Virtual Grub Street: Earl of Northumberland to Baron Burghley, March 22, 1576.

This letter includes best wishes on the birth of Elizabeth de Vere. There is a surprising amount to be learned from such a brief text. First, Elizabeth was born on July 2, 1575. It has taken nearly a year for one of the great Northern Earls to receive word and to have a letter reach the Baron Burghley, the child’s grandfather, at the Royal Court.

Also of interest, Northumberland congratulates everyone involved except the father, the Earl of Oxford. Congratulations to the fellow earl is conspicuously absent.

Oxford himself is still several weeks away from crossing the channel into England from France. Perhaps this is the reason. He has not yet become the persona non grata to his fellow courtiers that he will in 1581, in the wake of outing his comrades for practicing Catholicism. Still, even in 1576, he is by no means to everyone’s taste.

Also in 1581, he will be caught having fathered an illegitimate child with Anne Vavasour, a dark lady-in-waiting to the Queen. He will find himself exiled from the Queen’s presence and chased by the young woman’s family intent upon restoring their collective honor by putting an end to his life (or at least his private parts, the partial success of which seems to have left him with an advancing Shakespearean lameness for the rest of his life).

You can find much more on these events in my Edward De Vere was Shake-speare: at long last, the proof (2103, 2017).[1]

Right Honorable and my very good Lorde,[2] I have hearde of late that your Lordship hath not been well, and that you have kepte your chamber, which I am hartyly sory for; and being desirous to knowe in what case your Lordship is, I have sent to understand the same, wishing to your Lordship not only helthe, but also comforte and harte's desire to you and all yours. I live here lyke a rusty ke, and yet I assure your Lordship very well contente therewith, for altho' it be solitary, yet is it quiett. I do nowe finde what delyte and pleasure your Lordship hath had in buylding ; for in reforming but a fewe windows and making a seller, and some other lyttell necessaries, I finde contentation. But if I were able and had suche workes as your Lordship hathe, I shoulde take too muche delyte therein. Of all humours it is the moste pleasante, I must confesse. And thus, being desirous to heare howe your Lordship dothe, I wishe unto you as to myself, with my wyfe's harty commendations, and myne to my Lady of Oxforthe and my Lady your wyfe, and God's blessing to the lyttell Lady. From my house at Pettworth, this 22nd of March, 1576.

Your Lordship's cossen ever assured,

H. Northumberland.

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?”
Edward de Vere, Shakespeare and Tycho Brahe. June 9, 2020. “When Brahe was encouraged by his friends and associates to publish a book on the November 1572 supernova for which he is now famous, his answer belonged to his times.”
Shakespeare and Painter’s Palace of Pleasure. May 19, 2020. “…there is no richer source for clues to who was Shakespeare.”
Shakespeare’s Funeral Meats. May 13, 2020. “Famous as this has been since its discovery, it has been willfully misread more often than not. No mainstream scholar had any use for a reference to Hamlet years before it was supposed to have been written.”
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.