The Earle of Oxenford a famous man for Chivalrie

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. “The Earle of Oxenford a famous man for Chivalrie”Virtual Grub Street. 7 January 2018.

The question, then, from part one of this series, is how can Edward Webbe have seen "the Earle of Oxenford a famous man for Chiualrie" in Palermo, Sicily, issuing “a challeng against al manner of persons whatsoeuer, and at all maner of weapons, as Turniments, Barriors with horse and armour, to fight a combat with any whatsoeuer”?  How can De Vere ever have visited that city?  

Edward Webbe’s biography in the old Dictionary of National Biography includes only the biographical material that can be extracted from the long famous book of his travels, Edward Webbe, Chief Master Gunner, His Travailes.  In 1868, Edward Arber did his usual fine job of editing what has since been the standard popular reprint edition.

Three editions of Webbe’s popular account seem to have been published in rapid succession.  The final complete edition was executed for William Wright.  It is the only edition to include the date of publication on the title page: 1590.  Wright’s shop was extremely busy even compared to other book  sellers of the day.  Among his specialties were news sheets on foreign matters and travels.  The thin Webbe quarto would fit particularly well there.

Wright’s operation deserves our attention for another reason.  At about the same time that he offered the Webbe account he began publishing new works by Robert Greene, the greatest pamphleteer and literary jack-of-all-trades of the day.  Wright seems first to have licensed Greene’s The Royal Exchange (1590), “Fyrst written in Italian and dedicated to the Signorie of Venice, now translated into English, and offered to the Cittie of London.”  Greene did, indeed, read some amount of Italian, but all evidence indicates his knowledge of the language was limited.  No Italian original has ever been found.

In 1591, Wright published The Second Part of Conny-catching.  In 1592, he published A Groats-worth of witte, bought with a million of Repentance.

Edward Arber, the editor of the reprint edition of the Travailes is about as fine an example of an Elizabethan scholar as might be imagined.  His work is impeccable as the rule.  His tables and attempts to give the text a viable chronology are well crafted, as always, but surely he knew that a great deal remained to be explained.  It can only be said that legitimate travel texts from the time were often inconsistent and reported the most ridiculous sights and incidents as direct personal experience.  Such matters do not disqualify an account.

Webbe tells us that he was just 12 years old when he traveled with Captain Jenkinson’s 1566 ambassadorial mission to Moscow.  The account of this mission and many matters relating to Russia and the Turk had just been published the year before in the 1589 first edition of Richard Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation.  Hakluyut’s book was just the latest and most popular of the enormously popular genre of travelogues recounting newly explored and/or discovered lands.  The public was ravenous for the stuff.

Webbe does understand that Jenkinson remained in Russia for 3 years.  At the end of this time, he tells the reader, the Crim-Tartars burned Moscow and took he and 6 other Englishmen as slaves.  There is a problem with this account, however.  Jenkinsen’s embassy left Russia in 1568 and the Crim-Tartars burned Moscow in May of 1571.  Hakluyt did not include direct information on the latter event in his 1589 first edition.  It was very well known recent history but no accounts seem to have been published by 1590 that could have reminded the author of the exact chronology.

Webbe’s problems only begin here.  He claims that he was a Tartar slave for 5 years.  Again, it was widely known that the Tartars had taken English slaves from among the survivors of their sack of Moscow.  It was just the kind of lurid detail to stick in the English mind as an identifying trait of the savage Tartars.  The only detail he gives of his 5 years among the Tartars is an observation on their newborn children that is as exotic as it is fictional.  At the end of the 5 five years, he informs the reader, the 7 men were ransomed by “friends”.  He returned to England.  The earliest this could be is 1576.  The Earl of Oxford is on his way back to England and the author has never set foot in Italy in order to have the chance to see him or hear his challenge.

So then, what are we to make of all of this?  More to come in Part 3.

Be sure to check out the other articles on Shakespeare and the Authorship Question here at Virtual Grub Street.  Here are just a few:

• 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.