Letters: Earl of Oxford to Baron Burghley, before June 25, 1586. [Spelling modernized.]

BL Lansdowne 50/22, ff. 49-50 (bifolium?, 305mm x 190mm, 150mm x 190mm), Oxford to Burghley; before June 25, 1586. (W251;F342). [Click here for original spelling.]

My very good lord,

As I have been beholding to you divers times & of late, by my brother R. Cecil, whereby I have been the better able to follow my suit, wherein I have some comfort at this time from Mr. Secretary Walsingham, so am I now bold to crave your lordship’s help at this present.  For being now almost at a point to taste that good which her Majesty shall determine yet am I one that hath long besieged a fort and not able to compass the end or reap the fruit of his travail, being forced to levy his siege for want of ammunition. Being therefore thus disfurnished and unprovided to follow her Majesty as I perceive she will look for, I most earnestly desire your lordship that you will lend me 200 pounds until her Majesty performs her promise.  Out of which I shall make my payment if it please you with the rest that your lordship has at sundry times to my great furtherance and help in my causes sent me by your servant and steward Billet. I would be loath to have troubled your lordship with so much if I were not kept here back with this tedious suit, from London, where I would have found means to have taken up so much to serve my turn until her majesty had dispatched me, but for that I dare not, having been here so long, and the matter growing to some conclusion, be absent. I pray your lordship bear with me, that, at this time wherein I am to set myself in order, I do become so troublesome.

 

from the Court this morning

Your Lordship’s ever bound

(signed) Edward Oxenford

Addressed by Oxford: To the right honorable and my very good Lord my Lord Treasurer of England give this [seal]

Endorsed by Burghley: 25 June 1586 Earl of Oxford to borrow 200 li whereof I loan him 100 li

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• A 1572 Oxford Letter and the Player’s Speech in Hamlet. August 11, 2020. “The player’s speech has been a source of consternation among Shakespeare scholars for above 200 years.  Why was Aeneas’ tale chosen as the subject?”
• Gutenberg, proto-Hack Writers and Shakespeare. May 26, 2020. “A less well known effect of the Reformation was that many young Catholic men who had taken religious orders in order to receive an education began to lead lives at large from monastic discipline.  Like Erasmus and Rabelais they took up the pen.”
• The Battle Over Shakespeare's Early and Late Plays. September 24, 2018. “The answers to the post-Oxford dilemma, of course, are three.”
• Shakespeare's Apricocks.  February 21, 2017.  "While he may never have been a gardener, he does seem more than superficially knowledgeable about the gardens of his day.  One detail of such matters that he got wrong, however, is as much to the point as any."
• 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.