Dar: Lett him give a reason fort him selfe if he will, if wee can give any reasonable reason for our owne actions tis enough: 182 Cor: But he is the first that ere turn'd from them to us, hut not the hundrcdlth| that forsooke us to goe to them. Phil: But how far is the day spent, how long will it be afore wee must fall on. Dar: Not this two howres yet; but what shall wee doe in y*' meane time, shall wee to make us valiant taste a cup of the best; Philon thou hast some fidlers in thy Regiment, send for them that whitest wee drinke, they may sing some merry Catch or other. Phi: Content He send for them. Dar: In the meane time produce y'^ Borachio, which huge body when wee have emptied into our three bodies, wee shall not feare to assault Pluto himselfe. enter Page w^*^ y^ liquor. Dar: Heres to thee Corinnus a health to Phylanax Cor: He pledge thee Phi: Nay take all off. Cor: so then: enter musicke Phi: Heres the Scrapers come, letts drinke Melantius health, and let them sing theyr last new- catch the whilest.

Cho: Let us drinke deepe, and the drie bottome see. Then shall wee bee fitt to make y^ foes flee. Vers: Who with more valour will goe on then he y' hath nor feare, nor witt. what ist he will not fall uppon, when juce of grapes hath made him fitt. Cho: Let us drinke deepe etc: Vers: Quaffe wee then off y'' best wee can, and with a full assurance drinke, that wine will make a beast a man though otherwise the Stoicks thinke. Cho: Let us etc: Vers: Hee that hath Bacchus in his braine win not shrinke when kecne arrowes fly; he will bee fcarelessc of all paine, and never know what tis to die. Cho: Let us drinke deepe etc.

Philon: How like you this song Gentlemen? All: Excellent well: Dar: after two or three more such as these who would not scale a rocke impregnable, or [w]ade through a morasse inaccessable. Cor: Fall not into raptures w^ ere you doe, we may chance to be rapt enough ere morning. Dar: Nor doe not you fall a clinching, for ere morning too your shoes may be loose. Philon: Heres quibble upon quibble, but some whose lucke so ere it light upon will be clinched and wrenched, rapt, and snapt ere day breake. Dar: Hoyte Toyte heres clinching, and wrenching rapping, and snapping lets have tother cup, and tother song, and so to our Charges, come tother song:

183 Song: Lett no man thinke to passe his cup: but drinke all up: I'or wine will make the Coward strong, cry come along. To y'' field, to y'' Campc, to the sacke To the assaults, where blowes wee shall not lacke For this Cause let no man repine; but drinke his wine; drive care from the heart, ere wee depart. Then etc.

Dar: So by this time tis fitt wee should consider of our affaires, and take a farewell till wee mcetc againc: here comes Melantius. Enter Melantius Mel: How now is this for your midnight revells: twere fitter sure you now were buckling on your armour, and your weighty corsletts you that coniand, and should example give to be quaffing now: how can you conceive your Soldiers should stand in readinessc. when you your selves so mighty backward are for shame away, the night steales on apace. Dar: S'" my men arc all ready He warrant you. Mel: But tis your part to see them so, therefore away, you your severall Charges know: Exeunt: manet Mel: What a darkc night is this full of horror, now must y'' earth open her mouth to sucke the hloud of mortalls, old feeble Charons boate will scarce containe the mightie numbers of ghosts vV^ will make theyr rcpaire ere long to y'" fatall shore; not one starrc appeares. the moone for sorrow will not shew her homes, nor daigne to bend her light to y*" horrid act. what a change will this cursed night produce to this unlucky Kingdome, by that name, it must no more be called, what then be styled that is not thought on yett, when they have routed the ancient Govermen*, then they will thinke to make a new, now wert an easy taske by invasion to surprise this Land. But why doe I thus seeme to coifiiscrate the State of this most unfortunate Prince? Why may not y*" same Gods w''^ hitherto have safe protected him, protect him still happy am I. I shall not die my hands in loyall bloud, and that for a reserve I stand if I chance to gett clcare ofi' this; noe more will I my glistering sword unsheath in this accursed Cause, I rather will to a private life my selfe retire. Enter Gara and Phorbas But here comes Garramantus I must shove him on though I wish it to his ruine prove. Gara: Are all the men in readinesse tis now high time we went about our designe. Mel: I thinke so too; where is old Philanax if he w^ere here we w ould about it straight. enter Philanax Phi: Come all is ready now lets on with speed I long to be circled within those walls: little doth Leontius thinke wee are so neare to give his last and fatall overthrow. exeunt.

List of the writings of James Compton, 3rd Earl of Northampton, now Add. MSS. 60276-82 among the Castle Ashby manuscripts. 60276. Notebook comprising autograph fair copies and drafts of plays and poems; n.d., c. 1648. Small quarto: ff. i + 85. Vellum cover. As follows: (i) Translation of Nicholas Caussin's Latin prose drama Hermenigtldus (1620); n.d. (ii) Verse translations of Seneca's Agamemnon and Hercules Furens\ n.d. See also Add. MS. 60277. (iii) Satirical poems entitled 'Cavalier' and 'Presbyterian'; n.d., c. autumn 1648. Drafts, imperfect. 60277. Notebook comprising partly autograph fair copies of the Senecan translations also found in Add. MS. 60276; n.d. Partly imperfect. Large quarto: ff. 45. 60278. Notebook comprising autograph drafts and scribal fair coptes of plays and translations; n.d., after 1650 and 1655. Large quarto: ff. ii + 40. Vellum cover. Viz.: (i) The Mandrake, an adaptation of Machiavelli's prose comedy La Mandragola; n.d., after 1655. Autograph fair copy. (ii) Don Sancho, a translation into rhyming couplets of part of Act I of Corneille's heroic drama Don Sancho d'Aragon (1650). Autograph draft. (iii) An untitled play in verse and prose on the subject of Leontius, King of Cyprus; n.d. Scribal fair copy. See also Add. MS. 60279. 60279. Notebook comprising a scribal fair copy, with authorial corrections, of [Leontius, King of Cyprus]: see also Add. MS. 60278. Slightly imperfect. Large quarto: ff^ 32. 60280. Notebook comprising a five-act tragedy on the subject of Mariamne, first wife of Herod the Great; n.d. Autograph draft, imperfect. Large quarto: ff. 34. 60281. Collection of autograph drafts of untitled dramas; n.d. Imperfect. Large quarto- ff 77 Viz.: (i) Notebook comprising autograph fair copy of a five-act tragedy in blank verse on the Emperor Antoninus Bassianus Caracalla. (ii) Translation of part of Act II of Plautus's Captivi.

185 (iii) l'Vagments from Acts I and II of a political drama on the Earl of Strafford, ostensibly set in the ancient world. 60282. Two autograph prose tracts; n.d., c. 1649 50. Large quarto: ff. 39. Viz.: (i) The Marttr'd Monarch, a history of the life and reign of Charles I; n.d., c. Feb. !64() June 1650. (ii) 'Address' recommending a general Act of Oblivion, etc.\ n.d., c. early 1650.

1 W. P. Williams, The Castle Ashby Manuscripts: 12 Sloane MS. 1765, fol. 260^. a description of the volumes in Bishop Percy's 13 G. C. Moore Smitb, op. cit., p. 88; and see G. E. list\ I'hc Library., ii, 4 (Dee. 1980). Bentley, op. cit., vol. iv, pp. 600-2. 2 Bernard M. Wagner, 'Manuseript plays of the 14 Jobn Bruce (ed.), Verney Papers, Camden seventeenth eentury', T.[..S. (4 Oct. 1934), Society, vol. xxxi (1845), p. 57. p. 675. Another annotated (but less complete) 15 Bodleian, MS. Tanner 63, fol. 125; V.C.H. copy is British Library C.45.d.i4, 15. IVarwicks., vol. ii, pp. 449, 450; and J. Aubrey, 3 .\, Watkin-Jones, 'Seventeenth-century plays', Brief Lives (ed. Andrew Clark, Oxford, 1898), T.I..S. (15 Nov. 1934), p, 795. vol. i, p. 188. 4 Add. MSS. 60283 (Virgil), 60284 (Cotton's 16 Add. MS. 18980, fol. 28. 'Short view of the life of King Henry the third'), 17 See especially W. B. Compton, op. cit., pp. 82- and 602S5 ('The description and some uses of a 98, and G, E, C, op, cit., vol. xi, p. 681, n (e). sphere'). 18 W, B. Compton, op. cit., p. 100; Cal. S.P. Dom., 5 W. P. Williams, loc. cit. 164$-164], p. 344; and Bodleian, MS. Tanner 60, 6 The following are the principal sources used in fol. 446. this account: William Bingham Compton, 6th 19 Cat. S.P. Dom. 1645-1647, p. 386; and Cai Marquess of Northampton, History of the Comm. for Compounding, vol. ii, p. 1246. Comptom of Compton Wynyates {l^ondovi., 1930); 20 Ibid., p. 1249. G. E. C, The Complete Peerage, vol. xi, sub 21 Bodleian, MS. Rawl. poet. 246, fol. 35. 'Northampton, Earldom of; Dictionary of 22 W. B. Compton, op. cit., pp. 109, loi. Natuituil Biography, vol. xi, suh 'Compton, 23 J. Evelyn, Diary (ed. E. S. de Beer, Oxford, Spencer', etc.; Mary lVcar Keeier, 'I'hc Long 1955), vol. iii, p. 228. Parliament (Philadelphia, 1954), pp. i3^> '39- 24 S. Pepys, Diary (ed. R. Latham and W. Full references are given below for information Mattbews), voi. viii (1974), pp- 565, 566. gleaned from other sources. 25 G. E. Bentley, op. cit., vol. iv, pp. 728-32; Wayne 7 E, K.. Chambers, Elizahethun Stage (Oxford, H. Pbelps, 'Cosmo Manucbe, Royalist play- 1923, repr. with corrs. 1974), vol. iii, pp. 212, 246, wright of the Commonwealth', English Language 394, 402; and see vol. i, p. 220. Notes, xvi (Mar. 1979), pp- 207-11. 8 Cat. S.P. I'enelian, i6ig-i62i, p. 390. 26 For remarks on the dating of Add. MSS. 60273- 9 E. K. Chambers, op. cit., vol. iii, pp. 475-6; and 60275 see Christie's, 8 Mar. 1978, lot 293. G. C. Moore Smith, Cotlege Plays Performed in 27 Cal. S.P. Dom. 1645-1647, p. 456. lhe iniversity of Cambridge (Cambridge, 1923), 28 G. E. Bentley, op. cit., vol. iv, pp. 532-4. pp. 79, 80. 29 Jobn Bridges, History and Anliquittes of the 10 D. Eloyd, Memotres of the Lives . . . of those . . . County of Northampton (Oxford, 1791), vol. ii, Personages, that Suffered . . . for the Protestant pp, 132, 313. Religion . . . (London, 1668), p. 353. Lloyd's lives 30 Baptism and Burial Register of Banbury. Part I, of Earl Spencer and bis sons Sir Cbarles and Sir 1558-1653 (Banbury Historical Society, vol. vii, William are stated to have been written 'Out of 1966); and i.C.H. Oxford, vol. x, pp. 10, 102. respect to tbe Rigbt Honourable tbe Earl of 31 For what follows see G. E. Bentley, op. cit., Nortbampton'. vol. IV, pp, 539-47 passim; and W. W. Greg, A Bibliography of the English Printed Drama, 11 G. E. Bentley, Jacobean and Caroltne Stage vol. ii (London, 1951), p. 830. (Oxford, 1941-68), vol. i, pp. 310^ -V^- 186 32 G. E. Bentley, op. cit., vol. iv, pp. 489-93. bridge Medieval Hisloiy (Caml)riLlyc, 1913), vol. 33 Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 404, 405. ii, pp. 168 70. 34 Ibid., pp. 451, 452. 48 Cassandra (1652) and Hymen's Preludia (1665, 35 Ibid., vol. iv, p. 773. 1666), Anotber Hermenigilde, an adaptation of 36 Ibid., vol. iii, pp. 292-9. Caussin in prose, by Gaspard Olivier, was pub- 37 W. P. Williams, 'A catalogue of Englisb printed lisbed at Auxerre in 1650. books before 1700 in tbe library ... at Castle 49 Press-mark ii7i2.aaa.8. Tbe library at Castle Asbby' (DeK_aIb, 1978, reproduced from type- Asbby includes a translation of Caussin's The script). Holy Court (1663). 38 G. E. C, op. cit., vol. xi, p. 59. 50 P, Corneille, Thedtre (ed. Pierre Lievre, Paris, 39 V.C.H. Northants, vol. iv, pp. 13, 14, 195. 1934), vol. ii, p. 1092. 40 Add. MS. 29570, fol. 28. 51 Cbaracters in Jonson's I'hc Alchemist and 41 Ibid., fol. 30. Bartholomew Tair. 42 Add. MS. 18980, fol, 12. 52 N. Macbiavelli, Mandragola (transl. J, R. Hale, 43 Earl James's hand is represented in tbe Castle Swinford, 1956), p. 46, Asbby pX-Ay's. passim: for (Bisbop) Henry Compton 53 Tbe authors are Hans Sacbs (1552), Ludovico see especially Bodleian, MS. Tanner 285, fol. 13 Dolce (1565), Alexandre Hardy (1610), Lady and Add. MS. 29584, fols. 22-8; and for Sir Elizabetb Carey (1612), Gervase Markbam and William Compton, Add. MS. 29570, fols. 15^, 54. William Sampson (1622), and Tristan L'Hermite 44 Add. MSS. 29570, fol. 3, and 18980, fols. 28, 58. (1637), There is also a Cambridge Latin play 45 S. R. Gardiner, History of the Commonirealih and by William Goldingham, written c. 1570-5. Protectorate, 2nd edn. (London, 1903), vol. i, 54 See tbe edition by W. E. Mabaney and W. K. p. 3; and Commons Journals, vol. vi, pp. 133, 195. Sberwin (Salzburg, 1976). 46 In bis Tragoediae Sacrae. For Caussin see 55 For tbe background to tbis, and to Northamp- Dictionnaire de biographicfrani^aise, vol. \ ii (1956), ton's dramas generally, see Alfred Harbage, pp. 1474-5- Cavalier Drama (New York, 1936), pp. 48-71 and 47 H. M. Gwatkin and J. P, Whitne\ (ed.), Cam- passim.

187