R. S. Rait, Lusus Regis (1901), 2, printed from Bodleian MS. 27843 verses by James I, which he dated c. 1581. The occasion and correct date are supplied by another text, with a title, in A. F. Westcott, New Poems of James I (1911). The bridal pair were George Gordon, 6th Earl and afterwards 1st Marquis of Huntly, and Henrietta Stuart, daughter of Esme, Duke of Lennox. The verses consist of a hymeneal dialogue, with a preliminary invocation by the writer, and speeches by Mercury, Nimphes, Agrestis, Skolar, Woman, The Vertuouse Man, Zani, The Landvart Gentleman, The Soldat. The earlier lines seem intended to accompany a tilting at the ring or some such contest, but at l. 74 is a reference to the coming of ‘strangers in a maske’.
Westcott, lviii, says that James helped William Fowler in devising a mimetic show for the banquet at the baptism of Prince Henry on 23 Aug. 1594.
JOHN JEFFERE (?-?).
Nothing is known of him, beyond his possible authorship of the following play:
The Bugbears. 1563 <
[MS.] Lansdowne MS. 807, f. 57. [The MS. contains the relics of John Warburton’s collection, and on a slip once attached to the fly-leaf is his famous list of burnt plays, which includes ‘Bugbear C. Jon. Geffrey’ (Greg in 3 Library, ii. 232). It appears to be the work of at least five hands, of which one, acting as a corrector, as well as a scribe, may be that of the author. The initials J. B. against a line or two inserted at the end do not appear to be his, but, as there was no single scribe, he may be writer of a final note to the text, written in printing characters, ‘Soli deo honor et gloria Johannus Jeffere scribebat hoc’. This note is followed by the songs and their music, and at the top of the first is written ‘Giles peperel for Iphiginia’. On the last page are the names ‘Thomas Ba ...’ and ‘Frances Whitton’, which probably do not indicate authorship. A title-page may be missing, and a later hand has written at the head of the text, ‘The Buggbears’.]
Editions by C. Grabau (1896–7, Archiv, xcviii. 301; xcix. 311) and R. W. Bond (1911, E. P. I.).—Dissertation: W. Dibelius (Archiv, cxii. 204).
The play is an adaptation of A. F. Grazzini, La Spiritata (1561), and uses also material from J. Weier (De Praestigiis Daemonum) (1563) and from the life of Michel de Nôtredame (Nostradamus), not necessarily later than his death in 1566. Bond is inclined to date the play, partly on metrical grounds, about 1564 or 1565. Grabau and Dibelius suggest a date after 1585, apparently under the impression that the name Giles in the superscription to the music may indicate the composition of Nathaniel Giles, of the Chapel Royal, who took his Mus. Bac. in 1585. But the name, whether of a composer, or of the actor of the part of Iphigenia, is Giles Peperel. The performers were ‘boyes’, but the temptation to identify the play with the Effiginia shown by Paul’s at Court on 28 Dec. 1571 is repressed by the description of Effiginia in the Revels account as a ‘tragedye’, whereas The Bugbears is a comedy. Moreover, Iphigenia is not a leading part, although one added by the English adapter.
LAURENCE JOHNSON (c. 1577).
A possible author of Misogonus (cf. ch. xxiv).