Virtual Grub Street: Sorcery, Poultry Counter, Powdered Goat Horns and more.

1) On December 31, 1559, a play was performed at Court before the Queen Elizabeth that was acted so badly that she commanded the actors to leave off. As was often the case, a mask was scheduled to follow which immediately came in and began dancing.

2) William Cecil was created Baron of Burghley Shrove Sunday the 25th of February 1570. He was so abashed at declaring his new title that he wrote to Walsingham in France, March the 1st, 1570, subscribing his letter, “By your assured, as I was wont, Wil. Cecil; and as I am now ordered to write, William Burghley.”

3) One Hugh Draper, tavern keeper, was committed to The Tower on the 21st of March 1560, accused of being “a Coniurer or sorcerer, and thereby to practise matter againste Sir William St lowe and my ladie [the Queen].” In his defense he affirmed “yt longe since he so misliked his science that he burned all his bookes.”

4) Counters, in London, were a small type of prison to house minor offenders. The full name of the prison most commonly referred to as The Counter was “the Poultry Counter,” in Cheapside, so called because it was converted into a counter sometime early in the 16^th century when the poulterers abandoned the area dedicated to their trade in the Cheapside district for another on Gracechurch Street.

5) On June 3, 1535, the returning Venetian Ambassador to England, Carlo Capello, reported to the Venetian Senate that “the King is already tired to satiety of this new Queen (che il Re era stufo et satio hormaï de questa mova regima.)”

6) According to the diary if Henry Machyn “The wardens of the Goldsmiths in 3 Hen. VIII, showed the company the goodly and rich herse-cloth which was made with the goods of sir Hugh Brice, dame Elizabeth his wife, and dame Elizabeth Terrell; when it was agreed that the said cloth should not be lent to any other person than a goldsmith, or a goldsmith's wife; that, whenever used, the company assembled should pray, as well for the said two donors’ souls as for the soul of the said dame Elizabeth Terrell; and that the beadle should have for his safeguard and attendance [i.e. providing security for the expensive item] at least xijd.”

7) The will of of Robert Goodchild, parish clerk of St. Andrew's in Newcastle, in 1557, contained “six pewter saucers, eighteen pence; four pottle pots, five shillings and fourpence, three pint pots and three quart pots, three shillings; ten candlesticks, six shillings…”.

8) In Shakespeare's time gentlewomen commonly wore masks in the open air in order to prevent tanning or chaffing.

9) John Trevisa’s 1495 translation of Bartholome’s 13^th century De proprietatibus rerum was the go-to 16^th century text for natural history. It was revised by Stephen Batman in 1582. The text generally consists of quotes from classical authors such as Pliny: “Plinius saith, libro. 33. cap. 10. Serpentes bée chosed [chased] and driuen away with ashes of Goates hornes, and with their Wooll burnt.”

10) “In Rous's Historia Regum Anglia, [1490] first do we find details of Richard [III]'s person, weak of body, short of stature and of face, with the right shoulder higher than the left—curiously different from the later picture, in which Richard's left shoulder is represented as higher than the right. Here first we begin to hear tales of Richard's monstrous birth, haired and toothed, having been in his mother's womb two years—again an interesting contrast to Shakespeare's representation that Richard's physical peculiarities were due to the fact that he was sent before his time into this breathing world, unfinished, scarce half made up.” [G. B. Churchill]