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Thursday, May 23, 2019

Shakespeare on Bowling, a Beautiful Turkish Lady, and more.

It's Trivia Tuesday! Or in this case Thursday!
Life happens.  Sorry I'm late.
1) On August 25, 1592, Frederick Duke of Wirtemberg, spent the day at Uxbridge, “a beautiful large market town,” where, as one of the highlights, he was shown a sheep with five legs.

2) By the statutes 24 Hen. VIII. c. 10, and 8 Eliz. c. 15 bounties were established to protect the farmer from loss through the depredations of crows, rooks and various sorts of vermin; the damage done to grain is specially mentioned, and the church-wardens were required to assess the farmers and spend the money raised in giving rewards for the heads and eggs of the birds which did most damage to the crops.  Growth of English Industry.

3) “about the same time [10 Elizabeth, 1568], nay even before, they began to wear buckles in their shoes; the gentlemen wore them either of silver, or copper gilt, whilst the common people wore them of copper only: but shoe roses, either of silk or stuff, were not then used, or even known;…” Strutt.

4) The Tudor bowling ball was more like a modern bocce ball.  At some point, the rules evolved to allow a player to use more than one ball, some of different shapes.   We are informed by Strutt that 'when the ball ceased to be spherical and assumed a flattened shape, a kind of impetus termed "bias" [spin] was given to cause it to run obliquely.' This is the meaning of an image in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew:

Well, forward, forward! thus the bowl should run,
And not unluckily against the bias.


5) As the Court of Queen Mary’s agent at Antwerp, arranging loans and transacting its bills of exchange, purchasing ammunition, artillery, etc., Thomas Gresham received a daily allowance of twenty shillings sterling.

6) In late 16th century England porpoises were commonly called “sea-hogs”.

7) Among the artworks noted  by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, at Somerset House (the Queen’s Palace),  during his 1613 visit to the English Royal Court was an oil painting of “A beautiful Turkish lady”.  Some 150 years later, it was to be found among the Royal collection at Kensington Palace under the title of “Queen Elizabeth in a Fancy Dress”.  It is the mystery behind this portrait that I solve in my book Is this a Pregnant Queen Elizabeth I?  This a poem by Edward de Vere?

8) In [the ambassador from Scotland] Sir James Melville’s Memoirs, under the year 1564, he says of Queen Elizabeth, “Sche spak to me in Dutche, bot it was not gud.”  By “Dutche” he meant Deutsche [i.e. German].


9)  Of the English language fluency of the Spanish Count Gondomar we  are told ‘ Gondomar could tell a merry tale, could read Will Shakespeare's plays, of which he possessed a “first folio,…”.’

10) Paolo Giovio (Jovius), in his “Descriptio Britanniae,” 1548, says: “The English are commonly destitute of good breeding, and are despisers of Foreigners, since they esteem him a wretched being and but half a man (semihominem) who may be born elsewhere than in Britain, and far more miserable him whose fate it should be to leave his breath and his bones in a foreign land.”  England as Seen by Foreigners.

Also at Virtual Grub Street:







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