It is now a year since by your only means her Majesty granted her interest in Danvers escheat. I had only then her word from your mouth I find by this waste of Time, that lands will not be carried without deeds. I have twice therefore moved her Majesty that it would please her to grant me that ordinary course (de bene esse quantum in nobis est) whereof there are more than an hundred examples. My answer is that I should receive her pleasure from you. But I understand by Cauley that she has never spoken thereof. The matter has been heard according to the order with much ado twice before ^the^ Judges, and many also standers-by did hear the same, there in open appearance, her Majesty’s title was questionless [unquestioned], The Lord chief Justice upon this as in form I was made [to] believe, was to have taken the opinion of the rest of the Judges and conferring it with his own to have made up a report to her Majesty. As for the Judges report they were never called unto it,
and the principal points to confirm her Majesty’s title never opened or moved, but contrary kept back. So that under their hands the Lord chief Justice has made no report. Yet something he has done out of his own breast that is secret and I cannot learn, if he have reported nothing to Escheat to her Majesty, then is my suit as it was the first day, that is where her Majesty thought she had nothing, that she would grant me her Interest. This suit I obtained by your especial means, and this she promised me, wherefore [..] Here upon I challenge that something might be done, whereby I may upon ground seek and try her Majesty’s right, which cannot be done without this deed afore spoken of. The course which seldom or never has been used before in this cause, to refer it to the Judges, how prejudicial a precedent I know not to her Majesty, has been observed, and the effect has showed that whereas it was pretended to be shortest, it has been the furthest way about. and as the beginning was but some opinion the end is but confusion. Now therefore the matter having been directed by this course for a whole year’s space, and come to no better terms, my desire is to know her Majesty’s pleasure touching ^my desire of^ her patent, (De bene
esse) whether she will perform it or no.
If not then have I been mocked, if yea, that I might have answer, whereby I may
upon reason quiet myself, and not upon weariness. Howsoever an answer shall be
most welcome unto me, now being the best expectation of my tedious suit,
thinking therein, my time lost, more precious than the suit itself. Thus taking
my leave from Hackney this 22nd of March I remain
Your assured friend &
Brother-in-law
(signed) Edward Oxenford
Addressed (in Oxford’s hand): To
the right honorable my very good Brother Sir Robert Cecil, her Majesty’s principal
Secretary [seal]
Endorsed: 1601 March 22 Earl of
Oxenford 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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