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Law Sports at Gray's Inn Il594) PR Law sports at Gray's Inn il594) PR (5orncU IttioeraitH ffiibrarg Jtljata. Ketn ^ark BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND. THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 Cornell University Library PR 1261.G39B87 1921 Law sports at Gray's Inn (1594) jncludin 3 1924 013 324 375 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013324375 REPORTS CASES,AND TAKEN In the time of Queen ELIZA'BETH, King fJMES, and King CHJI^LES- CoUeded and Reponed by that learned Lawyer WILLIAM NOY. Sometimes Reader of the Honourable Societie of LINCOLNES-INNE. SINCE ATTOVRNEY GENERALL tothelate KING CHJIILES. Conteining moft Exeellent matter of Ex- ceptions to all manner of Declarations, Pleadings, and Demurrers, that there is fcarce one A(5lion in a Probability of being brought, but here it is throughly examin'd and ExaAly layd. J^l^tranjlitedinto Englijhi Wi;h Two neceflary Tables of the Cafes and Contents, for the Readers eafe and benefit. Printed by F. L, for A/artfceib WMancke at Grajcs-Inne Gite, and T. Firby near Crajes-Inne Gate in Holborne, 1656. (See Page 36) Law Sports at Gray's Inn (1594) Including Shakespeare's connection with the Inn's of Court, the origin of the Capias Utlegatum re Coke and Bacon, Francis Bacon's connection with Warwickshire, together with a reprint of the Gesta Grayorum By Basil Brown Author "Notes'on Elizabethen Poets," Supposed Caricature of the Droeshout Portrait of Shakespeare," etc. NEW YORK -1921 n (1^ Copyright 1921 By Basil Brown Privately Printed by the Author To Gray's Inn "Old Purpulii Britain's Ornament" the Author Dedicates this humble ofEering —— CONTENTS Introduction l-xciv Shakespeare's Connection With the Inns of Court 1-25 Shakespeare's Plays Controlled hy Bacon's Friends 20- 34 Why Queen Elizabeth Neglected Bacon—^Tliat Capias Vtlegatum. 34- 35- Origin of "Capias Vtlegatum" Insult Offered to Bacon by Queen Elizabeth's Attorney-General, Sir Edward Coke 37- 49' Francis Bacon's Connection With Warwickshire and the Forest of Arden 50- 78 Bacon's Connection With the Burbage's 79-119" You Would Pluck Out the Heart of My Mystery 120-150 Shakespeare's Lodgings in Silver Street 151-155. Bacon's Warwickshire Kinsmen and the Underbill's 156-161 Was Anne Cecil the Prototype of Helena in "All's Well" 162-168. Appendix A History of the Manor and Ancient Barony of Castle Com- be. - Re Sir John Fastolf's Ward 169-170. Appendix B 177-182. Edmund Tilney, Master of the Revels . , Appendix C List of Lands Owned by the Cooke's, Lords of Hartshill 184-18& INTRODUCTION "It is a point fit and necessary in the front or beginning of this work without hesitation or reservation to be professed, that it is no less true in this human kingdom of knowledge than in God's Kingdom of Heaven, that no man shall enter into it except he become first as a little child."—Bacon's Valerius Terminus. Shakespeare clothes the same truth as follows: Hel. "He that of greatest works is finisher. Oft does them by the weakest minister; So holy w^rit in babes hath judgment shown. When judges hath been babes. Great floods have flown From simple sources; and great seas have dried, When miracles have by the greatest been denied." All's Well—ll-i. The spirit of Truth breathes through these lines of Bacon's, for he had in his nature a quality of divine- ness. The same idea as expressed by Shakespeare is a "Truth in beauty dyed." The above quotations assimilate so well, and seem so of a piece, that I cannot divorce the one from the other, especially in these pages where their authors are so often referred to. And to confess a truth to the patient reader, they gave me courage to begin this, the second reprint of the Gesta Grayorum in 1913, and caused me to think as Helena did in All's Well, "What I can do, can do no hurt to try." Search was made at Columbia University Library, Congressional Library and British Museum, but none of these Libraries possess a copy of the Gesta Gray- orum. It was not until this reprint was in book pages that Mr. Frederic W. Erb, Supervisor of the loan department of Columbia University Library (to whom I am extremely indebted) procured from the Boston Public Library a facsimile of the title page of its copy of the Gesta Grayorum, which is used in this reprint., My best thanks are also due to Mr. W. A. White of Brooklyn, who kindly lent me his fine orig- inal copy of the Gesta Grayorum, from which I have copied W. Canning's Dedication to Matthew Smyth,, Esq. Mr. White's library contains some of the rarest books known to collectors. An exact copy has also been made of the title page,, as well as the page containing the "Capias Utlegatum"' —which Attorney General Coke would have clapped upon Bacon's back. This I discovered in Sir William Noy's "Reports and Cases taken .in the Time of Queen Elizabeth, King James, and King Charles," London. 1656 folio. {See frontis page.) This "Capias Utlegatum" has given birth to many cryptograms and biliteral ciphers undeserving of be- lief; and I venture to say they have brought more dis- credit on the fame of Francis Bacon than the original writ of outlawry itself. Interwoven in a web of mystery, seemed to me the two greatest names in English literature — Francis Bacon and William Shakespeare. Were it not for the Northumberland Manuscript, wherein these two names^ co-mingle and are forever entwined, as early as 1594 (because "Orations at Grate's Inne Revells" . "By Mr. Francis Bacon," is mentioned as a part of its contents), we would never have known that Bacon composed the speeches for the six Councillors in the Gesta Grayorum. Spedding, commenting on the Gesta Grayorum and these speeches, says: "Thus ended one of the most elegant Christ- mas entertainments, probably, that was ever presented to an audience of statesmen and cour- tiers. That Bacon had a hand in the general design is merely a conjecture; we know that he had a taste in such things and did sometimes take a part in arranging them; and the probability seemed strong enough to justify a more detailed account of the whole evening's work than I should otherwise have thought fit. But that the speeches of the six councillors were written by him, and by him alone, no one who is at all fa- miliar with his style, either of thought or ex- pression, will for a moment doubt it. They carry his signature in every sentence. And they have a much deeper interest for us than could have been looked for in such a sportive exercise belonging to so forgotten a form of idleness. All these councillors speak with Bacon's tongue and out of Bacon's brain; but the second and fifth speak out of his heart and judgment also. The propositions of the latter contain an enume- ration of those very reforms, in state and gov- ernment, which throughout his life he was most anxious to see realized. In those of the former may be traced, faintly but unmistakably, a first hint of his great project for the restoration of — — the dominion of knowledge,—a first draft of 'Solomon's House,'—a rudiment of that history of universal nature, which was to have formed the third part of the 'Instauratio,' and is in my judgment (as I have elsewhere explained at large) the principal novelty and great charac- teristic feature of the Baconian philosophy. This composition is valuable, therefore, not only as showing with what fidelity his mind when left to itself pointed always, in sport as in earnest, towards the great objects which he had set before him, but also as giving us one of the very few certain dates by which we can measure the progress of his philosophical speculations in these early years." Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, Vol. I, p. 342 et seq. Nor would we have known Francis Davison, and Thomas Campion had collaborated in the Masque of Proteus, had not Davison in his Poetical Rhapsody, 1602-1608, revealed the fact. It is by these mosaics or piecing bits together that the student must endeavor to peep behind the curtain of the Gesta Grayorum sports and revels. In Spedding's account of the Gesta Grayorum, he says: "It is a pity that the publisher, whoever he was, did not tell us a little more about the manu- script, though it is probable enough that he had not much more to tell. Nothing is more natural than that such a narrative should have been writ- ten at the time for the amusement and satisfac- tion of the parties concerned ; should have been laid by and forgotten; and found again lying by itself, without anybody to tell its story for it." Letters and Life of Francis Bacon, Vol. I, p. 343. ; The writer hopes to tell some of its story and of the actors in it. Francis Davison, the poet, who acted in the Gesta Grayoriim, mentions having "lent" to "Eleaz Hodgson," "Graye's 'In Sportes' under Sir Henry Helmes." N. H. Nicolas, Ed. Poetical Rhapsody. Henry Helmes (our Prince of Portpoole) was not knighted until 1603 at Whitehall by James I. As has been said, Campion and Davison composed the Masque of Proteus which was performed before the Queen at Greenwich Palace at Shrovetide, 1594-5.
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