[Click here for original spelling.]
My lord,
Your last letters, which be the first I have received, of your lordship’s good opinion conceived towards me, (which god grant so long to continue) as I would be most desirous and diligent to seek the same, have not a little, after so many storms passed of your heavy grace towards me, lightened and disburdened my careful mind. And since I have been so little beholding to sinister reports, I hope now, with your Lordship’s indifferent judgment, to be more plausible unto you than heretofore, through my careful deeds, to please you, which hardly, either through my youth, or rather misfortune hitherto I have done. But yet, lest those, (I cannot tell how to term them,) but as back-friends unto me, shall take place again to undo your lordship’s beginnings of well-conceiving of me, I shall most earnestly desire your Lordship to forbear to believe too fast, lest I growing so slowly into your good opinion may be undeservedly of my part, rooted out of your favor. The which thing, to always obtain, (if your lordship do but equally consider of me) may see by all the means possible in me, I do aspire. Though perhaps by reason of my youth, your graver and severer years will not judge the same. Thus therefore hoping the best in your lordship, and fearing the worst in myself, I take my leave, lest my letters may become loathsome and tedious unto you to whom I wish to be most grateful.
Written this 31st of October by your loving son-in-law from Wivenhoe.
(signed) Edward Oxenford
This bearer has some need of your Lordship’s favor, which when he shall speak with your Lordship I pray you, for my sake he may find you the more his furtherer and helper in his cause.
Addressed: To the right honorable my singular good Lord the Lord Treasurer give these. At Court. [seal]
Endorsed: 31 October 1572
Second endorsement: Earl of Oxford
Third endorsement: Upon a reconciliation of his father-in-law towards him.
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
- Plague Dogs in 16th Century London. April 7, 2020. "In his account of the sources and effects of pestilences, from his enormously popular poem De Rerum Natura, the Roman author Titus Lucretius Carus noted that dogs caught pestilences as well."
- What About Edward de Vere’s Twelfth Night of 1600/01? January 28, 2020. “Leslie Hotson, who brought the Orsino-Orsino coincidence to the attention of the Nevillians seems to have made one particular mistake that is all to our point.”
- Who Saved Southampton from the Ax? September 2, 2019. “One of the popular mysteries of the final years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I is why the Queen executed her favorite, the Earl of Essex, for treason, and left his accomplice, the Earl of Southampton, to languish as a prisoner in The Tower until King James I ascended the throne.”
- 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.”
- Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
- Check out the English Renaissance Letter Index for many letters from this fascinating time, some related to the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
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