The Letter is written by one London mercer, Robert Laneham, to another, Master Humfrey Martin, and describes the visit of Queen Elizabeth to her favourite, and Laneham’s patron, the Earl of Leicester, at Kenilworth Castle for nineteen days, from Saturday the 9th to Wednesday the 27th of July, 1575. The castle itself, its grounds and appointments, the pageants presented before the Queen, as well as an ancient minstrel with a solemn song, prepared for her, but not shown to her (pp. 36-42), are all described by Laneham with great gusto; but he has unluckily left out the last week of the fun, as he took such slender notes of what went on (p. 43).

Laneham is a most amusing, self-satisfied, rollicking chap. He tells us his history; that he went to school both at St. Paul’s (Colet’s school) and St. Anthony’s (where Whitgift was), [tutor to Francis Bacon at Trinity College] was in the fifth form, got through Aesop’s Fables, read Terence, and began Virgil, then served Master Bomsted a Mercer in London, then traded in sundry countries-among others, “in Frauns and Flaunders long and many a day” (p. I) and so got languages, which helped his Latin (p. 61).

Leicester took him up, for his ready tongue and merry ways, no doubt, as well as his knowledge of “Langagez” gave him apparel, even from his own back, got him allowance in the stable, got him made Doorkeeper of the Council Chamber, helped him in his license to import beans duty free, and let his father serve the stable, that is, as I suppose, supply it with grain and fodder, so that our worthy says. “I go now in my silks, that else might ruffle in my cut canves [or poor men’s clothes]: I ride now a horse’s back, that else many times might manage it a foot: am known to their honours, and taken forth with the best, that else might be bidden to stand back myself.” (p. 57).

Laneham tells us besides how he spent his days at Kenilworth; and in this account, pages 58-61, the full character of the man comes out in a most amusing way. The reader should turn at once to the passages, and enjoy them: the “jolly and dry a mornings,” the being “by and by in the bones of” any listener, or prier, the seating his friends, but “let the rest walk, a Gods name”; his airing his languages before the foreigners, being, “in afternoons and a nights…always among the Gentlewomen,” showing off before company, dancing, playing, singing, making eyes and sighs at Mistress, whose name he won’t tell, being able to “gratify the matters as well as the proudest of them,” give us the very man.

“Stories I delight in,” says he (p. 61); Music he loves: “take ye this by the way, that for the small sky in music that God hath sent me, (yee know it is somewhat) ill set the more by my self while my name is Laneham and grace a God. Ah music is a noble Art.” (p. 35).

His patron Leicester was perfection in his eyes (pp. 56-8), and Kenilworth nearly Paradise (p. 48-53). He enjoyed the beautiful country round him (p. 2-3), revelled in all the show and bustle about him, delighted in the conceits of the pageants, rejoiced in the stag-hunts (p. 13, 16), thought the bear baiting fine sport (p. 16-18), threw himself into the rough fun of the country bride-ale and Coventry play (p. 20, 26), quizzed the performers (p. 22-4), took often the old minstrel (p. 40), drank lots of good ale and wine (p. 8,45), eat to his fill (p. 59); and in the best of spirits with everything about him, and especially with himself, the excellent Robert Laneham, gent., wrote this Letter about the whole affair to his friend Master Martin, one of the jovial set they both belonged to in London.

No doubt if there’d been a Superfine Review in his day, it would have called him a coxcomb, reproved him for his vulgarity, and perchance written an article on his females, as its present representative has on our workingmen’s wives and daughters in their holiday-excursions. For my part, I am content to take Robert Laneham and enjoy him as he is; and I only wish that twenty others like him had left us such genuine pictures of the country life and sports of Elizabeth’s time. As for his writing so much about himself, I only wish my contemporaries would follow his example, and believe that posterity will enjoy what they write, as much as we do like bits in the writings of our predecessors. Let men be themselvesin their writings, and let critics, and “un-unsuited-to-the-dignity-of-print,” etcetera, be blowed. ~ Extract from the introduction By F. J. Furnivall, 1888.