Northumberland MS.
1734...among the papers given by Lord Oxford (printed by Locker in the supplement to his second collection) was submitted to the author Stephens for his work Author of Letters of the Lord Chancellor Bacon some papers...
1870...Spedding, in his Conference of Pleasure, explains how he sniffed out that these papers were an Elizabethan treasure, the Northumberland MS.
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Part 7
Dodd's Statement
Turning to Alfred Dodd’s moments on the Northumberland MS., here is what he says:
These orations and plays at Gray’s Inn are linked with a very remarkable manuscript volume of the Elizabethan period found by Spedding at Northumberland House, Strand in 1867, and was not made available to the general public until 1904. It is now called The Northumberland Manuscript.
This once belonged to Francis Bacon and reposed in his private scrivenery. It consists of a bundle of writings, the majority of which are indisputably the work of Francis Bacon; but some of the manuscripts are missing. The forty-five remaining leaves bear no traces of stitching. Apparently the MSS., had been placed loosely inside a paper cover which had served as a Catalogue, for written down are the titles of the works that once reposed inside it.
The handwriting has been identified by T. le Merchant Douse as that of John Davies of Hereford, a scholar of Oxford University, one of Francis Bacon’s good pens, or secretaries.
Davies was a Mason and he wrote a remarkable Sonnet to The Royall Ingenious and all Learned Knight, Sir Francis Bacon. We can therefore be quite sure that the writing on the Cover was done very deliberately to give a clue to posterity, and that there is more behind the writing than meets the eye.
If the reader will refer to the illustration of the Cover he will see that the right hand side contains a list of writing in which the plays written by Francis Bacon for Gray’s Inn Revels are names and associated with other works and names which he used as pen-names.
The first thing of importance to note is that the document is connected with the “dew” of Rosicrucians. The top symbol to the left with the straight line and circle is a Rosicrucian picture of The Mirror of Pallas Athene, the Sign of Prudence and Circumspection. We thus see the symbol of the Speareshaker associated with Ffrauncis Bacon and William Shakespeare.
The three scrolls underneath represent the Helmets of Pallas and Pluto, which made the Rosicrucian into The Invisibles; and the Rosicrucian Jewel of The Rose with all its deep significance. The Mirror of Pallas being directly associated with Francis and Shakespeare is in itself remarkable; but it is much more remarkable to know that this is the only time and the only place in contemporary Elizabethan documents that the two names are brought together.
It is a significant fact that Francis Bacon in all his works never once mentions the name of Shakespeare.
John Davies of Hereford
(b.1563 or 1565–d.1618)
Born at Hereford. Poet and writing-master. Wood states that he was educated at Oxford University, and among the poems prefixed to Microcosmos, 1603, is a copy of Latin verses by Robert Burhill.
From a poetical address To my much honoured and entirely beloved patroness, the most famous University of Oxford, published among the poems appended to Microcosmos, we learn that he resided for a time at Oxford, pursuing his occupation of writing-master, and two of his Sonnets are in praise of Magdalen College, where he seems to have had many pupils. But it is clear, both from the address to his patroness and from the Sonnets, that he was not a member of the University.
Although he attained high fame as a writing-master, and his pupils were drawn from the noblest families in the land, Davies assures us that it was difficult for him to gain a comfortable livelihood.
The Earl of Northumberland’s book of household expenses for 1607 records the payment of 40s. “to Mr. Davyes, the writer.” (Hist. MSS. Comm., 6th Rep., 229)
In 1608 Davies was living in the parish of St. Dunstan-in-the-West, London (Hunter’s Chorus Vatitu), and in January 1612–13 his first wife, Mary Croft, by whom he had a son Sylvanus, was buried in the church of St. Dunstan, where there is a monument to her with memorial verses by her husband.
He took a second wife, Dame Juliana Preston, a widow, in 1613, and in the marriage license, dated July 19, 1613 he is stated to be “about forty-eight.”
On May 25, 1614 letters of administration were issued from the prerogative court of Canterbury to administer his second wife’s estate. His own will (first printed by the Camden Society) is dated June 29, 1618 at which time he was residing at St. Martin’s Lane. He desired in his will to be buried near his first wife, in the church of St. Dunstan, and there he was buried on July 6, 1618.
Drama was encouraged
at Trinity College
Among Cole’s manuscripts 1 is a copy of a letter from the Vice Chancellor of Cambridge, written to Lord Burghley, the Chancellor of that University in 1580, which shows that dramatic representations of a regular kind were rather discouraged than received there by the Heads of Houses. He says: 2
My bounden duty remembered with most humble recommendation, whereas it hath pleased your honour to recommend unto me, and the Heads of the University, my Lord of Oxenford his Players that they might show their cunning in several Plays already practiced by them before the Queen’s Majesty.
I did speedily council with the Heads and others, viz. Dr. Still, Dr. Howland, Dr. Binge, Dr. Legge; &c. and considering and pondering that the seed, the cause, and the fear of the Pestilence is not yet vanished and gone this hot time of the year; this Midsummer Fair time having confluence out of all countries, as well of infected as not; the Commencement time at hand, which requireth rather diligence in study, than dissoluteness in plays; and also that of late we denied that like to the right honorable the Lord Leicester his servants; and especially that all Assemblies in open places be expressly forbidden in this University and Town, or within five miles in compass, by her Majesty’s Council’s letters to the Vice Chancellor, October 30, 1575; our trust is that your honour, our most dear loving Chancellor, will take our answers made unto them in good part; and being willing to impart something from the liberality of the University to them, I could not obtain sufficient assent thereto, and therefore delivered them but 20s. towards their charges.
Also they brought Letters from the right honorable the Lord Chancellor, and the right honorable the Lord Sussex, to the Vice-Chancellors of Cambridge and Oxford; I trust their Honours will accept their Answers.
Thus leaving to trouble your honour with my rude writing, I take my leave.
Your Lordship’s humble and unworthy deputy.
John Hatcher. Vice Can.
Cambridge, June 21, 1580
Elizabethan Treasure
Spedding: "That these pieces [in the Northumberland MS.] were both composed for some occasion of compliment, more or less fanciful, I feel very confident; and if it should ever appear that about the autumn of 1592 (the date to which the historical allusions in the discourse in praise of Elizabeth point most nearly) a “device” was exhibited at Court, in which three speakers came forward in turn, each extolling his own favourite virtue (a form which Bacon affected on these occasions); the first delivering an oration in praise of magnanimity, the second of love, the third of knowledge; and then a fourth came in with an oration in praise of the Queen, as combining in herself the perfection of all three; I should feel little doubt that the pieces before us were composed by Bacon for that exhibition."
The Titles
++Earle of Arundell’s letter to the Queen.
The absence from the volume itself of all trace of the Earl of Arundell’s letter to the Queen, which appears in the list.
The first Earl of Arundel of the Howard family (son of the Duke of Norfolk who was beheaded), who, in his early youth about the Court, as the Earl of Surrey, drew, for a time, the favour of the Queen.
His life at that period was disorderly, and he was notorious for his extravagance; afterwards, through the influence of his wife, and perhaps of Campion, he became a Romanist of devotion.
He died in the Tower in 1595, having been condemned to death for treason in 1589 and reprieved by the Queen. Camden’s remarks on this event (1589) are interesting:
“There were a great many that most heartily lamented the untimely fall of this young nobleman (for he was not above 33 years of age at the most), and as many on the other side who were ready to cry up the Queen’s wisdom and caution, who by this example had struck a kind of terror into the more powerful part of the Romish faction. The Queen after gave him his life and was well enough satisfied in having lessened the power of so considerable a man, and one who was so great a bulwark of the Catholic cause.” Kennett, (1719) Vol. II. p. 553.
Arundel’s letter to the Queen. See Life, ed. Duke of Norfolk, 1857 where it is noted in the “scribble” of the Northumberland MS., as by Bacon. Certainly it bears evidence of this origin.
If we may suppose that the Earl of Arundel’s letter, having been transcribed on a central sheet, has dropped out, and that Sir Philip’s having been overlooked, the title was entered afterwards in the place where there was most room, we shall find that the first four titles represent correctly the rest of the contents of the volume.
++Speaches for my lord of Essex at the tilt.
These Speaches are evidently those of the hermit, the soldier, the secretary, and the squire.
++A speach for my lord of Sussex tilt.
This Speach is the piece which stands next to the above-mentioned Essex Speaches.
++Leycester’s commonwealth. Incerto auth[ore].
This piece fills up the remainder of the volume. It has been noted that this piece was written by the
noted Jesuit Parsons, who, in connection with the still more
notorious Edward Campion, was constantly prowling about in
search of means to subvert the Protestant faith, and to create all
the mischief he could in the endeavour to restore the powers that
had been driven out. Parsons' book was not published till
twenty-four years after the occurrences took place, which it so
minutely describes, fresh as if they had occurred within the day
or year of its publication.
++Orations at Graie’s inne revels.
The speeches of the six councillors to the Prince of Purpoolii at the Gray’s Inn revels 1594, of which Orations at Graie’s Inne revells would be a correct description, and an independent manuscript would be valuable; for the printed copy in Gesta Grayorum is full of errors.
++…Queene’s Mats…By Mr. Frauncis Bacon.
Spedding: "Something of Bacon’s about the Queen, or addressed to her, the particulars of which I cannot make out."
++Essaies by the same author.
A copy of Bacon’s Essays in their earliest form; that is, as printed in 1597. A short essay, entitled Of Magnanimitie or heroicall Vertue is evidently a composition of Bacon’s; but the substance is to be found in a better form in the Advancement of Learning.
++Richard the second. Richard the third.
Copies of Shakespeare’s plays of Richard II., and Richard III.
++Asmund and Cornelia.
A piece called Asmund and Cornelia, of which nothing is known.
++Isle of dogs fr (?), by Thomas Nashe, inferior places.
In Halliwell-Phillipps’s A Dictionary of Old Plays published in 1860, the play is thus inserted:
“The Isle Of Dogs. By Thomas Nashe.”
This comedy, which was written in 1597, was never published. In a pamphlet, called Lenten Stuff, 1699, the author says, that having begun the induction and first act of it, the other four acts, without his consent, or the least guess at his scope, were supplied by the players. What the nature of this piece was, we cannot learn; but the consequence of it was very serious to poor Nashe, who was, as he says, sequestered from the wonted means of his maintenance, and obliged to conceal himself for near two years, part of which time he resided at Yarmouth, and there wrote the pamphlet above-mentioned.
The company who played it were also restrained. And from Henslowe’s Diary it appears that “Nayshe was locked up” and soon afterwards released, probably at the instance of an intervention by Francis Bacon.
If Nashe himself wrote the remaining four acts, and the quality of his work was no better than shown in the short verse called The Valentine, unearthed by Grosart from the Temple Library, he may have deserved his punishment on literary grounds alone. Possibly, after ten years’ copying in Bacon’s scrivenery, he may have tried his hand at original work.
The fact, however, that the Isle of Dogs fragment is mentioned on the Northumberland House manuscript cover a document evidently emanating from the possession of Bacon or some person in his employ, probably Davies is a further proof of the true authorship of the “Nashe” writings. Davies may not have known of “Nashe” otherwise than as a subordinate, or, as he puts it, inferior, player. (Woodward). It should be noted, that on 18th of March, 1780, Northumberland House burns manuscripts to ash:
"A good many of the papers taken out of the boxes had been subjected to the action of fire. Their edges were found burnt and singed in the same way as the Bacon transcripts. Among the papers thus damaged was a collection of transcripts of accounts of public ceremonials, such as royal marriages, funerals, and coronations. With this collection was found a paper on which was written, in a hand of the last century, perhaps that of Bishop Percy, although larger than his ordinary hand, a memorandum that those papers relating to ceremonials had been purchased at “Anstis’s sale,” which I understood to allude to the sale of the MSS. of the two Garters Anstis, the father and son, which took place in 1768." (Mr. John Bruce in a letter written to Spedding in August 14, 1869).
Davies' The Scourge of Folly (1610) consisting of satirical epigrams and others in honour of many noble and worthy persons of our land came together with a pleasant (though discordant) descant upon most English Proverbs, and others, in 12mo.
On the title-page is an illustration of Wit scourging Folly, who is mounted on the back of Time. The epigrams, which number three hundred, have little merit, but are interesting from the notices that they afford of contemporary writers.
One is addressed To our English Terence, Mr. Will. Shakespeare (No. 159), and there are epigrams to Daniel (No. 155), Ben Jonson (No. 156), Marston (No. 217), Hall (No. 218), Fletcher (No. 206), Bacon, and others.
The Sonnets in praise of worthy persons show that Davies was well acquainted with many of the most exalted personages of the age.
At the end of the volume is a satire headed Papers Complaint, compiled in ruthful Rimes Against the Paper-spoilers of these Times, with dedicatory verses to Thomas Rant, counsellor-at-law. It is valuable as testifying to the popularity of Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis, and for its comments on Nashe, Gabriel Harvey, Ben Jonson, Dekker, and others, 1669. Peter Dawkins 1 tells us that he was “the chief penman of the contents page” and “has been identified as John Davis of Hereford, a poet, scrivener and teacher of penmanship who was employed by Francis Bacon as one of his “good pens”.
1 Dawkins. Bacon’s Shakespeare, 2007
Courtesy of sirbacon.org
Also see : FBRS
...the Northumberland MS., is an undoubtedly genuine document, and it is but natural that the “Baconians” should make the most of it. (Spedding: Conference of Pleasure, 1870).