Lord Burghley to John Sturmius, Sept. 15, 1572.

William Cecil, Baron of Burghley.

Last week I posted the entry on Johannes Sturmius from Bayle’s Dictionary [Link].  Actually, most of the text of that entry, by far, was included as footnotes.  While I am formatting those footnotes in order to put that post in final form I will begin to post key letters highlighting the nature of Sturmius relation to the English Court and to Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford.

The following letter, from Burghley, on September 15, 1572, includes the first mention of paying Sturmius a stipend for his services.  This upon the death of Christopher Mont who had begun acting as English agent in Europe under Henry VIII's Secretary Thomas Cromwell.  Mont would provide decades of exceptional service to the English crown under four monarchs.

Sturmius had impressed Mont when the former served as agent to the French Court during the 1540s in negotiations between the two countries.  Eventually, his Protestant fervor made him unfit to serve as a French agent any longer and he settled in Strasbourg and opened his famous school.

W. Ron Hess has suggested that Sturmius was a spy station-master and money launderer for the infamous spy network of Francis Walsingham and the Baron Burghley and that Edward de Vere's visit, in 1575, was a spy mission.  Others have dallied with the idea.  This letter will be the first of  a number that bring his actual role into focus.

The Latin original of this letter and this translation appear in The Zurich Letters (Second Series),  The Parker Society, 1845.

LORD BURGHLEY TO JOHN STURMIUS.

Dated at Woodstock[1], Sept. 15, 1572.

Your letters have been delivered to me, most accomplished Sturmius, both that which you wrote privately to myself, and that written to the queen's majesty; in which you inform us of the death of master Mont, a man who by reason of his extreme diligence and fidelity in watching over the interests of this kingdom, as attested by the experience of many years, was most highly esteemed by her majesty and by every one of us. We are not however more affected by his loss, than we are comforted by the expression of your good-will and duty, which is, as it were, a just counter balance. And this indeed falls out very opportunely, by reason of our opinion of your religion, wisdom, and integrity; especially in these times, when there is need of great prudence and fidelity in exposing the designs and doings of men, on account of the recent calamities in France[2], and the disturbed state of almost all Europe. Her majesty therefore accepts, as is fitting, the homage of your duty so diligently and readily offered, and will willingly appoint you in the place of Mont, and with the 

same salary; which, though it be little in proportion to your accomplishments and abilities, we think you will be disposed to estimate rather, by the dignity and good-will of her majesty herself, than by its intrinsic value; and that, whatever deficiency there may be in this respect, you will entirely rely upon her favour and beneficence. I would have sent you this stipend, according to the queen's wish, with a letter from her majesty, if I either thought this messenger sufficiently suitable, or felt disposed to entrust him on this journey (which on account of these new perils both of places and times and circumstances seems likely to be a very difficult one) with anything besides this letter expressive of her majesty's favourable inclination, and also of my personal good-will towards you. Wherefore you will not in the mean time expect anything more from us, who are exceedingly busied in keeping from our borders the flame of the fires that are burning so near us. When their fury shall have been extinguished or allayed by the divine goodness, you will then find a more convenient way both of transmitting your letters to us, and of receiving this stipend for yourself. Farewell. Dated at Woodstock, Sept. 15, 1572.

Your exceeding well-wisher,

WILLIAM CECIL,

Baron of Burghley.

---

[1] Lord Burghley was then attending queen Elizabeth on a progress, in which she visited Havering Bower, Theobalds, Gorhambury, Dunstable, Woburn, Warwick, Kenilworth, Compton, Berkeley Castle, and Woodstock, at which latter place she is said to have received the intelligence of the massacre of Paris.

[2] Namely, the massacre of St Bartholomew three weeks before.

• 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."

• Shake-speare and the Influence of Ronsard.  May 22, 2014.  "If Shake-speare were actually born in 1564, the question should naturally arise as to why so many of the sources for his works were written between 1560 and 1580,..."

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