Choking Cormorants, Piled Corpses, Witchcraft Investigation and more.

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

1) London merchants were ordered to stay the sale of all crimson-coloured silk that arrived within their ports, in November of 1558, until the queen should first have her choice towards furnishing her coronation.

2) In the 16^th century, Cormorants were to lakes and waterways as hawks were to the air.  They were taught to hunt fish for their handlers.  This was accomplished by famishing the bird and tying a collar around its neck almost closing off the passageway of its throat.  A leader was then tied to the collar and the bird set upon the water.  It hungrily gobbled up fish that remained stuck in its throat thus unable to assuage its hunger.  The handler drew the bird back to shore and caused it to vomit up its cargo.  After the handler was satisfied with the day’s catch, the collar was loosened and the bird allowed to eat  some of the fish it had caught.

3)  The above is the source of the meaning of Shakespeare’s Richard II, II.i.35-6:

With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder:

Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,

The final line of this quote would seem to indicate that the myth of the bird grew to suggest that it was so ravenous a creature that it would devour itself if needs be: “Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.”  This may reflect the look of the bird cleaning its beak after eating.  Shakespeare uses the image three times in his plays.

4) In November 1576, Spanish soldiers sacked and spoiled the city of Antwerp, arguably the greatest banking and mercantile city in northern Europe.  According to the official English government report, presumably by Thomas Wilson, they massacred 17,000 men women and children.  “I refrain to rehearse the heaps of dead carcasses which lay at every trench they entered: the thickness whereof did in many places exceed the height of a man.”

In the words of Strype: “the richest towns in Europe, had now no money nor treasure to be found therein, as the said English gentleman reported, but only in the hands of murderers and strumpets. For every dom Diego must walk strutting up and down the streets, with his harlot by him in her chain and bracelets of gold. And the notable burse, which was wont to be a safe assembly for merchants, and men of all honest trades, had now none other merchandise therein, but as many dicing tables as might be placed round about it, all the day long.”

5) Prior to the sack on Antwerp, the city’s officials were trying desperately to keep track of all non-citizens of the city in order to prevent any provocation of a fight between the soldiers and the city.  One of the registered foreign travelers was Drusiano Martinelli.  He was managing a troop of performers who had thought to seek work in the wealthy city at a very inopportune time.  In 1577 his name would appear in the Court records of Queen Elizabeth I where they had begun a very famous visit known to have greatly influenced Shakespeare.  Find my essay on the players itinerary from 1574-77 here: The Fascinating Itinerary of the Gelosi Troupe, 1576.

6) In January of 1581, Queen Elizabeth I issued a proclamation that “all such her subjects, as had their children, wards, kinsfolk, or any other, over whom they had special charge, or to whom they did contribute to their maintenance and relief, remaining in the parts beyond the seas,” report their names within ten days to the ordinary at their respective church.  They were ordered to then “procure a return of  them within the space of four months after notice given by the said proclamation.”  Furthermore, “it should not be lawful, after six days [from the proclamation] expired, for any merchant, or other whatsoever, by way of exchange or otherwise, to exchange, convey, or deliver, or procure any money or other relief, to or for the maintenance of any person beyond the seas”.  This proclamation was intended to deplete English candidates from the ranks of the Pope and the Jesuits.

7) In 1588, the city of London lent Queen Elizabeth I 4,900l. in funds to prepare for the invasion of the Spanish Armada.

8) For greater assurance of victory, the ships of the Spanish Armada were named after saints.  They were manned by 180 friars of the major Catholic orders.  The friars were ordered to celebrate “a Latin litany, called Litaniae,  composed and printed for the prosperous issue of this expedition, to be used for a week together; each day having its distinct office.” [Strype.]

9) In December of 1581, the Geneva-based Calvinist scholar Theodore Beza sent William Cecil, the Baron Burghley an antique six-language Pentateuch as a donation toward a new Cambridge University library.  (Cecil was the chancellor of the university.)  Handwritten by scribes, it had been used in an ancient Spanish synagogue prior to the Inquisition.

10) In a letter of January 7, 1598, a special committee of Queen Elizabeth I’s councilors reported that their investigation revealed that the actions of a certain Mrs. Dyer, accused of practicing witchcraft upon the Queen, did not rise to the level that satisfied the witchcraft statute.  Mrs. Dyer had only spoken “very lewd and undutiful speeches” but had never made a figurine or picture upon which to practice magic.  Apparently, the latter were required in order to rise to the level of an offense before the law.

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• The Secret Correspondence of Robert Cecil and James I. August 25, 2019.  “As he was planning an armed attempt to “secure the person of the Queen,” after having returned from the country, in disgrace, and to force her to dismiss ministers who did not satisfy him, he was waiting for a return letter from King James VI of Scotland.”
• A Brief Introduction to Poisoning a Nobleman.  August 4, 2019. “As those who read the primary accounts whenever possible know, never were vagaries so vague as in the Middle Ages.”
• A Most Curious Account of the Funeral of Queen Elizabeth I: April 28, 1603.  April 28, 2019.  “Once it was clear that James I would face no serious challenges, Cecil and the others could begin to give attention to the matter of the Queen’s funeral.”
• The Battle Over Shakespeare's Early and Late Plays. September 24, 2018. “The answers to the post-Oxford dilemma, of course, are three.”
• Stratford Shakespeare’s Undersized Grave.  July 22, 2018.  “Mr. Coll’s considers this evidence to support an old rumor that Shakspere’s head had been stolen in 1794.  But I submit that he is merely making his observation based upon a coincidence.”
• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.