Ben Jonson's Mysterious Pension Increase in 1621.

My claim that King James I raised Ben Jonson's annual pension to ₤200 in late 1621 has understandably been challenged. My source had been the letter of John Chamberlain to Dudley Carleton, of October 27, 1621, as calendared in the State Papers of James I, 1619-1623. Both the State Paper Series and Chamberlain are sources of the highest reputation.

I was not aware of any government records to support the calendar entry but such is often the case in the Tudor and early Stuart periods of English government for all of their improvement over medieval record-keeping. Just a few among the possible reasons are: 1) no researcher has found records that exist; 2) the documents disappeared in one or another gap in the record; 3) the documents are misplaced; 4) the documents fall into an unexpected administrative category having been handled in an unexpected fashion; etc.

I had not, however, been aware of the details of the 1631 renewal of Jonson's 100 mark pension patent by Charles I. Not only was Jonson without an annuity of ₤200 at that time but he was without an annuity at all. Renewing the 100 mark patent, moreover, strongly implied that none had been issued during James's reign for ₤200.

Again, while no government records seem to have been discovered regarding Ben Jonson's annuity between Chamberlain's letter and the renewal of the 100 mark patent, the situation is actually quite a common one. While the State Paper Series and the letters of Chamberlain to Dudley are famously dependable, the grants of monarchs (English monarchs included) infamously are not. Their formal issuance for anyone not at the top of the food chain generally took many months, often took years or never were formalized at all.

So then, there is now introduced the question as to what conclusions might reasonably be drawn from the renewal of the 1616 patent in 1631. There is strong evidence that Jonson was understood by an ultimate court insider to have had his annuity increased to ₤200. My original source of the calendar entry describing the contents of the letter might be questioned. No matter how strong the State Paper Series as a source, the particular entry is only a redaction of the contents of the letter. And no source is perfect. Less so a redaction as opposed to a transcription.

Reviewing all of the factors that go into a claim is frustrating and time-consuming. But it is also a valuable exercise at times. One may find — as I have done in this instance (and many others) — new records one had not noticed before. It turns out that Chamberlain's full letter is available in The Letters of John Chamberlain. The passage in question reads as follows:

For lacke of better newes here is likewise a ballet or song of Ben Johnsons in the play or shew at the Lord Marquis at Burly, and repeated again at Windsor, for which and other goode service there don[e], he hath his pension from a I00 marks increased to 200l. per annum, besides the reversion of the mastership of the revells.¹

All matters in the letter are correct including the news of the marriage of Edward de Vere's granddaughter, the widow Anne Portman to Sir Robert Kerr/Carre.

The same can be said of Chamberlain's other letters around the time. Chamberlain to Carleton of March 9, 1622, correctly reports the Lord Denny's virulent poetical response to Mary Wroth's The Countess of Montgomery's Urania referred to at some length in my Shakespeare's The Tempest: a Wedding Masque for Susan de Vere.² Susan was the countess in the title. She and Wroth were besties.

In Chamberlain's March 20, 1622, letter, he correctly reports on the young new star at court, William Wray, eloping with another of Edward de Vere's granddaughters, Elizabeth Norris, and the two subsequently being exiled for their act.

On Wensday Master Wray 12 maried the Lady Norris daughter to the late earle of Berkshire, who was designed to Kit Villers. How the matter was caried were too long, and too uncertain to relate, but yt is so yll taken that he is put out of the bedchamber and commaunded not to come at court nor within ten miles compasse...³

He is also a trusted historical source for his report on the suicide death of Elizabeth's father, the Earl of Berkshire and Baron Norris, in his letter of February 16^th4, just over a month before.

The letters of John Chamberlain are simply considered utterly trustworthy, among the finest available historical sources. He is balanced in his descriptions. Where they can be checked they are always verified correct. Where they can't, they are trusted for being letters of John Chamberlain.

How, then, can this seeming conflict between Chamberlain's report that Jonson's pension had been increased and the lack of any entry for the increase in the patent roles? And the fact that Charles I renewed only a patent for a pension of 100 marks?

Observing Occham's Razor, the simplest answer that meets the available evidence gives us the highest probability of being correct. King James, then, made public an increase to Jonson's pension and his keepers of the Patent Rolls never entered in a patent to formalize his act of largess.

Next>>> A Backgrounder to Ben Jonson's Begging Poems.

1 McClure, Norman Egbert. The Letters of John Chamberlain (1939). II.404. John Chamberlain to Dudley Carleton, October 27, 1621.

2 Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. Shakespeare's The Tempest: a Wedding Masque for Susan de Vere (2024). https://www.amazon.com/Shakespeares-Tempest-Wedding-Masque-Susan-ebook/dp/B0CY5YYG1F/

3 Letters, 429. Chamberlain to Carleton, March 30, 1622. See my article “Desperately Seeking Bridget (de Vere)” for much more on this. https://gilbertwesleypurdy.blogspot.com/2014/08/desperately-seeking-bridget-de-vere.html

4 Letters, 423. Chamberlain to Carleton, February 16, 1622. “...he writes further that letters are come downe to the Coroner that the evidence touching the earle of Berkshires manner of death must not be urged, but the matter made as faire as may be: yt is generally thought that Kit Villers shall cary away his daughter; for all I have heard or can learne I see no cause of so desperate a resolution but that he had lasum principium, and the want of Gods grace.”

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