My good Brother, in that I have not sent an answer to your last letter, as you might expect, I shall desire you to hold me for excused, since ever since the receipt thereof by reason of my sickness I have not been able to write. And whereas you do conceive that I have been carried to much by the conceits of Cauley, I do assure you there is no such thing. I have used him and so do still as a follower of my business, wherein I do not find any cause to blame but rather recommend his diligence. For Counsel I have such lawyers, and the best that I can get as are to be had in London, who have advised me for my best course, to desire that her Majesty would grant me her warrant signed, for the drawing of a book mentioning what her pleasure is to grant me concerning the Escheat of Sir Charles Davers
(de bene esse, quantum in Regina est) whereby shall ensue no prejudice unto any of the pretenders which subject[?] to be interested in any of the said lands, in regard, that if the Queen have no title, there passes nothing to me. It is a common course notwithstanding any office found against the Queen, that her Majesty grants concealed lands in this course, whereof there are many yearly precedents. So that her Majesty granting this to me, grants but her own interest, which in effect had been nothing, considering how this cause has been carried, and so likely to have been obscured forever, if it had not been my hap to have stirred therein.
For the rest of your letter, whatsoever you have written, although it be sum discouragement unto me, yet I cannot alter the opinion which I have conceived of your virtue and constancy, neither can I suffer it to enter my thought that a vain fable can brindle the clearness of your guiltless conscience since all the world does know that
the crimes of Sir
Charles Davers were so bi-fold, that Justice could not dispense any farther;
wherefore I cannot leave that hope and trust which I have had in your promises,
but as I have done still I do wholly rely myself on your only friendship, and
thus desiring you to bear with the weakness of my lame hand, I take my leave
from Hackney this 22th of November 1601.
Your loving and assured Brother
to his power
Edward Oxenford
Addressed (in Oxford’s hand): To
my very well-beloved Brother Sir Robert Cecil principal Secretary to her Majesty
[seal]
Endorsed: 22 November 1601; The
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?”
- 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.”
- 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.”
- Shakespeare Scholarship in the Internet Age. August 12, 2018. “I love to be presented with a legitimate challenge to any of my work. This does not change the fact that such challenges are followed by an unpleasant sinking feeling. Had I missed something?”
- 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 Letters Index: Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford for many letters from this fascinating time, some related to the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
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