The 17Th Earl of Oxford in Italian Archives: Love’S Labours Found
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The 17th Earl of Oxford in Italian Archives: Love’s Labours Found by Michael Delahoyde and Coleen Moriarty ur research in Italian state archives over the course of three sum- mers has uncovered four previously unknown documents from the O1570s containing news of the 17th Earl of Oxford. We are also able to provide a much expanded, corrected, and contextualized version of one of the only two catalogued Venetian ambassadorial dispatches concerning Edward de Vere during his 1575-76 continental tour.1 Rather than present our research in order of discovery, our aim here is to explicate each find while chronologically filling the gaps in the documentary record concerning Oxford’s travels.2 We have come to realize that the Earl’s continental tour was certainly not what we thought and what perhaps many generally think: a dilettante’s year- long self-indulgence away from the stifling and artistically backwards English court. His zeal for escape seems to have manifested itself when Oxford fled to the continent without license from the Queen in the summer of 1574, though he did obey when called back to England. Shortly thereafter, he was listed more honorably among noblemen who “have served and are fit to serve in foreign employments” (qtd. in Nelson 119). Even if his subsequent journey had been merely a vacation, it is inconceivable that he would not have been briefed on what to say and not to say at various continental courts “and among the network of diplomats and ambassadors whose connections he needed in order to proceed in his travels” (Anderson 74). As Mark Ander- son recognizes: Something certainly persuaded Elizabeth to give de Vere leave to cross the English Channel. Practicality undoubtedly played a role in dis- patching de Vere: The new king of France, Henri III, had scheduled his coronation for February 15, 1575, and his marriage for two days later. Elizabeth, whom Henri had once courted, would have needed an English delegate to attend the coronation—someone with enough clout in Catholic circles not to offend the French Catholic court. Fur- thermore, Venice had not sent an ambassador to England. The Italian city on the lagoon was still skittish about opening diplomatic relations with a Protestant realm, lest it offend the more fervent Catholic THE OXFORDIAN Volume 20 2018 27 The 17th Earl of Oxford in Italian Archives: Love’s Labours Found nations of Spain or the Papal States. At the time she sent de Vere overseas, Elizabeth required the attentions of a high-ranking court- ier fluent in French and Italian for important diplomatic missions in Paris and Venice. Could it simply be coincidence that the queen gave de Vere license to travel to these two key cities at the same time she needed these tasks completed? (74-75) Oxford left English shores very likely in early February 1575 (Nelson 121). His first major stop was the French court, and his entry onto the continent was noted in ambassadorial letters and gossipy bolletini (bulletins). The French ambassador in England, La Mothe Fenelon, in a late January dispatch to Henri III, “cryptically added that he’d learned that Don John of Austria—the powerful Spanish general—might have a job for the English earl to perform” (Anderson 75; Nelson 120). The Venetian Ambassador’s Letter from the French Court The first notice of Oxford abroad came in early March 1575, in English ambassadorial letters from Valentine Dale in Paris to Lord Burghley (Nelson 121; Ogburn and Ogburn 82). In our initial foray at the Venetian archive in 2016, we viewed the original notice concerning Oxford’s 1575 arrival in Paris and his departure through the French court in 1576. Excerpted bulletins have been available since the late 1800s,3 and we owe a debt to Rawdon Brown (1803-1883) in this regard. Having initially visited Venice in search of the gravestone of Sir Thomas Mowbray, the Duke of Norfolk banished by King Richard II (in the Shakespeare play, Act I), Brown subsequently devoted fifty Michael Delahoyde is a Clinical Professor of English at Washington State University teaching Shakespeare, Mythology, and interdisciplinary arts and humanities courses. He earned undergraduate degrees in English, Music, and Education at Vassar College, and his Ph.D. in English Literature at the University of Michigan. He served as Senior Editor for the MLA journal, The Rocky Mountain Review, for fourteen years before becoming Managing Editor of Brief Chronicles from 2011 to 2017. His Oxfordian edition of Anthony and Cleopatra was recently published. As an undergraduate at Yale University, Coleen Moriarty majored in a Celtic Studies program of her own design, receiving a Bates Fellowship for research thesis work on the Irish Literary Renaissance. In addition to conducting archival research in Italy with Professor Delahoyde for several years, she has been involved in educational outreach for Bay Area theaters such as Cal Shakes. 28 The OXFORDIAN Volume 20 2018 Delahoyde and Moriarty years to researching Anglo-Italian political history, eventually culling, amass- ing, and translating ambassadorial reports into A Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts relating to English Affairs existing in the Archives of Venice and Northern Italy—an enormous, multi-volume achievement funded by the British government. However, the transcriptions and English translations are occasionally ques- tionable or incomplete, there were confusions in the dating system, and the original documents mentioning Oxford are too frail to be circulated publicly. A tremendous and valuable effort, but with fallibilities: what else might Raw- don Brown have missed? In 2016, we persisted in requesting access until one archivist agreed that we needed to peruse these documents for our research. Finally, we were escort- ed into the chambers of the cathedral-like Venice archive, where one of the main archival directors, Mr. Caniato, supervised the viewing of the docu- ments, too fragile to be handled directly by visiting scholars, and carefully turned the crumbling pages.4 We were promised images of the documents, including a passage in ambassadorial secret code; but the file is in need of restoration work, and we left that year empty-handed. Our diplomatic per- sistence was ultimately successful: in 2017 we were allowed to photograph the entire document that includes the news of Oxford’s arrival. Figure 1: The original notice concerning Oxford’s 1575 arrival in Paris. THE OXFORDIAN Volume 20 2018 29 The 17th Earl of Oxford in Italian Archives: Love’s Labours Found For over the past century, this is what we could view as Rawdon Brown’s translation from a portion of the Venetian Senate’s Dispatches from Ambas- sadors and Residents concerning France: An English gentleman, whose name is the Earl of Oxford, has arrived in this city; he is a young man of about twenty or twenty-two years of age. It is said that he fled from England on account of his inclination to the Catholic religion; but having returned he received great favour from the Queen, who gave him full licence to travel and see the world, when she ascertained that he had resolved to depart under any cir- cumstances (Brown, VII. 527). The announcement comes from Giovanni Morosini, the Venetian ambassa- dor in Paris, writing on 12 March 1575 to the Signory in Venice, and notes Oxford’s “reputation for Catholicism.” The final line may suggest that he might be considered a valuably independent loose cannon, but includes also an “underestimation of his age” (Nelson 121). More troubling is that this bol- letino is incomplete and severed from its context: seven more lines concern- ing Oxford specifically appear in the original. Problems with the transcript include: Rawdon Brown was a slightly unreliable translator; he died before editing the materials from the 1570s, so a collaborator was working from his notes; and the text was excerpted and abbreviated, with text in the crumbling corners of the document that were ignored. Here in Italian transcription is the longer portion of the letter (Archivio di Venezia, Senato, Filza 9)5: [After a section in code] Il medesimo nunzio presentò a S[ua] M[aes]tà un breve del Papa per il quale le concede di poter nominar quattro chiese, nelle quali questa quadragesima possi egli et tutta la corte pigliar il santiss[im]o Giubileo dell’anno santo et ha anco dato le bolle espedite gratis a Mons[igno]r di Fecan fratello del Duca di Guisa dell’Arcivescovato di Rens che importavano cinquemille scudi. L’altro hieri S[ua] M[aest]à ha espeditto in Inghilterra Mons[igno]r della Sciatra per corrisponder all’officio che quella Regina mandò a far seco per Milort Nort del quale scrissi da Lione alla Ser[eni]tà V[ostra]; et procurarà anco di renovar le conventioni della pace et impedir se sarà a tempo che quella Regina non dia agiuto di dinari a questi ribelli li quali si crede che non habino ancora havuti quelli, che già scrissi alla Ser[eni]tà V[ostra] che speravano di havere per conto de i sali, poi che Mons[igno]r Merù f[rate]llo di Mom [?] eransi andato in Inghilterra per la rissolutione di questo negotio non è ancora partito di q[ue]l Regno. 30 The OXFORDIAN Volume 20 2018 Delahoyde and Moriarty [Rawdon Brown’s nineteenth-century translation begins with the next lines.] E’ gionto in questa città un s[igno]r Inglese nominato il Conte di Oxford giovane di circa XX o XXII anni di assai buona p[rese]ntia che fuggì già d’Inghilterra si dice per inclinatione che avesse alla religione Cattolica, ma poi ritornato per molta instantia fatta da quella Regina, la quale hora li ha dato buona licentia di poter andar a veder del mondo, poi che lo vedeva rissoluto di voler partire in tutti i modi [Brown ends here, but Morosini’s commentary continues.] ha visitato qui il ser[enissi]mo Re che lo ha honorato assai poi che il medesimo Amb[asciato]re lo mette sopra di sé, et dicono che è molto nobile di quel Regno.