The Loseley Manuscripts
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This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. http://books.google.com /. From the Ewald Fliigel Library IJELAM)°SKOTOiTO°J¥WOR°YSiroER§lI1T From the Ewald Fliigel library 1 LEMHD°SIMEOHD ifl^OR°WVEKSnr r 3 .-.. H Ed %U Ho0elep S?9amt0ctfpt0* MANUSCRIPTS, OTHER RARE DOCUMENTS, ILLUSTRATIVE OF SOME OF THE MORE MINUTE PARTICULARS OF GxiQlifa Htftorp, 25tograptipt anb banner*, FROM THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. TO THAT OF JAMES I. PRESERVED IN THE MUNIMENT ROOM OF JAMES MORE MOLYNEUX, ESQ. AT LOSELEY HOUSE, IN SURREY. " Now come tidings of weddings, markings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees- embassies, tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays : then again, as in a new-shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villa- nies in all kinds, funerals, burials, deaths of princes, now comical then tragical matters." Democritus to the Reader, Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. NOW FIR8T EDITED, WITH NOTE8, By ALFRED JOHN KEMPE, Esa. F.S.A. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1836. 217925 J. B. NICHOLS AND SON, 25, PARLIAMENT STREET. JAMES MORE MOLYNEUX, ESQ. AS THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE KNIGHTLY PROPRIETORS OF LOSELEY, AND AS FULLY APPRECIATING THE CURIOUS ANCIENT DOCUMENTS THERE PRESERVED, THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED, WITH SINCERE AND FRIENDLY RESPECT, BY HIS FAITHFUL AND OBEDIENT SERVANT, THE AUTHOR. New Kent Road, Sept. 8, 1835. ADVERTISEMENT. The following Collection of MSS. has been preserved at the venerable old mansion, Loseley, near Guildford in Surrey. They will be found of a mixed character, con nected with passages in history and biography, with the entertainments of the Court, with the internal regulations of the country under the Magistracy, and in some in stances with the minor relations of domestic life. They cannot be expected, in a general point of view, to com pete with the valuable historical collections of State Papers and Letters which have been derived from public depositories ; yet it may truly be said that they contain many papers on subjects of interest, to which none pa rallel are to be found in those collections, and they will afford, as the Editor conceives, a very correct idea of the state of society and political government in the 16th and early part of the 1 7th centuries. CONTENTS. OriginalNotice of Papers Sir Thomas relating Cawarden to the Lady of Bletchingley Ann of Cleves . .. 15 1 Original Papers illustrating the Revels and Dramatic En tertainments of the English Court. Masques, Inter ludes, &c. Notice of George Ferrers, as Lord of Misrule 19 Documents relating to Disguisings, Masks, Interludes, Plays, &c .55 Jousts or Tiltings ........ 65 Pageants 67 Miscellaneous Extracts from various Accounts relating to the Office of the Revels 69 Documents illustrating the diversions of the Court in the field 9* Miscellaneous Pavilions, Toyles, Entries &c relative to the Royal Tents, Halls, 1 Original Documents relating to the Lady Jane Grey's succession to the Crown on the demise of Edward VI. 11 Original Documents (some under the sign manual of Queen Mary) relating to Wyatt's Rebellion . 126 Particulars the time ofof Wyatt'sSir Thomas insurrection Cawarden's . Armoury, . seized . at .133 Documents relating to the Royal Palace of Nonesuch . 144 Curious Thomas old Cawarden Parochial Accounts, from the Papers of Sir 162 Papers relating to Lotteries in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth 185 Examples Benevolences of the mode of raising money by Privy Seals or 215 Policy of Elizabeth in maintaining the principles of the Reformation ; Papers concerning the Ecclesiastical Com mission, Popish Recusants, Sectaries, &c. 224 Correspondence relating to the confinement of Henry TU1 CONTEXTS. Wriothesley , second Earl of Southampton of that name, at Loseley, as a suspected Papist 229 Account of Copley, of Gatton, a Popish Recusant . 241 Papers relating to pecuniary Compensation made by Visi tors 258 Royal Visits to Loseley, &c 265 Purveyance for the Royal Household . 272 The Plague 277 Some particulars of the Spanish Armada .... 281 Notes from various Documents preserved at Loseley, of precautionary measures and preparations of defence against the Spanish Invasion ..... 293 Documents relating to the Office of Master of the Swans for Surrey ......... 906 Original Letters relating to the clandestine marriage of Mr. John Donne, afterwards Dr. Donne, with Ann More of Loseley ......••- 321 OriginalOriginal LettersDocuments of Edward relating Lord to Sir Herbert Walter of Ralegh Cherbury . .. 347372 Papere confinementfromOverbury'sJames, concerning Somerset for the murderin the purpose the Tower, ; Earl Extraordinary of andand obtaining Countesstrial, as Lettersa free accomplices of Somerset's confession of King in 379 Inventories of the Earl of Somerset's Effects . 406 Imprisonment Overbury's Murder of Sir Thomas Monson, as concerned in 412 Particulars of Sir George Chaworth's (afterwards Vis count Chaworth's) Embassy to the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, Archduchess of Austria, to condole with her, on the part of his sovereign, James the First, on the death of her husband, the Archduke Albert . .418 Chaworth's Diary ...;.... 420 Addenda. Notes of some Papers not inserted at length 488 Index 501 INTRODUCTION. The reader of these Papers may imagine himself intro duced to the Muniment Room of an ancient hall in Surrey, of which the key had been lost, and its existence disre garded during an interval of two hundred years. He has approached, through a grove of lofty forest trees, the ex tensive front of the venerable mansion of stone, of which that depository of Family Records is an appendage. He enters the lofty hall round which the portraits of its former owners are arranged, depicted " in their habits as they lived ;" the sun-beams stream through the light shafts of the lofty embayed window, illumining the household coats of the family, emblazoned in the gorgeous tinctures of heraldry on the glass. He indulges perhaps in an an tiquarian reverie, and beholds in his mind's eye those venerable personages, traversing the spacious floor to wel come with obsequious formality the Sovereign whose image still remains suspended on the walls, originally placed there as a compliment conspicuous to his own eye, on occasion of a personal visit.* How will our reader find * In the Hall at Loseley are portraits of James the First and his Queen ; and a very large picture of Sir William More Molyneux (who died in 1760) and his family. There are also in the house original portraits of Edward VI., the Chancellor INTRODUCTION. this vision of his fancy confirmed, when, gliding as it were unnoticed through the ideal scene, as an insignificant actor in the drama of another age, he enters by our guidance the little chamber before mentioned, now by chance ac cessible, explores the ponderous oaken coffers which it contains ; paper after paper is taken out, inscribed in va rious and obsolete hands ; the autographs of King, of Peer, of Statesman, or Divine. Some relating to the events of their day, which have survived to " fill up chro nicles " in after times. Some to beings unnoticed in the roll of historic fame, but which incidentally illustrate the popular feelings and habits of the period. Such a disco very would stamp the picture sketched by fancy with some thing of reality ; such a vision may be summoned up at Loseley ; such are its manuscripts. We add a few prefatory notes on the demesne of Lose ley and its possessors. The manor of Loseley, which became in the sixteenth century the seat of the Mores, bore its present appella tion from the Saxon times. Osmund held it of King Ed ward the Confessor ; the Conqueror gave it to Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Arundel and Shrewsbury, who had distinguished himself as one of the principal leaders of the Norman army at the battle of Hastings. The extent of the demesne at this period seems to have been about four hundred acres. The name is probably that of a Saxon proprietor, Loth or Lot, compounded with the term ley expressing a plain, a pasture, an inclosed tract of ground ; indeed it was often written Lothesly, which so nearly ex presses its pronunciation at this day, that a stranger More, (perhaps a relative, although the arms do not agree with those of More of Loseley,) Ann Boleyn, and of the Mores from Sir William to Sir Poynings. INTRODUCTION. XI could scarcely err in the name ; which he certainly would by giving the first syllable the sound of the neuter verb to lose. Loseley is situate about two miles from Guildford, and from the left or west bank of the river Wey. That an cient town is supposed in the early period to have stood on the west side of the river, and by its castle and outworks to have occupied also the site of the present town on the east. This assertion is pretty well confirmed by the curious ancient vaultings still existing under the Angellnn at Guild ford, on the west side of the main street, and by the sup posed site of the ancient town being still marked out as the Bury fields;* and there is great probability that this last-mentioned spot was occupied in the time of the Ro mans, of whose presence, at least in the neighbourhood, undoubted evidence has been discovered. Loseley had, no doubt, from an early period, its manse or capital dwelling house fortified with a moat, according to the custom of the feudal age, some vestiges of which defence still remain. The demesne of Loseley passed into the possession of various persons by inheritance or purchase until the reign of Henry VIII. when it was purchased by Christopher More, esq.