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.”