Shakespeare's environment

by C. C. Stopes

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Greene’s “Groatsworth of Wit,” 1592.

[32] See my articles in the “Athenæum,” “The Metrical Psalms of the Court of Venus,” 24th June 1899, and “The Authorship of the New Court of Venus,” 1st July 1899.

[33] Sonnet xx, 2.

[34] See my article, “Athenæum,” March 1898, “The Date of the Sonnets.”

[35] The Wriothesley motto was “Ung par tout, tout par ung.”

[36] See my “Date of Shakespeare’s Sonnets,” “Athenæum,” 19th and 26th March 1898.

[37] It is curious that the allegorical “second intention” in the poem should have been applied by Thomas Edwards, so early as 1595, to the poet himself.

[38] The plague began on 20th October 1592 and ran on through 1593.

[39] See my article, “The First Official Record of Shakespeare’s Name,” “Shakespeare Jahr-Buch,” 1895, Berlin.

[40] He was afterwards ennobled as Lord Harvey of Kidbrooke, and Baron de Rosse in Ireland.

[41] It has been accepted by Dr. Brandl and published in his Introduction to his translation into German of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, 1913.

XVI
WILLIAM HUNNIS, GENTLEMAN OF THE CHAPEL ROYAL

It has hitherto been a matter of surprise to the students of Elizabethan literature, that a writer who seemed to them so commonplace should have held such a high position in the opinion of his contemporaries as William Hunnis evidently did. This apparent anomaly set me seeking for something in the man that did not appear in his works, or appeared there only suggestively. Every dictionary that included his name added, “of his life very little is known.” When I grasped the meaning of his association with the Kenilworth festivities, I realized that his life was worth working out in relation to that of Shakespeare. One thing I have been fortunate enough unexpectedly to find: the William Hunnis of Elizabeth was only a survival of the William Hunnis of Mary. Throughout the earlier reign he was the centre of a group of dissatisfied subjects, whose souls were stirred within them by the miseries of their country, and who kept plotting in a haphazard and disconnected manner until their final discovery in 1556, when severity silenced them. The Protestant doctrines and the Protestant spirit of individual independence could, no doubt, find some means of reconciling treason to a Catholic sovereign and faithfulness to a distressed fatherland, crushed under a detested Spanish oppression. His was a period of unrecognized incongruities. An imitator of Sir Thomas Wyatt the poet (d. 1542) in his first literary effort, a metrical translation of the Psalms published in 1550, it is evident that he shared in the feelings of Thomas Wyatt the son about the Spanish marriage, even if he did not join in his “plot” in 1553-4.

He was a friend of John Rogers, once Prebendary of St. Paul’s, the co-worker with Tyndale in editing “Matthews’ Bible,” and he had seen his friend burned at Smithfield on 4th February 1554-5. A few days after he had been implicated in a plot “to kill the King and after him the Queen,” while they were witnessing the “Juego de Cañas,” the Moorish game of throwing cane lances on horseback, brought over here by the Spaniards, at the wedding festivities of Lord Strange and the Lady Margaret Clifford.[42] Whether the “gentlemen of the Chapel Royal” were to be among the mounted performers, and thereby veil their purpose, or whether they expected to take advantage of the excitement and confusion prevailing, I know not. Nothing happened. Caution overcame their courage.

It is probable this was the real foundation of the rumour of what Rapin calls “the forged conspiracy pretended to be discovered before Philip left” in September 1555. (Bk. xvi, p. 242, ed. 1733.)

The burning of four Bishops, thirteen clergymen, and sixty-seven persons this year for religion; the increasing unpopularity of Philip, his neglect of the Queen and infringement of his marriage articles; the patriotic dread of seeing England overrun with Spaniards and its troops and money drawn into the Spanish wars; all these causes had combined to deepen the general discontent. Patriotic unity was even stronger than religious bonds; and a wider conspiracy, including many Catholics, was formed at the end of the year, aided by the shifty policy of the French King, also bitterly anti-Spanish. In January 1555-6 there was a close meeting of the chief conspirators, to plan how best to remove from the treasury the money destined for Philip, and to use it in a national war against the Spaniards, the Queen among them. One of their number, John Dethicke of Westminster, proposed they should invite to join them “William Hunnis, a very handsome man.” Thomas Whyte, “he who afterwards betrayed them,” made a difficulty about admitting a stranger to their secrets, “for fear of disclosing” (doubtless the others already knew his name), and then John Dethicke answered Whyte, “We shoulde not nede to dowt this man, because before at the Jugo de Cano or Barryers, he, Allday, Cornwalle and others to the number of twelve, were appointed to have slayen the Queen’s Majestie, and after that the King’s Majestie.” Being asked how this took not effect, he said: “There was such a cowardness and fear in their stomachs when they sholde have done it, that they made scrupulnes who sholde begynne—knowing that whoever should have been ruler afterwards would have been bound to have made an example of them.” This at least proved William’s inclination to action (tempered though it was with prudence), and prepared the conspirators to welcome him. But the matter was clinched by Dethicke’s telling them that Hunnis had already “been aboute to counterfeit the Keys of Brigham, and stele away the treasure.” When asked how he could have come to the handling of them, Dethicke said Hunnis was very familiar with Nicholas Brigham, the Keeper of the Treasure House at Westminster, and with his wife. His special knowledge, skill, and opportunities made him a valuable acquisition.

Shortly after, in the beginning of February, as Hunnis himself narrates in his examination, John Dethicke, “understanding that I had some skyll and practice in the syens of alchemy, and more, knowing me to be, by means of certain suites in Ireland, in many men’s dangers, debated with me in this wise, ‘Mr. Hunnis, I have but small acquaintance of you, and that which is, came of my friend, Mr. Rogers, for whoes sake and yor own, I should be glad ye should do well ... for I take you to be a constant young man.’” Thereupon Mr. Dethicke tempted him to exercise his skill in “coining” in Dieppe Castle, as the French King had promised £100,000 to aid the conspirators. Through an amusing series of conversations, in which the acuteness as well as the caution of Hunnis is evident, the various plans of the conspirators were explained, further than the “oath” of Dethicke should have allowed to a member yet unsworn. “Thereunto,” quod he, “Beshrew that head. Thou hast a cursed brain, and forasmuch thou hast so truely gessed, I put thee out of dowte that same is our intention, for the French Kinge hath promised our gents on the other syde to ayd them with shippes and vitalls and ordenance, and all that we shall require shallbe to ayd them withall.” “This,” quod I, “doth lyke me very well.” Nevertheless Mr. William Hunnis very sensibly saw the possible dangers, and desired to know what friends they were likely to have. Dethicke told him of some thirty knights, and a great many noblemen, of Mr. Bethell and Mr. Thomas Whyte, and notably of Sir Peter Carew, the fellow of Wyatt in his ill-fated rising. “He is as sure on our syde, as I have you by the arm.” Suddenly Dethicke recollected himself, and warned Hunnis that if he disclosed the names and plans he had now heard, he would soon be despatched by a dagger from an unknown hand. “Why Sir,” quod I, “what nedeth ye thus to dowt of me?” “No, fayth,” quod he, “I dowt thee not, but as friend, I willed wysh thee fyrst to be slaine so that they might have their enterprise.”

Through further examinations we find that shortly after, Bethell, preparing a ship by the aid of John Benbow, of the Chapel Royal, and others, invited Hunnis to “go a-fishing with him.” Here, too, his humour and acuteness seem to have forced Bethell to lay bare the plans of his department of the conspiracy. “I would be loth to spend my time in fishing, I would rather go a piracying,” which remark Bethell seemed to disapprove of. Nevertheless Hunnis concluded, “I would very faine go with you, only I shall not be ready so soon.” Another time he asked Bethell “Do ye here of any news abrod that certen men should arrive in this land from beyond the seas?” Says he, “In faith I car not what I hear, but for myself I will be sure to serve my country truely.” “And howe?” “To kepe that no stranger shall land!” “Captain, that is well said!” answered Hunnis. This was at the very beginning of March, when they met at Fleet Bridge, and the Captain, having been to buy an ensign, told Hunnis that his boat was due by this tide at St. Katharine’s, and that he had harnesses and coats of mail aboard for over 109 men.

Hunnis was also consulted about the transcript of King Henry’s will made by Henry Peckham for Sir Anthony Kingston, who believed that this will, properly read, and also the laws of the realm, would support the plan of the Western conspirators “to send the Quenes Highness over the seas to the King, to make the Lady Elizabeth Queen, and to marry her to the Earl of Devonshire.” Kingston encouraged them all, saying, “I tell you true that the Lady Elizabeth is a goodly liberall dame, and nothing so unthankfull as her sister is, and she taketh this liberality of her mother, who was one of the bountifullest women, but you have served the unthankfullest mistress on the erth, and all she has done, has been agaynst her father, and her brother, or else to our sweet Lady Elizabeth.”

Allday attempted also to win Roger Carter, one of the King’s servants at Westminster, saying that Dethicke had sent him to open matters to him and to tell him that “Hunnis also was privie to the plot”; but Carter after a sleepless night had told Allday that he would have nothing to do with it, and willed both Dethicke and Hunnis “to leave all such practises, or he would turn Displayer.”

Nevertheless they worked on, without telling him any more.

Constant communications went on with Henry Dudley, the Ashtons, and other gentlemen abroad; with the “Pirates” and the leaders of the movement in the West, and with the French King, for a convoy. The conspirators had progressed so far that they had entered the Treasure House on the 6th of March, and finding the box too heavy had planned to force it open, and take the treasure in portable packages through Rossey’s garden to the boat that would await them on the river by the steps on the 17th of March. On the 16th they took the final solemn oath to hold by each other, and John Throgmorton, the real leader of the London party “said he wished his dagger was in the Queen’s heart, and in that of her Council.” On the 17th twenty of the chief of them were arrested, and conveyed to the Tower. I know that Mr. Froude gives it as the 18th, following Machyn and others. But the “Tower accounts” of the year contain the expenses for boarding Throgmorton, Daniell, Peckham and others, and are dated from the 17th.[43] I suppose therefore the arrest took place on the evening of the 17th, and became known to the people on the morning of the 18th. The name of Hunnis does not appear in this bill, but that only proves that he did not pay for extra diet. His name is given in Machyn’s list under the spelling Heneges, which Froude misrendered into Thomas Heneage. His name appears twice on the first list of conspirators. He was captured about the same time, and lodged near the others in the Tower; his conversations upon “prudence” and “purgatory,” spoken through the walls of cubicles and subdivided cells, are recorded among the confessions of Peckham. It must have been a trying time. The heat of action and the hope of success had died out of him, the certainty of danger, the dread of torture and of destruction surrounded him. Four days after his incarceration he would hear (for jailers then spoke to their prisoners) of the burning of Cranmer, while one after the other of his fellow prisoners was tortured. On the 21st of April his friend and leader, the one brave man among all the batch of prisoners, John Throgmorton, was tried at Southwark, along with Uvedale, Governor of the Isle of Wight, and they were executed together at Tyburn on the 28th. On the 5th of May, Hunnis himself was arraigned at Guildhall in company with Henry Peckham, John Daniell, William Stanton and Edward Turnour; on the 7th Peckham and Daniell were condemned, and the others afterward.

But Hunnis now disappears from historical notes. Whether he appealed to any rights on technical points; whether he owed his life to his being arraigned as “Thomas,” instead of “William,” or to the unusually difficult writing of the clerk who took down his depositions; whether his youth, beauty, popularity, talents, or frank confessions moved the hearts of his judges; or whether he was remanded through the interest of his old master the Earl of Pembroke, I know not. He may have been forgotten as being too insignificant. For two years he languished, neglected in the Tower, only to be delivered on the death of Mary. He may have been released shortly before that date through influence. That the terrors and discomforts of prison life had entered into his soul, that fears of rack and execution had aged his youth, we can see from two sets of verses in “The Paradise of Dainty devices” (ed. 1596), “Being asked the occasion of his white head,” No. 4 and No. 93. In the latter, in feeble verse, and many incomprehensible phrases, he certainly gives a chapter from his life’s experience, and asserts his belief in the righteousness of his cause and in the reward of his faith in God.

(93) Being in trouble he writeth thus.

In terrours trap with thraldome thrust,

Their thorny thoughts to taste and trie;

in conscience cleare from cause uniust,

With carping teares did call and crye,

and saide O God yet thou art he,

that can and will deliver me. Bis.

Thus trembling there with teares I trod,

To totter tide in truthes defence;

With sighes and sobs, I said O God,

Let right not haue this recompense.

Least that my foes might laugh to see.

That thou wouldst not deliver me. Bis.

My soule then to repentance ranne,

My ragged clothes all rent and torne;

and did bewaile the losse it wanne,

With loathsome life, so long forlorne,

and saide O God yet thou art he

that can and will deliuer me. Bis.

Then comfort came with clothes of ioy,

whose seames were faithfull stedfastnes;

and did bedeck the naked boy,

that earst was full of wretchednesse.

and said be glad for God is he.

That shortly will deliuer thee. Bis.

Finis. W. Hunnis.

Whether the whole period between March 1556 and the accession of Elizabeth was spent by William Hunnis in the Tower or not, we are certain he would be freed at once by the new queen, “his sweet Lady Elizabeth,” and restored to his “living” as gentleman of the chapel (if he ever had been formally deprived of it). Early in the new reign he passed through great personal sorrow, as well as joys. His friend Nicholas Brigham did not survive his Queen long. And his widow, having lost her only child Rachel before the death of her husband, married William Hunnis. His predecessor William Crane in the office of Master of the Children of the Chapel was a married man. Until I learned the fact, I had not thought the laws, or at least the customs of the time, would have permitted this. And the marriage of Hunnis was also surprising, especially in connection with the gossip of Dethicke, which implied undue familiarity between Hunnis and Brigham’s wife. Nevertheless the testimony is irrefragable. On 2nd June 1559, “Margaret Hunnis, alias Brigham, alias Wariner, wyfe of William Hunnys, gentleman of the Queene’s Majesties Chappell,” made her testament nuncupative, in which, by consent of her husband, she left to her “Cousin Francis Brigham all that her tenemente and mansion house lyinge and beyinge at Westminster, commonly cawled ‘The Allmes House,’”[44] founded by Henry VII, and sold by Vincent to Brigham in 34 Hen. VIII. All her other goods, movable and immovable, she left to her husband, William Hunnis, whom also she named her executor. This testament was proved by Thomas Willot for William Hunnis, 12th October 1559. Her will in Somerset House is strangely involved with that of her husband, and clears up much.

Chalmers’ “Biographies” and Wood’s “Athenæ Oxonienses” say that “Nicholas Brigham died in his prime in December, 1559, at Westminster, leaving some MSS.: (1) ‘De Venationibus Rerum Memorabilium,’ a collection of notices of characters and events of which Bale has made much use; (2) ‘Memoirs,’ in the form of a diary in twelve books; and (3) ‘Miscellaneous Poems.’ None of these is probably in existence.” Wood thinks he was buried near Chaucer, whose tomb he had restored in 1556. But he is in error in the date; he died in 1558, leaving, by a verbal will, everything to his wife. She was granted powers of administration 20th February 1558-9, and at least before the following June, Hunnis had married Brigham’s widow. The entry among the wills, December 1559, is an objection to William Hunnis succeeding his wife, widow of Nicholas Brigham. Considerable litigation ensued in consequence of her bequests.

The young widower had, however, consoled himself within two years by marrying again. This time it was Mrs. Blancke of the Grocers’ Company; through her right Hunnis became a member of the Grocers’ Company, being admitted as redempcioner on 11th November 1560. Having found from the Guildhall records that he was a “Citizen and Grocer” of London, I made application to the Grocers’ Company, and was allowed to search their books, where I found many details unknown before. The authority of Mr. Kingdon corroborated that evidence. On 9th May 1567, he was formally admitted to the “Livery and Clothing” of the company, the fourth among a list of eighteen citizens. He duly paid his brotherhood money, two shillings. In the year 1570 his name was entered among the group of those “dwelling at Westminster and extravagant”; and he paid four shillings for the brotherhood money for the last two years, and two shillings towards defraying the expenses of the election feast. His marriage would be all the more important to him financially as he had, with other of her subjects, to wait some time before any practical recognition of his services was rendered him by Queen Elizabeth, beyond those connected with his living. The first that I have found recorded is a patent in June, the fourth year of Elizabeth, to the office of supervisor and custodian of the orchards and gardens at Greenwich, called the “great gardyne” and the “new gardyne,” to hold during his life with a salary of 12d. a day and various perquisites.[45] One duty was to present the Queen with seven gallons of “sweet water” a year. I am aware that Cunningham, in his notes to his edition of the “Revels Book,” asserts that this is another William Hunnis; but he had not made a thorough search, or he would have found it expressly stated that the grant was to “William Hunnis of the Chapell.” This, therefore, connects him with various payments made “to the supervisor of the gardens” for “men gardeners and women weeders at Greenwich”; and also with the famous account for seventy-nine bushels of roses and many bushels of other flowers in June of the 14th Elizabeth, “in preparation of the Banketing Howse made at White Hall for the entertainment of the said Duke.” Not only were there to be wreaths and adornments of flowers, but the floor was to be strewn with “rose-leaves pickt, and sweetened with sweet waters,” under the supervision of Hunnis. One suggestive point in connection with this patent of supervisor I have not yet worked out; but I may mention that his predecessor in office was one Philip Innes, whom Edward VI, in the fourth year of his reign, appointed for life to this post.[46] But in 1562 the said Philip Innes appears before Elizabeth and “renders up his office in favour of one William Hunnys,” and his patent is then cancelled. The new patent is at the side named “the patent of Philip Innes alias Hunnys,” and this is scratched out, and below is written fair “the patent of William Hunnys.” Is it possible that this Innes was his father, and that he had been brought up as a “gardener’s son”? Had he improved his name into Hinnes, in which form it appears oftener than in any other? I cannot yet say more than that the point is worth noting. In the first year of Mary there was another of the name, a John Innes, of Westminster, appointed to receive the “first almsmans room in the cathedral church of Westminster.”

Elizabeth often liked to pay her debts at the expense of other people. It was through a second grant of hers that I discovered Hunnis as a “citizen and grocer of the city of London.” In relation to the entry in Guildhall, which states in the Records, 30th May 1570, that a “reversion of the office of collection of the cities rightes, duties, and profittes, cominge and growinge uppon London Bridge, for wheelage and passage” was granted “to William Hunnys, citizen and grocer, and also master of Hir grace’s children of hir Chappell Royal,” upon letters of her Majesty in his favour.[47]

Various difficulties had arisen from the fact that the acting collectors had been promised that they should retain the post, not only for the twenty-one years for which they held a patent, but for the term of their natural lives and the life of the survivor, so it was agreed that the bridge-master should pay to Mr. Hunnis, in gratification of the Queen’s letters, the sum of £40 for a lease in reversion of the wheelage and passage of London Bridge.

Whether this £40 was in lieu of the reversion, or only as a douceur for the time likely to elapse before the reversion should fall in, is not clear from the passage, and I have not yet been able to work it out. With his various expenses among the boys of the Chapel this £40 would not last long.

I do not now notice his poems, because I have only acquired any knowledge regarding them from printed material. But it is evident his poems read differently when connected with the events of his life. For instance, the opening device at the Kenilworth[48] festivities in 1575, when Sybilla prophesies good things to Elizabeth, comes gracefully from one who had conscientiously plotted to make her queen two years earlier than she became so—probably the only poet of that conspiracy then surviving. The rewards for his plays can be found among the declared accounts of the Treasurer of the Chamber, and his death is noted in 1597 in “the Cheque Book of the Chapel Royal.”

By the favour of Elizabeth, on the death of Richard Edwards, Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal, on the 31st of October 1566, William Hunnis was appointed in his place on the 15th of November. But Elizabeth proved in his case not a “liberall dame,” as his perquisites, or rather his provisions, were materially curtailed, at the same time that the prices of food had much increased. This he very clearly explains in an interesting petition presented to the Council in November 1583,[49] where he states that he had to keep not only an usher, but a man-servant, to wait on the boys, and a woman-servant to keep them clean, on an income of 6d. a day each for their food, and £40 a year for their apparel and all other expenses, nothing being allowed for travelling and lodging when the Court required him to carry the boys with him to various places. On an examination of his demands, they appear both just and moderate. We do not wonder that he left no will, unless the verses written on the fly-leaf of Sir Thomas More’s works really represented one:[50]

To God my soul I doe bequeathe, because it is his owen,

My body to be layd in grave, where to my friends best knowen,

Executors I wyll none make, thereby great stryffe may growe,

Because ye goods that I shall leave wyll not pay all I owe.

W. Hunnys.

But this will has been previously noted by Warton, and I only now allude to it in connection with others that are original.

I know it is possible that some may object that the William whose name I find spelt in seventeen different ways is not the same as the “Thomas Hinnewes” tried for his life at Guildhall. But the connecting links are strong.

This laxity of orthography made me look up all resembling names in wills, inquisitions, etc, about the period, to find a pedigree for him, but without success as yet. I have not found the name “Hunnis” appear before his time, and since then only twice; the first being a Thomas Hunnis, who died in 1626, and might very well have been his son; the other a “Marchadine Hunnys, of Berks, Plebs; a Demy of Magdalene College, Oxford, 1605; M.A. 1610.” This may give a clue to the local origin of the name, but the Marchadine “Plebs” could not have been son of William, as he was always entered “gentleman,” and had a coat of arms granted him in 1568 different from that printed by the College of Heralds (Ash. MS. Bodleian Library).

My original materials have been collected from the Manuscript Department of the British Museum, the Public Record Office, the Guildhall Record Office, the books of the Grocers’ Company, and from Somerset House. Only want of space prevents my giving references in full. I sincerely hope, however, that I may have an opportunity of publishing ere long the whole series of papers which I have in extenso, as an addition to the known history of the poet.

“Athenæum,” 21st February and 21st March 1891.

PS.—This first paper ever printed on Hunnis came out in time for the D. N. B. In that same year I had all the patents concerning William Hunnis translated for me, in order to be exact (I still have the dated bill for the transaction) in preparation for a Paper which I read before The New Shakespeare Society in April 1892. Dr. Furnivall allowed me extra time to read it because my materials were new. Shortly after I completed my book entitled “William Hunnis and the Revels of the Chapel Royal,” which I could not afford to publish, and laid on the shelf for ten years till Dr. Furnivall recommended it to Professor Bang for the Louvain Series of “Materials for the History of the English Drama.” It was sent to him in 1904, but, by a special stroke of bad luck, was not published until 1910. The only point I had not secured was found by Professor Feuillerat too late to be included; as he only published it on 22nd December 1911 in the “Daily Chronicle.”

This gave the important story of the association of Hunnis and Farrant with the early venture of the Blackfriars private theatre in 1576. I had long sought for it; had, indeed, applied for a ticket for the Loseley Manuscripts on purpose in 1906, but, as the late owner was abroad in search of health, my search was postponed. A friend of the family assured me that there was nothing among the papers on William Hunnis, but very much about the Earl of Southampton, so I thought that I could afford to wait. My only real regret, however, was that Professor Feuillerat should not have published his find earlier, to allow me to borrow it (with acknowledgement), to complete the life of the writer, of whom the reviewer in the “Times” in 1910 said, “Mrs. Stopes has made a man of him.”

Unfortunately the Louvain Series is produced at such an expensive rate that it finds comparatively few English purchasers. Some of my new facts have appeared since in Professor Wallace’s “Evolution of the English Drama.”