Good Sir Robert Cecil.
I have often received from you many words of courtesies, & favors, when I should have occasion to use thee, all which I have believed, & do still, imagining those promises to proceed of a free & liberal disposition. Wherefore having at this time an especial opportunity to try my friends in a cause which I do not doubt but just, I make thus far bold with you, that whereas a few years since I was a suitor to her Majesty, for her favor thus far, that my right which I did not doubt, to the forest of Waltham & park of Havering concerning the keeping thereof, might have trial at law, which is a common course to every subject, & that then under pretense to do me a favor her Majesty to avoid charge, and delay of the law, greatly to my ease and for better expedition, her pleasure was that the matter should be referred to arbitriment, which was so done as her Majesty taking exception to my arbitror, had her own Sir Christopher Hatton then Lord Chancellor, appointed as indifferent for us both, as she did measure it. He having heard the matter and her Majesty council with mine, was resolved, and hereupon wished me to urge her Majesty
to call for his report, which accordingly I did and the
lord chancellor present. In short she refused to hear him. she flatly said
whether it were mine or hers she would bestow it at her pleasure, and so under
pretense of keeping the same from spoil until the matter were decided between
her Majesty and myself, she put it into the hands of Sir Thomas Heneage, and this
after a year’s travel, I had for my short expedition. Now my lord your father
is a full witness of all these things, being present when the matter was
committed, and the intentions and all are sufficiently known to him with all
the course observed. I have written also to him and also to her Majesty. I only
desire my friends that may speak their minds to her Majesty & have opportunity
that they will be means, that either she will let me enjoy that which my right
does cast upon me and the law with her favor, or that she will protect me with
her law as her subject, and that if ^it^ be none of mine she will rather take it
away by order, than oppression.
this 20th of October 1595
Your assured friend,
(signed) Edward Oxenford
He seems to doubt yet of his death,
& wishes me to make means to the Earle of Essex that he would forbear to
deal for it. A thing I cannot do in honor, since I have already received diverse
injuries and wrongs from him, which bar me of all such bass courses. If her majesty’s
affections be forfeits of men’s estates we must endure it.
Addressed: To the right honorable
& his very good friend & brother, Sir Robert Cecil one of her Majesty’s
Privy Council. [seal]
Endorsed: 20 October 1595; Earl of Oxford to my Master.
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?”
- Portia’s Quality of Mercy. June 2, 2020. “Likely a line from Sonnenschein’s 1905 follow-up essay “Shakspere and Stoicism” is to the point: ‘I hope, by the way, that no "Baconian" will find in this article grist for his mill.’”
- 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.”
- Henry Neville’s Twelfth Night in Context. January 13, 2020. “Winwood informed his correspondent that the Grand Duke de Medici and his Duchess had arrived in Marseilles together with a large entourage including three Florentine princes, Virginio, Giovanni and Antonio.”
- 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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