Virtual Grub Street: Lady Foljamb, Beleading, Fern Seed and much more!

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

1) As the Spanish fleet gathered, in 1587, in order to invade England, Queen Elizabeth set her servants busily arresting suspected Catholic sympathizers throughout her realm. Among them was the elderly Lady Constance Foljamb who was temporarily allowed to remain at home, on her own recognizance, due to an attack of “the stone”[ kidney stones].

2) Lady Foljamb was returned her liberty, in 1589, following the victory over the Armada, “in consequence of her having heard such [Protestant church] service as her nephew, Sir Edward Littleton, had been ordered to say before her, in the presence of some of his Lordship's servants.”

3) Not all gifts between nobility were valued at weight of silver or gold. In January of 1589, the Earl of Shrewsbury sent Baron Burghley “a small rug… to wrap about [his] legs,” a case of “Hallomshire whittles,” and an ointment for chapped skin, all products of his local tradesmen. “Whittles” were small daggers suitable for concealment within the bearer’s clothing.

4) Sir Thomas Smith, Secretary to the Queen and Special Ambassador to France was said to have died at his seat of Mount Hall, in Essex, on the 12th of August 1576. According to Edmund Lodge, he died of “an asthma”.

According to a letter of July 6, 1576, from Gilbert Talbot to the Earl of Shrewsbury, “Mr. Secretary Smith lieth still in hard case at his house in Essex, and, as I hear, this day, or to-morrow, setteth towards the baths in Somersetshire ; the use of his tongue is clean taken from him that he cannot be understood, such is the continuance of the rheum that distilleth from his head downwards.”

5) The last prior of the wealthy Priory of Coventry was Thomas Camswell, who, surrendered the house to commissioners appointed by Henry VIII, in 1538, and received a pension of 133l. 6s. 8d. The White Friars, or Carmelites, an order of mendicants, shared the general fate of monastic institutions in 1538, and surrendered their house in Coventry. Their order was too poor to receive pensions and they were turned out to fend for themselves.

6) According to Nicandor Nucius the English displayed “great simplicity and absence of jealousy in their usages towards females. For not only do those who are of the same family and household kiss them on the mouth with salutations and embraces, but even those too who have never seen them. And to themselves this appears by no means indecent.”

7) By 28 Hen. VIII. cap. xviii. it was made high treason to espouse or marry, without the King's prior license under the Great Seal, any of the King's children, his sisters or aunts, or the King's nieces and nephews.

8) “The people of Bristol,” wrote Pedro de Ayala in 1498 to his masters in Spain, “have for the last seven years every year sent out two, three or four light Ships in search of the Island of Brazil and the Seven Cities, according to the fancy of this Genoese….” If this information was correct, it means that the merchants of Bristol were actively searching for the New World before Columbus set out on his initial journey of exploration.

9) In March, 1495-6, £333 6s. 8d. was paid out of the King’s privy purse to Sir John Shaa “towards the beleding of Seint George Chapell,” probably for the roof of the nave, and a further sum of the like amount in June following, likewise “ for beleding at Windsor.”

10) In I Henry IV, II.i. Falstaff’s inside man Gadshill says:

Gads. We steal as in a castle, cock-sure; we have the receipt of fernseed, — we walk invisible.

Ferns do not have seeds but reproduce through spores. This is likely a common joke perpetrated upon the gullible rather than folklore. We find the same joke in Ben Jonson's New Inn, i. 1 :

Lovel. Why were you seen?

Ferret. Because indeed I had no medicine, sir, to go invisible; no fern-seed in my pocket.