Bristol Entertainment. 1613
[MS.] Calendar by William Adams, penes C. J. Harford (in 1828).
S. R. 1613, Oct. 8 (Mason). ‘A booke called the Queenes Maiesties entertaynement at Bristoll.’ John Budge (Arber, iii. 533).
1613. A Relation of the Royall, Magnificent, and Sumptuous Entertainment given to the High and Mighty Princesse Queen Anne, at the Renowned Citie of Bristoll, by the Mayor, Sheriffes, and Aldermen thereof; in the moneth of June last past, 1613. Together with the Oration, Gifts, Triumphes, Water-combats and other Showes there made. For John Budge. [Epistle by Robert Naile.]
Editions in Bristol Memorialist, No. 3 (1816), and Nichols, James, ii. 648 (1828).
APPENDIX A
A COURT CALENDAR
[Bibliographical Note.—This is primarily a list of plays, masks, and quasi-dramatic entertainments at court. The chronological evidence for the plays mainly rests upon Appendix B. Tilts and a few miscellaneous entertainments are included. And it has seemed worth while to trace the movements of the court, partly in order to locate the palaces at which the winter performances were given, partly because of the widespread use of mimetic pageantry during Elizabeth’s progresses and visits abroad. For the main migrations of the household (in small capitals), the authorities here cited are confirmed by the daily or weekly indications of a much more detailed Itinerarium than can be printed. Additions from sources not explored by me may be possible to the record of shorter visits or even that of the by-progresses, upon which Elizabeth was not always accompanied by the full household. I have not attempted to deal so completely with the Jacobean period. The King’s constant absences from court on hunting journeys are difficult to track and of no interest to dramatic history. Appendix B will show at which of the court plays he was personally present. The principal material used may be classified as follows: (a) The royal movements are frequently noted in ambassadorial dispatches, in private letters, notably those of Roger Manners to the Earls of Rutland (Rutland MSS.), of Rowland Whyte, court postmaster, to Sir Robert Sidney (Sydney Papers), and of John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton (Letters, ed. Camden Soc., and Birch, Court of James) and Sir Ralph Winwood (Winwood Memorials); and in the diaries of Henry Machyn, Lord Burghley (Haynes-Murdin, ii. 745; Hatfield MSS., i. 149; v. 69; xiii. 141, 199, 389, 464, 506, 596), Sir Francis Walsingham (Camden Miscellany, vi), and John Dee. (b) Collections of State and quasi-State Papers contain many dated and located documents emanating from the court, such as proclamations, privy seals, signet letters, and less formal communications from the sovereign or a secretary or other officer in attendance. Unfortunately Elizabeth’s letters missive have never been collected, and many of them are unlocated. Naturally ministerial documents require handling with discretion, lest the writers should be away from court. Letters patent bear the date and location of the Chancellor’s recepi, and the Chancellor was largely detached from the court. The sources for (a) and (b) are given in the Bibl. Note to ch. i. (c) The Register of the Privy Council records the localities of the meetings of that body, but it must be borne in mind that the registration was not very perfect (cf. ch. ii), and also that, although the Council ordinarily followed the court, meetings were occasionally held in Westminster or London, either at the Star Chamber or in the house of a councillor or even a citizen, when the court happened to be out of town. (d) Church bells were rung when the sovereign moved into or out of a parish, and the churchwardens entered the ringers’ fees in their accounts. The entries in J. V. Kitto, The Accounts of the Churchwardens of St. Martin’s in the Fields, 1525–1603 (1901, cited as Martin’s), record many comings and goings from Whitehall, but in some cases the date entered appears to be other than that of the actual ringing, either by error or because the payment was on a different day. The extracts from the accounts of St. Margaret’s, Westminster (cited as Margaret’s), in J. Nichols, Illustrations, 1, of Lambeth in D. Lysons, Environs of London, i. 222, and S. Denne, Historical Particulars of Lambeth (1795, Bibl. Top. Brit. x. 185), of Fulham in T. Faulkner, Fulham (1813), 139, of Kingston in Lysons, Environs, i. 164, and of Wandsworth by C. T. Davis in Surrey Arch. Colls., xviii (1903), 96, are scrappy and the year concerned is not always clear. Nichols, Eliz. iii. 37, gives an analogous record from the accounts of Chalk in Kent of the occasions on which the local carts were requisitioned for removes from Greenwich. (e) The dates and localities of knightings are given in W. A. Shaw, The Knights of England (1906), but many of them are from inconsistent and untrustworthy sources. (f) The Chamber Accounts (cf. App. B) contain under the annual heading ‘Apparelling of Houses’ summaries of monthly bills sent in by the Gentlemen Ushers of the Chamber of their expenses while engaged in making preparations for royal visits. They yield much new information as to the houses visited, but only very approximately date the visits. And it may be that the Ushers occasionally had to prepare for a visit which never took place. Analogous information is contained in the Declared Accounts of the Office of Works. A single account of the Cofferer of the Household, printed by Nichols, i. 92, gives a daily record of the locality of the household throughout the progress of 1561; as far as I know, it is the only extant document of its kind. (g) J. Nichols, in his Progresses of Elizabeth2 (1823) and Progresses of James I (1828), drew fully upon the contemporary printed descriptions of state entries and progresses, of which a list is given in ch. xxiv, and upon such ‘gests’ of progresses (cf. ch. iv) as survive. I have been able to correct and amplify his record of houses visited to a great extent, as much of the material now available, notably the Privy Council Register and the Chamber Accounts, was not used by him, and he occasionally assumed that royal plans were carried out, when they were not. I have done what I can to identify the royal hosts and their houses, but there is more of conjecture in my lists than my query-marks quite indicate. The Chamber Accounts entries are not in chronological order. Often only a name or a locality is given, and a good deal of plotting of routes on a map has been necessary. A more thorough study of local and family histories than I have been able to undertake would doubtless add corrections and further details. Local antiquaries might well follow the lines of study opened up by E. Green, Did Queen Elizabeth visit Bath in 1574 and 1592 (1879, Proc. of Bath Field Club, iv. 105), W. D. Cooper, Queen Elizabeth’s Visits to Sussex (1852, Sussex Arch. Colls., v. 190), W. Kelly, Royal Progresses and Visits to Leicester (1884), and M. Christy, The Progresses of Queen Elizabeth through Essex and the Houses in which she stayed (1917, Essex Review, xxvi. 115, 181). A knowledge of sixteenth-and seventeenth-century roads is useful. The Elizabethan list in W. Smith, The Particular Description of England, 1588 (ed. H. B. Wheatley and E. W. Ashbee, 1879) is fuller than that in W. Harrison, Description of England (ed. N. S. S. ii. 107), or that described from a manuscript of c. 1603 by G. S. Thomson in E. H. R. xxxiii. 234. The seventeenth-century description of J. Ogilby, Itinerarium Angliae (1675) became the parent of many travellers’ guides. But it does not include three private royal roads largely used in removes; viz. the King’s road by Chelsea to Richmond and Hampton Court, Theobald’s Road, and a road from Lambeth Ferry to Greenwich and Eltham. Useful studies are T. F. Ordish, History of Metropolitan Roads (L. T. R. viii. 1), and H. G. Fordham, Studies in Carto-Bibliography (1914). Other books are given in D. Ballen, Bibliography of Roadmaking and Roads (1914).]
1558
Nov. 17. Accession of Elizabeth at Hatfield.
Nov. 22. Progress through Herts and Middlesex to London by Hadley (Alice Lady Stamford?, Nov. 22–3) and Charterhouse (Lord North, Nov. 23–8).[1]