Tulips, Shakespeare’s Dancing Horse, Escutcheons and more.

It's that time again!  It's Tudor Trivia Tuesday!

1) The first known mention of the tulip in Europe is found in a 1554 letter of Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq, Austrian ambassador to the court of Suleyman the Magnificent.  The flower arrived from Constantinople under the name “tullpa,” being a Turkish word for a  type of turban which it was reputed to resemble.  Some contemporary reports claim that it first arrived in Constantinople from Cappadocia.

2)  Conrad Gesner saw his first tulip in the beginning of April 1559, at Augsburg, in the garden of John Henry Herwart.  Being the first to classify the tulip in question, it is called Tulipa Gesneriana.

3) Richard Hakluyt reports the arrival of the tulip in England during the late 16^th century.  John Gerard already cites a dozen variations of “Tvlipa or the Dalmatian cap,… a strang and forraine flower,… with which all studious and Painefull Herbarists desire to be better acquainted” in his The Herball Or Generall Historie of Plantes (1597).

4) In the year 1588, duke Julius of Brunswick published an order forbidding his vassals to ride in carriages.  This was presumably done in order to prevent the loss of vital horsemanship skills among the class from which the officers of his military were chosen.

“…We also will and command our before-mentioned vassals and servants to take notice, that when we order them to assemble, either all together, or in part, in times of turbulence, or to receive their fiefs, or when on other occasions they visit our court, they shall not travel or appear in coaches, but on their riding horses, &c."

5)  It was a practice, until the 18^th century, for English ambassadors to leave scocheons [escutcheons] at the houses where they slept.

6) When King Henry VIII changed his lodgings, an officer was appointed to remove the locks from the doors of the king’s privy chambers and have them re-installed at the new location.

7)  In Love’s Labour Lost Shakespeare Boyard quips “the dancing horse will tell you”.  This is a reference to Morocco, the famous horse of mister Bankes.  The horse’s act is described at length in the following anonymous chronicle of the time:

'September, 1591- This yeare and against the assise tyme on Master Banckes, a Staffordshire gentile, brought into this towne of Salop a white horsse whiche wolld doe woonderfull and strange thinges, as thease,—wold in a company or prese tell howe many peeces of money by hys foote were in a mans purce; also, yf the partie his master wolld name any man beinge hyd never so secret in the company, wold fatche hym owt with his mowthe, either naming hym the veriest knave in the company, or what cullerid coate he hadd ; he pronowncid further to his horse and said, Sirha, there be two baylyves in the towne, the one of them bid mee welcom unto this towne and usid me in frindly maner; I wold have the[e] goe to hym and gyve hym thanckes for mee ; and he wold goe truly to the right baylyf that did so use hys sayd master as he did in the sight of a number of people, unto Master Baylyffe Sherar, and bowyd unto hym in making curchey withe hys foote in sutche maner as he coullde, withe suche strange feates for sutche a beast to doe, that many people judgid that it were impossible to be don except he had a famyliar or don by the arte of magicke.'  Anonymous Chronicle of Shrewsbury.

The horse was written about for many years after.

8)  In 1516, Richard Byrchett, of Pesemershe, deceased, bequeathed his wife, “lyberte at ye fyer in the house;… so long she ys wedo."  An irrevocable right to a seat beside the fire at the house they had occupied.

9)  Recounting his tour of England, around 1558, Master Estienne Perlin informs his readers that:  “As to their manner of living, they are rather unpolite, for they belch at table without reserve or shame, even in the presence of persons of the greatest dignity.”

10)  Most ships from ports north of France put in at Gravesend just up from the mouth of the Thames. Upon each high tide passenger barges traveled the 20 miles to London for a fare, in 1588, of 2 pence.  More comfortable tiltboats[link] were available for 6 pence.

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• Queen Elizabeth I’s Heart and the French Ambassador.  April 3, 2019.  “…the Queen of England, with the permission of her physicians, has been able to come out of her private chamber, she has permitted me… to see her…”
• Lady Southwell on the Final Days of Queen Elizabeth I.  March 24, 2019.  “her majesty told [Lady Scrope] (commanding her to conceal the same ) that she saw, one night, in her bed, her body exceeding lean, and fearful in a light of fire.”
• Shakespeare’s Barnacles.  March 3, 2016.  “Prospero will wake, he fears, before they can murder him, and will cast a spell on them.”
• Hedingham Castle 1485-1562 with Virtual Tour Link.  January 29, 2019. “Mr. Sheffeld told me that afore the old Erle of Oxford tyme, that cam yn with King Henry the vii., the Castelle of Hengham was yn much ruine,…”
• The Battle Over Shakespeare's Early and Late Plays. September 24, 2018. “The answers to the post-Oxford dilemma, of course, are three.”
• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.