Virtual Grub Street: Sir Henry Maynard To Michael Hickes, August 20, 1597.

By virtue of being a subject of the Queen, Michael Hickes — former secretary to Willam Cecil, Baron Burghley, and personal friend of his son, Robert — had offered his hospitality should the she ever be in the neighborhood of his Essex country house at Ruckholt. She accepted his invitation suddenly and immediately before she embarked on her shortened progress of 1597. Her duties increased and treasury limited by Spanish affairs, she would only be able to visit counties immediately bordering London.

Secretaries of major members of the administration of the Royal Court tended to belong to a personal and professional network of sorts. Here Hickes — no longer a secretary to Baron Burghley, but, for some years, the patriarch of a moderately wealthy extended family — receives a reply from Sir Henry Maynard, once also secretary to Burghley, to an earlier letter. Presently, Maynard seems to have become the secretary of Lord Hunsdon.

Hickes is desperate to know how he can possibly entertain the Queen and her burgeoning Court on his modest estate and means. This reply gives an insider look at what it was like for someone without vast wealth and estates to receive the Queen. Not all stops were at nobleman’s houses, by any means, so there was advice to be had.

As I have pointed out elsewhere, Michael Hickes was the eldest son of Juliana Penn who wrote a well-known letter demanding payment from the Earl of Oxford for the use of her inn by he and his companions. One of those friends was Thomas Churchyard whose letters to the widow portray a situation identical to that between Falstaff and Mistress Quickly in Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays.

Not only do we have familiar letters of Hickes and Penn to and from Robert Cecil, the Earl of Oxford and Churchyard, but to and from those they regularly lent out money at interest. Hickes was Francis Bacon’s lender of choice until he received the office of Lord Chancellor and no longer struggled to keep up appearances. Until the money was no longer needed, they too exchanged familiar letters.

Juliana had remarried to Anthony Penn, her first husband’s business partner, during the late 1550s. Anthony was an ancestor of William Penn, the founder of the America colony of Pennsylvania.

Queen Elizabeth shows well in these instructions. She was a humble and gracious house guest even when her host had nothing royal to offer by way of hospitality. Michael Hickes’s passion in life was lawn bowling. Perhaps she chucked a ball or two.

Or perhaps not. In a draft of a letter intended for Sir John Stanhope, Hickes portrays the visit as unsuccessful.

I assure you I was very much troubled before her Majesty's coming to my house out of the care and desire I had she might find all things there to her good liking and contentment. But since, I have been much more troubled and perplexed, having heard by some (who overheard it) that her Majesty took some conceit and note towards myself for my silence, although (in her princely favour) it pleased her to like of my house, with the mistress of the house, and all things besides.[1]

Tudors being shameless gossips, Robert Cecil[2] is said to have written to another correspondent that Elizabeth Hickes was “exceeding stout”. Handsome women, it has been said, rarely received the same open approval from the Queen.

Mr. Hicks,[3] there is no alteration as yet in the progresse, nor no conceit that it will change. This morning I was with my Lord Chamberlaine about some other busines from my Lord, who, as it seemeth, had expected your coming to him. I told him you had been here yesterdaie, and that Mr. Bowes appointed to be with you this morning, who would report to his Lordship at his returne the state of your howse and lodginges. Some speeche he had with me touching your howse; saying that he understood that it was scant of lodginges and offices: whereuppon I took occasion to tell his Lordship that it was true, and I conceived that it did trouble you, that you had no convenient place to entertaine some of her Majestie's necessary servaunts. His aunswer was, that you were unwise to be at any such charge, but onlie to leave the howse to the Quene: and wished that there might be presented to her Majestie from your wife, some fine wastcoat or fine ruffe, or like thinge, which he said would be as acceptably taken as if it were of great price. He said that two daies since, uppon speeche of your howse, and of your marriage, the Quene fell into an exceeding commendation of Mr. Parais,[4] as that she never had such a merchant in her kingdome; wheruppon his Lordship saith, that himself and others standing by gave the like commendations to her of your wife. It seemeth that the time will be two nights, as was first appointed; and though no speeche be therof, he verily thinketh that she will come to Theobalde's, though she should remaine there but three or four daies. It were a pitie at this time to trouble you with any other matter, otherwise I should let you knowe, that, as the messenger saith that is this morning come with letters from Sir Ed. Norris, though not yet opened, the Counte Maurice hath taken Berk. And so untill a further occasion, I will leave otherwise to trouble you, than with my hartiest commendations to Mrs. Hicks.

From the Court, this 20th of August, 1597.

Yours most assuredly,

H. Maynard.

[1] Beach, Mrs. William Hicks. A Cotswold Family: Hicks and Hicks-Beach (1909). 175.

[2] Ibid. “There is a sentence in one of Robert Cecil's letters which tells, although in balder language, that Mistress Elizabeth was exceeding stout; and a letter from Michael to Sir John Stanhope seems to say that she found favour in the royal eyes, not always inclined to regard female comeliness with complacency!”

[3] Wright, Thomas. Queen Elizabeth and Her Times, original letters (1838). II.482.

[4] Mr. Parais was the first husband of Hickes’s new wife, Elizabeth.

More on Michael Hickes and Mrs. Penn at Virtual Grub Street:

The Cecil-Penn Correspondence Regarding Charles Chester. March 05, 2018. “Your silence in answering me, as though you scorned me for dealing friendly with you, and your privy intelligence with him since his apprehension, I can assure you must be answered.”
Introduction to The Cecil-Penn Correspondence Regarding Charles Chester. March 05, 2018. “It was at that time that Mrs. Penn wrote her infamous letter to the Earl demanding he and/or Thomas Churchyard pay the back bills one or both of them owed to her.”
Juliana Penn, Robert Cecil and the Silver Bell, &c. February 25, 2018. “You know my Lord you had anything in my house whatsoever you or your men would demand, if it were in my house; if it had been a thousand times more, I would have been glad to pleasure your lordship withall.”
Juliana Penn! Robert Cecil! Who Knew? February 11, 2018. “…there was not, nor is, the least suspicion conceaved of any privity of yours to any ill of his who is now a prisoner in the Gate-house.”
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.