The natural date for this ‘shew’ is Shrovetide 1587. I do not know why Nichols, Eliz. ii. 279, dates the Osterley device 1579. Elizabeth was often there, but I find no evidence of a visit in 1579. Lowndes speaks of the work as in print, but I doubt whether he has any authority beyond Churchyard’s own notice, which does not prove publication.
ANTHONY CHUTE (ob. c. 1595).
Nashe in his Have With You to Saffron Walden (1596, Works, iii. 107), attacking Chute as a friend of Gabriel Harvey, says, ‘he hath kneaded and daub’d vp a Commedie, called The transformation of the King of Trinidadoes two Daughters, Madame Panachaea and the Nymphe Tobacco; and, to approue his Heraldrie, scutchend out the honorable Armes of the smoakie Societie’. I hesitate to take this literally.
GEORGE CLIFFORD (1558–1605).
George Clifford was born 8 Aug. 1558, succeeded as third Earl of Cumberland 8 Jan. 1570, and died 30 Oct. 1605. A recent biography is G. C. Williamson, George, Third Earl of Cumberland (1920). He married Margaret Russell, daughter of Francis, second Earl of Bedford, on 24 June 1577. His daughter, Anne Clifford, who left an interesting autobiography, married firstly Richard, third Earl of Dorset, and secondly Philip, fourth Earl of Pembroke. Cumberland was prominent in Elizabethan naval adventure and shone in the tilt. He is recorded as appearing on 17 Nov. 1587 (Gawdy, 25) and 26 Aug. 1588 (Sp. P. iv. 419). On 17 Nov. 1590 he succeeded Sir Henry Lee (q.v.) as Knight of the Crown. Thereafter he was the regular challenger for the Queen’s Day tilt, often with the assistance of the Earl of Essex. On 17 Nov. 1592 they came together armed into the privy chamber, and issued a challenge to maintain against all comers on the following 26 Feb. ‘that ther M. is most worthyest and most fayrest Amadis de Gaule’ (Gawdy, 67). Cumberland’s tiltyard speeches, as Knight of Pendragon Castle, in 1591 (misdated 1592) and 1593 are printed by Williamson, 108, 121, from manuscripts at Appleby Castle.
His appearance as Knight of the Crown on 17 Nov. 1595 is noted in Peele’s (q.v.) Anglorum Feriae. In F. Davison’s Poetical Rhapsody (1602, ed. Bullen, ii. 128) is an ode Of Cynthia, with the note ‘This Song was sung before her sacred Maiestie at a shew on horse-backe, wherwith the right Honorable the Earle of Cumberland presented her Highnesse on Maie day last’. This is reprinted by R. W. Bond (Lyly, i. 414) with alternative ascriptions to Lyly and to Sir John Davies. But Cumberland himself wrote verses. I do not know why Bullen and Bond assume that the show was on 1 May 1600. The Cumberland MSS. at Bolton, Yorkshire, once contained a prose speech, now lost, in the character of a melancholy knight, headed ‘A Copie of my Lord of Combrlandes Speeche to ye Queene, upon ye 17 day of November, 1600’. This was printed by T. D. Whitaker, History of Craven (1805, ed. Morant, 1878, p. 355), and reprinted by Nichols, Eliz. iii. 522, and by Bond, Lyly, i. 415, with a conjectural attribution to Lyly. In 1601 Cumberland conveyed to Sir John Davies a suggestion from Sir R. Cecil that he should write a ‘speech for introduction of the barriers’ (Hatfield MSS. xi. 544), and in letters of 1602 he promised Cecil to appear at the tilt on Queen’s Day, but later tried to excuse himself on the ground that a damaged arm would not let him carry a staff (Hatfield MSS. xii. 438, 459, 574). Anne Clifford records ‘speeches and delicate presents’ at Grafton when James and Anne visited the Earl there on 27 June 1603 (Wiffen, ii. 71).
JO. COOKE (c. 1612).
Beyond his play, practically nothing is known of Cooke. It is not even clear whether ‘Jo.’ stands for John, or for Joshua; the latter is suggested by the manuscript ascription on a copy of the anonymous How a Man may Choose a Good Wife from a Bad (q.v.). Can Cooke be identical with the I. Cocke who contributed to Stephens’s Characters in 1615 (cf. App. C, No. lx)? Collier, iii. 408, conjectures that he was a brother John named, probably as dead, in the will (3 Jan. 1614) of Alexander Cooke the actor (cf. ch. xv). There is an entry in S. R. on 22 May 1604 of a lost ‘Fyftie epigrams written by J. Cooke Gent’, and a ‘I. Cooke’ wrote commendatory verses to Drayton’s Legend of Cromwell (1607).
Greenes Tu Quoque or The City Gallant. 1611
1614. Greene’s Tu quoque, or, The Cittie Gallant. As it hath beene diuers times acted by the Queenes Maiesties Seruants. Written by Io. Cooke, Gent. For John Trundle. [Epistle to the Reader, signed ‘Thomas Heywood’, and a couplet ‘Upon the Death of Thomas Greene’, signed ‘W. R.’]