1597 1597 At WHITEHALL PALACE. Jan 1,Sat New Year gifts. Works: ‘Setting up long tables for the New Year gifts’. Also: play, by Lord Hunsdon’s Men.T Among 200 gifts to the Queen: by Sir Thomas Gerard: ‘One snuskin [muff] of velvet embroidered with sundry pictures having the picture of a Queen in the midst’; by Francis Bacon: ‘A cloak of black velvet, the ground gold with a flat lace of Venice silver about it, lined with ashcoloured plush’; by George Bishop, stationer: ‘One fair Bible in Latin of the Vulgar translation’; by William Dethick, Garter King of Arms: ‘One book covered with blue velvet of the Knights of the Order of the Garter that have been elected since her Majesty’s coming to the Crown until this year’; by Petruccio Ubaldini: ‘One book of Italian covered with vellum of the Florentine militia’.NYG Jan 1: Petruccio Ubaldini dedicated and gave to the Queen: Militia del Gran Duca di Thoscana [Militia of the Grand Duke of Tuscany]. Italian. Dedicatory Epistle to ‘the most serene and prudent Queen’. From London the first day of 1597. From ‘your Majesty’s old and always faithful servant, Petruccio Ubaldini, Citizen of Florence’. 57p. (London, 1597). Jan 1: William Tooker dedicated to the Queen: Charisma sive Donum Sanationis. [Charisma or the gift of Healing]. Latin, with Latin dedication. Tooker (c.1558-1621), includes a description of the Queen ‘touching for the King’s Evil’ in Gloucestershire. (See 1 Sept 1592). 156p. (London, 1597). Jan 4,Tues: clandestine marriage: Arthur Gorges (1557-1625), Gentleman Pensioner, married (2) Lady Elizabeth Clinton (1573-1659), daughter of Henry Clinton, 2nd Earl of Lincoln; a god-daughter of the Queen. Married in Widow Long’s house ‘in the Strand near the Savoy’. Prior to the marriage Gorges had been committed to the Fleet Prison, but was released on Jan 2.APC He had written to Sir Robert Cecil, 18 Nov 1596, having angered the Queen: ‘what I have done is but a love matter, and that of the truest kind, which is marriage’. He was barred from court for several months, writing to Cecil, April 20, from his house ‘without Bishopsgate’: ‘I am a banished man from the court and a stranger to that part of the town’. [HT.vi.481; vii.166]. Jan 6,Thur play, by Lord Hunsdon’s Men.T Jan 8: Francis Bacon dedicated to the Queen a brief book on Maxims of the Law. ‘To her Sacred Majesty’, presenting ‘a sheaf and cluster of fruit of that good and favourable season, which by the influence of your happy government we enjoy’ The Collection of some principal Rules and Maxims of the Common Laws of England was first published in 1630. c.Jan 10: French messenger, Viergier, in England. Upon news of Spanish preparations King Henri IV sent Viergier to entreat the Queen to join her forces with his to assail the enemy. Sir Anthony Mildmay (Ambassador) to Sir Robert Cecil, 31 Dec 1596, Rouen: The King is sending ‘one Viergier, a portmanteau extraordinary, a man of very mean quality. I suppose there was the rather choice made of such a one by cause of his speedy return, to the which I hear he is enjoined’. I take his message to be all in writing. He deserves to be well used for his master’s sake ‘as I know he shall be’. [SPF List 7, 214]. 1 1597 Jan 16, Whitehall, Council’s ‘open warrant’ for Dutch Agent: ‘Monsieur Caron, a gentleman of the Low Countries here resident and Agent for the States of the United Provinces with her Majesty, is for special causes concerning her Majesty and this State to make his speedy repair into the Low Countries’. He is to have 12 post-horses for himself and retinue, and shipping.APC (See February 2). Jan 17: St Clement Danes: burial: ‘Robert Cecil, the son of Robert knight’. Jan 24: death: Lady Cecil (1563-1597) died at her house in the Strand, following child-birth. She was Elizabeth (Brooke), daughter of William Brooke, 10th Lord Cobham, and wife of Sir Robert Cecil, the Queen’s Secretary; she was a Lady of the Privy Chamber and of the Bedchamber. Her surviving children were William, 5, and Frances, 3. Her funeral: February 12. Jan 24: Stationers entered: ‘Essays of Master Francis Bacon, with the prayers of his Sovereign’. This entry was cancelled, and on February 5 was entered: ‘Essays, Religious Meditations, Places of Persuasion and Discussion by Master Francis Bacon’. This first edition was dedicated to Francis’s brother Anthony. Jan 27: death: Dr Roger Gifford, one of the Queen’s physicians since 1587. Will (January 27), includes a bequest to Sir Thomas Egerton ‘Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, my honourable and very good lord, the jewel wherein the Queen’s Majesty’s picture is which I used to wear about my neck, in remembrance of my duty and unfeigned affection towards his lordship’. Court news. Jan 27, Sir John Stanhope to Sir Robert Cecil, of Lady Cecil, to be buried ‘as a baroness’: ‘I learn...that my Lady Burgh was Chief Mourner for Mrs Blanche who was buried as a baroness [Blanche Parry, February 1590], so as the Queen will be fully provided now to satisfy anybody’s envy’... ‘I found her Majesty and the Lords [the Council] closed up in the Privy Chamber till it was candlelight. Since, she is at rest attended by my Lady Scrope’. [HT.vii.41]. Jan 30, Whitehall, Lord Burghley to Archbishop of York, Hutton: There is good news ‘of an overthrow given by Count Maurice and other English forces commanded by Sir Robert Sidney and Sir Francis Vere of a number of the King of Spain’s ancient soldiers, as the like hath not happened with such success to the States since the beginning of their wars’. [Surtees Society, 17 (1843), 113]. The ‘Overthow of Turnhout’ became a play: described 1599 Oct 26,27. February 2-April 30: Dutch Agent’s special mission to the Low Countries. Noel Caron, resident Agent, obtained the Queen’s leave to depart, and sailed on February 2. By mid-February he was at the Hague with her ratification of a league with the States. He was back at the English court on April 30. Feb 6,Shrove Sunday play, by Lord Hunsdon’s Men.T Feb 6: News of Earl of Southampton’s challenge to Earl of Northumberland. Henry Wriothesley 3rd Earl of Southampton (1573-1624); Henry Percy 9th Earl of Northumberland (1564-1632). Northumberland believed that the younger Earl had spoken offensive words of him; he had given Southampton the lie (which usually led to a challenge to a duel), and Southampton had promised to challenge him. [Feb 6] ‘court this present Sunday’, Earl of Northumberland to Anthony Bacon: ‘I shall not come hastily from court, therefore I have sent you such letters as passed between the Earl of Southampton and myself; what was further proceeded in after the last I will briefly set down’. 2 1597 ‘The gentleman he sent with his rapier came to do his message, who beginning to name Southampton instantly I embraced him, asking him if he brought me a challenge, which if he did I accepted it beforehand’. ‘His answers were that he did not, only he brought his rapier, which the night before he had promised to send, withal appointing time and place that same day. My reply was that Southampton had not a novice in hand. I knew well when I was before or behind in points of honour, and therefore I had nothing to say further unless I were challenged’. ‘After his departure he returned within the space of half an hour and brought me a challenge absolutely, but in my opinion stuffed with strange conditions, for he would both have assigned the place, the time, and have chosen the rapier single, because his arm was hurt with the ballon’. ‘My reply was that I knew the Earl played not with his left hand, and that I would stay to press him till his arm were well, afterwards I would appoint everything apt in such a case. But within one hour after her Majesty’s commandment was laid upon us, with the bond of allegiance. We went to court, where we were called before the Lords’. ‘The conclusion was then that they assured of their honours they knew that he had not spoken those words, which afterwards he affirmed. My answer was that I rather believed them than any other, and therefore the lie I had given was nothing, and so revoked he his challenge and we made friends’. [Ballon: a currently popular game at court, played with a large leather ball tossed with a wooden brace upon the arm]. [LPL 655/78; endorsed Feb 8]. Feb 7,Shrove Monday: marriage, at St Luke’s Church, Chelsea: William Howard (1577-1615), son of Charles 2nd Lord Howard of Effingham, married Anne St John, daughter of John 2nd Lord St John of Bletsoe. Queen’s gift to Lord St John’s daughter, Feb 7: ‘One carcanet containing five pieces of gold set with small rubies and small pendant pearls’. [BL Add MS 5751A, f.245]. Queen was godmother (Feb 1603) to Howard’s child. Feb 8,Shrove Tuesday play, by Lord Hunsdon’s Men. Payees for their plays: John Heminges and Thomas Pope.T Heminges was a co-editor of Shakespeare’s First Folio, 1623. Feb 12,Sat: Westminster Abbey: Funeral of Lady Cecil. Funeral certificate, signed by Sir Robert Cecil, Roger Manners (an Esquire for the Body), and Henry Brooke (Lady Cecil’s brother): Lady Cecil ‘by her Majesty’s especial commandment (for that she was a Lady of her Privy Chamber and one of the Bedchamber) was honourably buried as a Baroness within the Abbey Church of Westminster, where for her was erected a fair square hearse...furnished with velvet’..