When her Majestie was about the middle of the Scholars or Sophisters, two appointed for the same, came forth and kneeled before her Grace; and kissing their papers exhibited the same unto her Majestic. Wherein were contained two orations gratulatory; the one in verse, the other prose. Which her Highness received, and gave them to one of the footmen. The like was observed and done by the Batchellours of Arts; and of two Masters of Arts.1
One of the two Batchelors was a young William Lewin. One of the Masters was Thomas Drant fellow of St. John's College. Behind the Queen rode her proudest Earls, among them the 14 year old Earl of Oxford.
Like so many other scholars at the English universities of the day, their names will enter in the historical record as servants, agents, tutors, etc. — minor figures first met during a visitation to the given college. Only on rare occasion was the visitation a royal one. Various august members of the royal court might pass through at any time. Prize scholars would be appointed to regale them. Their names would some 10 or 20 years later appear as a secretary to the visitor, perhaps, or a tutor to his children. A visit from the powerful was a cherished opportunity for advancement.
The Cambridge visit being a royal one, and the university being a premiere institution, unusually many names appear again. William Lewin, for example, will impress Sir William Cecil, the august First Secretary to the Queen, who will choose him as tutor to his daughter, Anne.2 Anne, of course, will marry Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, in 1571, after which she will write from Wivenhoe — the Earl's preferred seat, at the time — asking her father to recommend Lewin for a grant from the Queen.
But we next see Lewin described as a servant of Oxford. He is chosen to accompany the young Earl on a tour of Europe. The two wait upon the court of France for a short time before traveling to Strasbourg where they become house guests of the famous scholar, Johannes Sturmius.
Famously, Vere suspected Lewin — correctly as it turned out — had been sent along to inform Cecil (by then the Baron Burghley), of his activities. Lewin woke one morning — after the end of the Frankfort Fair — to discover Vere gone having left no clues to which direction. By way of consolation prize, Lewin seems to have remained to learn at Sturmius' feet for a year or so before returning to England. There he appears to have become a secretary to Edmund Grindal — the Archbishop of Canterbury and close friend of William Cecil. He also acted as Sturmius agent with the English royal court.
As for Thomas Drant, he managed somehow to become an influence on the works of Shakespeare. I have described, in my edition of Vere's Ulysses & Agamemnon (1584)3, how he presented an English poem to the Queen on the occasion of her visit, and how, two years later, 'In 1566, a Cambridge student, Thomas Drant, published his A medicinable morall, that is, the two bookes of Horace his satyres, Englyshed,... The book was dedicated to “The Right Honorable my Lady Bacon, and my lady Cicell, sisters, fauourers of learnyng and vertue.”.'
While Drant's translation is written in fourteeners, it shares striking stylistic and vocabulary traits with Shakespeare. His next translation — of Horace's Art of Poetry4 — also in fourteeners, was very loose. Portions could easily be added to the literature on Shakespeare's free use of prefix and suffix coinages. Similarities of style and vocabulary are found to Edward de Vere's Ulysses and Agamemnon (1584) which would later be incorporated into Troilus and Cressida.5
Drant graduated D.D., from Cambridge, in 1569. Soon thereafter, he became private chaplain to Edmund Grindal, the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was likely at about the same time that he was named Archdeacon of Lewes, which was in the gift of Canterbury. His short life ended in 1578.
Short though his life may have been, Drant wrote many (brief) Latin works and the aforesaid translations from Horace. He also made many connections and effected the literary world around him. According to Seccomb and Allen, Drant “drew up rules whereby English might be tortured into pentameters and sapphics, and his rules were very seriously considered by Dyer and by Sidney.”6
For our present purposes, Horace's Epistle to Lollius, or Drant's translation of it, have a strong claim to forming the character of Achilles in Edward de Vere's Ulysses and Agamemnon (1584).7
The hystorye of Parys love, (for which as we do heare
Greate Gréece empayred verye sore, which wreakinge Parys sinnes
Did wayne awaye with ten yeares fighte prolongde by lingeringe twynnes)
Of foolishe kinges and foolishe folke conteynes a fumishe flame.
Antenor would have compremize to cut awaye the same.
What saies our Parys? what sayes he? compell him shall theire none
To cease to bathe in worldlye blis, and flow in joy alone.
Duke Nestor sillie carkinge segge the tempeste to appease
He cummes, and goes, twixte king of men and awfull Achilles.
The kinge for love, both twayne for ire are in a chafinge fitt
What so the princes dote in lyfe, the commons smarte for it.
Throughe treason crafte, mischiefe, and luste, through wrothe of stomacke stowte,
Theye spare no sinne within Troye walles, nor none they spare without.8
He has also become a front-runner for influencing Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, I.i.8-9:
Like to a Step-dame, or a Dowager,
Long withering out a yong mans revennew.
This was long thought to have been directly influenced by Horace's Ars Poetica until James Halliwell discovered that Drant's translation of the passage was a still closer fit.
Ut piger
Annus Pupillis, quos dura prerait custodia matrum.
Sic mihi tarda fluunt, ingrataque tempora.
Thus translated by Drant, 1.567, —
Slowe seames the yeare unto the warde
Which houlden downe must be,
In custodie of stepdame straite, —
Slowe slydes the time to me. 9
 |
| Edward de Vere's Ulysses & Agamemnon (1584)! |
What is of even greater interest, Drant was in the habit of maintaining his iambic foot through coining new words by adding prefixes or suffixes to their base. It is a habit he continues even in his original Latin poetry.
The student of Shakespeare will surely notice that this innovation has long been credited to him. But here is Drant overflowing, in 1567, with: unassayde; unfalliablie; “Lyke beastes unbroake, unusde to toyle, Bruits of untamed neckes,...”; upmost; updrest; dehuskd; “The head detruncte...” and much more. Add to this that the translations will share highly unique vocabulary and images with Vere's Ulysses and Agamemnon (1584).
1Cooper, Charles Henry. The Annals of Cambridge (1843). II.188.
2Strype, John. Annals of... Queen Elizabeth's Happy Reign. (1824). III.i.81. This presumably after he took his LL.D.
3Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. Ulysses and Agamemnon (1584) (The Early Plays of Edward de Vere (William Shakespeare) Book 1)(2018). Location 6465ff. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JD7KM1T/
4Drant, Thomas. Horace his arte of Poetrie, [E]pistles, and Satyrs Englished (1567)
5Purdy, Location 6023. 'Stokes, x.] It has often been remarked that passages and even scenes in Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida," as printed in the Quarto and the Folio, seem to be boulders from an older drama embedded in the newer and more celebrated formation.'
6Seccomb, Thomas and Allen, J. W. The Age of Shakespeare (1579-1631)(1903). I.9.
7Later incorporated into Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida.
8Drant. “Epistle to Lollius”. No page numbers.
9Halliwell, James O. The Works of William Shakespeare... a New Collation (1856). 29-30.
Also at Virtual Grub Street:
Invention in a Noted Weed: the Poetry of William Shakespeare. September 21, 2024. “The coward conquest of a wretches knife,...”
The Sonnets of Shakespeare: Sonnet 108. Edward de Vere to his son, Henry. “That may expresse my love, or thy deare merit?”
- Sonnet 130: Shakespeare's Reply to a 1580 Poem by Thomas Watson. September 7, 2024. “Interesting to see our Derek Hunter debating with Dennis McCarthy, at the North group,...”.
- Rocco Bonetti's Blackfriars Fencing School and Lord Hunsdon's Water Pipe. August 12, 2023. “... the tenement late in the tenure of John Lyllie gentleman & nowe in the tenure of the said Rocho Bonetti...”
Check out the Shakespeare Authorship 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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