Seeing that it has pleased your Majesty of your most gracious inclination to Justice & right to restore me to be keeper of your game as well in your forest of Waltham, as also in Havering park, I can do no less in duty and love to your Majesty, but employ myself in the execution thereof. And to the end you might the better know in what sort both the forest, & the park have been abused, and yet continued, as well in destroying of the Deer, as in spoiling of your demesne wood, by such as have patents, & had licenses heretofore for felling of Timber in the Queen’s time lately deceased, presuming thereby that they may do what they list. I was bold to send unto your Majesty a man skillful, learned & experienced in forest causes, who being a dweller and eyewitness
thereof might inform you of the truth. And because your Majesty, upon
a bare information, could not be so well satisfied of every particular, as by
lawful testimony & examination of credible witness upon oath, according to
your Majesty’s appointment, by Commission a course has been taken, In which your
Majesty shall be fully satisfied of the truth. This Commission together with
the depositions of the witness I do send to your Majesty by this bearer, who
briefly can inform you of the whole contents. So that now, having lawfully
proved unto your Majesty that Sir John Gray has killed and destroyed your Deer
in Havering park without any warrant for the same, his patent is void in law,
& therefore I most humbly beseech your Majesty to make him an example for
all others that shall in like sort abuse their places & to restore me to
the possession thereof, in both which your Majesty shall do but Justice and right
to the one & other. this 30 of January 1603.
Your Majesty’s
most
humble
Subject and
Servant
E Oxenforde
Addressed (in Oxford’s hand): for his most excellent Majesty.
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
- On Shakespeare and Drinking Smoke. January 4, 2021. “The debate raged for some time: Had Shakespeare smoked pot? Tobacco? Both?”
- On the Question “Who knew Edward de Vere was Shakespeare?” December 14, 2020. “But was the word going around that his wife, the Countess of Oxford, conceived two children in his absence?”
- 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?”
- 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 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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