Crocodiles, Prester John and where the Earle of Oxenford wasn't.

Edward de Vere in Transit:

Pt. 1 - How Edward de Vere Didn't Depart Italy (it turns out).

Pt. 2-1 - The Earle of Oxenford a famous man for Chivalrie.

Pt. 2-2 - Crocodiles, Prester John and where the Earle of Oxenford wasn't.

Pt. 2-3 - Edward de Vere in Palermo: the final analysis.

Standard Citation: Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. “Crocodiles, Prester John and where the Earle of Oxenford wasn't.”Virtual Grub Street. 10 January 2018.

In part 1 of the “Edward de Vere in Transit” series, we’ve seen that the historical record argues against De Vere having visited Palermo during his southward tour from Venice to Rome.  This being the case, we ask ourselves how could Edward Webbe report having seen him there?  In part 2-1, we see that the chronology given by Webbe informs us that he was a slave of the Tartars until the Earl had been to Italy, for his only visit, and returned home to England.

From there matters only get worse.  Having returned to England, Webbe ships out again this time with the fleet of Captain William Burrough on a voyage which was the source of popular London news fondly remembered by Englishmen (though not included in the 1589 edition of Hakluyt).  But he does not seem to know the year the fleet set sail.  The voyage occurred in 1570[1] — before the burning of Moscow and certainly before there had been time to return to England after being ransomed from 5 years of slavery.

Webbe’s vessel, we are informed, foundered on the rocks and he returned to England and shipped out on a merchant vessel to Leghorn.  In case the reader holds out hope that he is simply confused about his dates and this might place him in Italy in time to see the Earl of Oxford, perish the thought.  The ship arrives in Leghorn to discover it is under new ownership.[2]  It is loaded with cargo and sent to Alexandria.  On its return it is captured by the Turks and Webbe spends the next 6 years as a slave of the Turks.[3]

While a Turkish slave, Webbe is employed as a gunner.[4]  This affords him the opportunity to travel throughout the East on various military expeditions paralleling those he has apparently read about in Sansovino’s Universal History… of the Turk.[5]  He cites each famous place name but rarely describes anything uniquely endemic, and, when he does, the eye-witness description is incorrect.  He is more confident to cite detail about Cairo than elsewhere.  He describes it all as a person who has read (or, perhaps, heard) a description rather than as an eye-witness.  He informs the reader that the pyramids are corn silos.   “There are seauen Mountaines builded on the out side, like vnto ye point of a Diamond, which Mountaines were builded in King Pharoes time for to keepe Corne in, and they are Mountaines of great strength.”  This has been a common myth, in the West, throughout history but not among the residents of Cairo.  Had they been Webbe’s source, they would have told him that the pyramids were the tombs of the Pharaohs. 

Nile crocodiles, he informs us, are fish that resemble giant dolphins.  They certainly look like no such thing viewed first-hand.  They might be said to look vaguely like some early renderings of dolphins by medieval artists who did not draw them from experience but from description of them as sea-monsters.  But Webbe had been a sailor for all his adult life that he wasn’t a slave.  He should know full well that the two looked nothing alike.

“[W]e staide,” he tells us, “to see the cutting or parting of the Riuer of Nilo, which is done once euery yeere, vpon the 25 of August,”:

the grounde through out the lande of Egipt is continually watred by the water which vppon ye 25 day of August is turned into the cuntries round about, by means of ye wonderfull growing and swelling of the water vpright without any stay at all, on the one side thereof, it is to ye height of a huge mountaine, which beginneth to increase the 15. day of August, and by the 25. of the same moneth it is at the highest, on which day it is cut by ye deuiding of 2 pillars in a straunge fort, neere to the cittie of ye great Caer,…

Actually, this is recognizably a description of the annual flooding of one or another irrigation canal to a region outside of Cairo important enough to merit such expensive construction and maintenance.  The author grossly overstates the size of the dam at the head of the canal and believes there is only one canal whereas there were a number.  Webbe had been years exclusively among Turks.  How did he know the Gregorian calendar dates for these events?  These details give every indication a second-hand account.

From Cairo he is taken next as part of a 500,000 man military force to conquer the land of Prester John.[6]  That wondrous mythical medieval king also has giant sluices at his control and drowns 60,000 Turks.  A peace is brokered and Webbe sees Prester John served his daily meals by 60 kings with gold crowns and frolics with that great king’s menagerie of 77 elephants and unicorns.  There is also “a Beast in the Court of Prester lohn, called Arians, hauing 4 heades, they are in shape like a wilde Cat, and are of the height of a great mastie Dog.”

At the end of the 6 years of such marvelous travels, Webbe finds himself in Constantinople.  He is eventually released from his servitude at the behest of the English ambassador, William Harborne.[7] 

He does return through Italy along a path that could possibly place him together with the Earl in Palermo.  The year, however, is 1588.  The Earl has not been in the country for some 13 years.

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[1] Webbe, Edward.  Edward Webbe, chief master gunner, his trauailes (1590).  Edward Arber, ed.  36. n. 1.

[2] Ibid, 4.  All other alternatives closed to him, Arber suggests (with a question mark for date) that somehow he must have seen Edward de Vere during this stopover.

[3] Ibid., 20.

[4] Sansovino, Francesco.  Historia Vniversale Dell Origine Et Imperio De Tvrchi;… (1560, 1564, 1568, 1582).  “I Turchi nel arriuare spararono due uolte l'artiglierie, laqual fui liuellata tanto attache appena toccò le Lance, & si crede che i Bombardieri Christiani de quali si serue il Turco lo facessero a posta,...” 230.  The Turks fired their artillary two times, the which were leveled so low they nearly touched the Lances, & if one can believe it Christian gunners are drawn from among the Turkish slaves to man the posts… 

[5] Ibid.  Webbe also appears to get his information about the great celebrations of Moslem circumcision from Sansovino.

[6] Webbe, 24.

[7] Ibid., 28.

• Let the sky rain potatoes! December 16, 2017. "In fact, the sweet potato had only just begun to be a delicacy within the reach of splurging poets and playwrights and members of the middle classes at the time that The Merry Wives of Windsor (the play from which Falstaff is quoted) was written.  The old soldier liked to keep abreast of the new fads."
• Leonard Digges and the Shakespeare First Folio.  November 30, 2017.  "Upon receiving his baccalaureate, in 1606, Leonard briefly chose to reside in London. After that he went on an extended tour of the Continent which ended around the year that Shaksper died."
• Enter John Lyly.  October 18, 2016.  "From time to time, Shakespeare Authorship aficionados query after the name “John Lyly”.  This happens surprisingly little given the outsized role the place-seeker, novelist and playwright played in the lives of the playwright William Shakespeare and Edward de Vere."

• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.