Barnaby Rich: A Short Biography 9780292771598

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BARNABY RICH A Short Biography

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is not poffibietoen». FINIS.

Barnaby Rich. Maini me diuitera efie quam vocari.

Reproduction o f the last page o f Rich’s The Adventures of Brusanus (1592), containing Rich’s motto and a coat of arms, presumably his, in the colophon

BARNABY RICH A Short Biography

By T hom as M. C r a n f i l l and D o r o th y H a r t B ru c e

AUSTIN :

1953

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS PRESS

U N IVERSITY OF TEXA S PRESS A u stin 12

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Library of Congress Catalogue Card No. 53-6002 Copyright 1953 by the University of Texas Press Printed in Austin, Texas, U.S.A., by the Printing Division of the University of Texas

Preface and Acknowledgments The life and works of Barnaby Rich first engaged the interests of Dorothy Hart Bruce and me in 1934. For al­ most twenty years we have devoted ourselves intermit­ tently to the good Captain. Since Mrs. Bruce usually pur­ sued him on the West Coast, I on the East, both of us made our own discoveries independently, yet unearthed much of the same material. In 1949 we agreed to com­ bine our information and publish a short biography. To this end Mrs. Bruce contributed her dissertation, "Barnabe Riche and His Acquaintances”1 (550 pp., Stanford University, 1944). 1 On title pages, in dedications and commendatory poems, in docu­ ments, and by Rich’s contemporaries his name seems to have been spelled every imaginable way: “Barnaby," “Barnabe," Barnabie,” “Barnabee,” and “Rich," “Riche,” Ritch," “Ritche," “Rych," “Ryche," “Rytch,” “Rytche,” and “Reche.” Although the D N B prefers “Barnabe Rich,” the spelling “Barnaby Rich” appears twentyone times on title pages and elsewhere (see the frontispiece, for ex­ am ple), often enough, we think, to justify our adopting the simplest form of the name.

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The tasks of verifying the considerable body of in­ formation we had amassed, augmenting it, synthesizing it, and otherwise preparing it for the press fell to my lot, as a research fellowship at the Huntington Library in 1949-50 afforded me an opportunity, which Mrs. Bruce lacked, to complete our project. For the writing of this volume I am also to be held accountable, though I have felt perfectly free to borrow here and there, in Eliza­ bethan fashion, from Mrs. Bruce’s excellent prose. As a consequence, occasionally the phraseology of the book, particularly in the fourth and fifth chapters, is hers. For many "new” facts about Rich’s life gleaned from unpublished documents we are obliged to my friends Dr. Leslie Hotson, Professor Mark Eccles, and Profes­ sor F. B. Williams, Jr., who generously supplied us with references, notes, and transcriptions. For counsel and en­ couragement I am grateful to Professors H. E. Rollins and V. B. Heltzel; to Dr. F. R. Fogle, Mr. Godfrey Davies, and Miss Mary Isabel Fry of the Huntington Library; and to Professors R. A. Law, D. T. Starnes, H. H. Ransom, and W. W . Pratt, my colleagues at the University of Texas. I am also indebted to Miss Nellie M. O ’Farrell, and to my friends and former students Mr. L. R. Bowen, Jr., who lent me cheerful and efficient re­ search assistance, and Mr. R. T. Bowen, who helped prepare the manuscript for publication. The Folger Shakespeare Library and the Huntington Library kindly permitted us to reproduce, respectively, the final page of vi

Rich’s The Adventures o f Brusanus and the specimen of Rich’s handwriting. Finally I wish to thank the Uni­ versity of Texas Research Institute, which voted a grant to help defray the expenses of publication. T. M. C. Austin, Texas June 5 ,1 9 5 3

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Contents Preface and Acknowledgments

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I. A Major "Minor Elizabethan”

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II. Out of Essex into English

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III. From Pike to Pen

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IV. The Passionate Archbishop and That Rascal Dean Jones

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V. Rich v. the Archbishop and St. Peter VI. A Fayre Cypress Hatt Band V II. The Service of the Gentleman Is Used Here V III. A Privat Quarrel about a Kisse? IX . Dim of Sight and Lame of Limbs Index

67 79 91 102 115 129

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List of Abbreviations APC Acts of the Privy Council of England CHEL The Cambridge History of English Literature CSPD Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series CSPF Calendar of State Papers, Foreign CSPI Calendar of State Papers, Relating to Ireland DNB The Dictionary of National Biography ELH A Journal of English Literary History HLQ The Huntington Library Quarterly HMC Historical Manuscripts Commission JEGP A Journal of English and Germanic Philology MLN Modern Language Notes MLR Modern Language Review NED The New English Dictionary NQ Notes and Queries PMLA Publications of the Modern Language Association of America PRO Public Record Office RES The Review of English Studies SP Studies in Philology SPI State Papers, Ireland X

BARNABY RICH A Short Biography

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I A Major "Minor Elizabethan”

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HE FAME of Barnaby Rich is secure. Shakespeare conferred immortality on him by borrowing from at least two and probably three of his short stories.1 So long as Shakespeare’s plays attract students, critics, and edi­ tors, Rich’s name will appear and reappear in theses, articles, introductions, and commentaries. He merits a better fate, however, than to be remembered only as the author of tales that Shakespeare found attractive. For the man whom many now recall dimly, if at all, only as a name to be mentioned in the same breath with Arthur Brooke and the Ur-Hamlet was a figure of considerable 1 Agreement that "Apolonius and Silla,” the second tale in Riche H is Fareivell to Militarie Profession, is the main source of Twelfth N ight has been all but unanimous since Collier first compared the comedy and the tale in T he Poetical Decameron ( 1 8 2 0 ) , II, 1 3 3 -6 3 . An episode in "Two Brethren and Their W ives,” the fifth story in the Farewell, yielded Malvolio’s incarceration in the dark room. See W . A. Neilson’s review of the Variorum Edition of Twelfth N ight, Atlantic Monthly, L X X X I X ( 1 9 0 2 ) , 717 f. Also from the fifth story Shakespeare seems to have borrowed much of the plot of T he M erry W ives of Windsor. See Dorothy Hart Bruce, "T he Merry W ives and Two Brethren,” SP, X X X I X ( 1 9 4 2 ) , 2 6 5 -7 8 .

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note in his own day, and his long life was fraught with adventure and misadventure, color and strife. Like his friend Thomas Churchyard, he was, for an Elizabethan, almost immortal. He lived, a military and literary Old Parr, during the reigns of five English mon­ archy and died at seventy-five. Two of his sovereigns, Elizabeth and James, knew him personally and made him their sworn servant. Both further demonstrated their esteem by improving his financial lot, Elizabeth in 1587 and James, almost thirty years later, in 1616. For over fifty years their servant busied himself with things mili­ tary, either as a captain fighting in France, the Low Coun­ tries, and Ireland or as a commentator on martial affairs. The fruits of this vast experience and industry are, in the opinion of one authority, "contributions to military liter­ ature . . . historically speaking every bit as important as Shakespeare’s to drama.”2 Not content with writing about or fighting wars, Cap­ tain Rich also labored to serve England— and to supple­ ment the income which he derived from his profession— in interesting and sometimes dangerous ways as diverse as playing the courtier3 and serving as an informer. Most of the energy he could spare from soldiering, however, he obviously devoted to writing. His first publication ap­ 2 H . J. Webb, "Barnabe Riche— Sixteenth Century Military Crit­ ic,” JEGP> X L II ( 1 9 4 3 ) , 252. 3 "I am not halfe so wel acquainted among Courtiers, as I am amongst Souldiers, yet I was a yong Courtier, and I haue approoued the Prouerb, A yong Courtier, an Olde B e g g a r Rich asserts in Faultes, Faults, and N othing Else but Faultes ( 1 6 0 6 ) , sig. P2.

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peared in 1574, his last in 1617. "It is a thriftless and thankless occupation, this writing of books,” he com­ plained in 1610,4 when he was sixty-eight; yet in 1617, seven years and seven books later, he was able to boast that he had produced twenty-six works.5 In addition to his contributions to military lore, these comprise short stories, long prose romances, character sketches, intelligence reports, mordant prose satires, pamphlets about Ireland, bitterly anti-Roman Catholic tracts, and verse. One of his poems found its way into the 1580 edition of that popular Elizabethan miscellany The Paradise o f Dainty Devices ,Gand two of his books were unquestionably best sellers: Riche His Farewell to Militarie Profession (1581, 1583, 1594, 1606), the collection of tales from which Shakespeare borrowed, and The Honestie o f This A ge (1614, 1615, 1616), which achieved a publication in Scotland apart from three London editions.7 Even after his death in 1617 several of his works continued to appear. Forty-eight years after his early military pamphlet, Allarm e to Englande (1 5 7 8 ), was first printed, it came out again, as Vox Militis (1625) by one G. Marcelline; his N ew Description o f Ireland (1610) reappeared as A N ew 4 In A N ew Description of Ireland, sig. A4. 5 See T h e Irish H ubbub, “this being the 26. Booke of my owne writing,” according to the title page. 6 For his poem, "A n Epitaph vpon the death of syr W illiam Drury,” see T he Paradise, ed. H . E. Rollins (Cambridge, Massachu­ setts, 1 9 2 7 ), 1 2 1 -2 4 . 7 It was published by Andrew Hart in Edinburgh in 1615.

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Irish Prognostication in 1624; and the publisher of The Irish H ubbub (1 6 1 7 ), the Captain’s swan song, pro­ duced other editions in 1619 and 1622. Evidently Rich’s reputation as a military scientist and satirist of Irish af­ fairs did not die with him. Indeed even today certain of his efforts are to be deemed "masterpieces of satire, com­ parable to the best in Dekker and Nashe,” according to a recent critic.8 Rich’s literary excursions into such a variety of genres over a period of forty-three years of course attracted an astonishing variety of Elizabethan and Jacobean readers. In 1579 a fashionable physician quoted him in support of a long, earnest prescription that infants should be fed plentifully and only by breast,9 and in 1616 a prominent Royalist divine reinforced his preachments against cos­ metics with an extensive passage by Rich on the same subject.10 Before 1587, Queen Elizabeth favored Rich with "manie gratious wordes for . . . his writinges.”11 In the 1590’s both Gabriel Harvey and Thomas Nashe, marvelous to relate, accorded Rich’s works more ór less honorable mention.12 Sometime between 1610 and 1650, 8 Webb, "Barnabe Riche— Sixteenth Century Military Critic,” JE G P , X L II ( 1 9 4 3 ) , 252. 9 See D r. John Jones, T h e Arte and Science of Preseruing Bodie and Soule in Healthe, Wisdome, and Catholike Religion, sig. H 2. 10 See Rev. Thomas Tukes, A Treatise against Paint\j\ng and Tincturing of M en and W om en, 25. 11 See the dedication (to Elizaheth) of Rich’s A Path-way to M il­ itary Practise ( 1 5 8 7 ). 12 See Pierces Supererogation ( 1 5 9 3 ) , in T h e W orks of Gabriel Harvey, ed. A. B. Grosart (London, 1 8 8 4 ), II, 290, and H ave with

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Sir Robert Gordon, a great favorite of James I and a bibliophile of renown, took the pains to collect ten works by Rich.13 And James himself vouchsafed a reading of at least two of Rich’s outpourings, as we shall see later. Among Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline play­ wrights Shakespeare was not alone in perusing some of Rich’s works and paying them the ultimate in compli­ ments by borrowing from them. In John Webster’s T he W hite Divel (1612) one scholar has detected "repeated borrowings from Rich’s A Neiv Description o f Ireland” (1 6 1 0 ).14 From the tales in Rich’s Farewell came the plots and sometimes the dialogue of a large assortment of dramas: two highly popular, widely imitated comedies, T he W eakest Goeth to the W all (1 6 0 0 ), variously at­ tributed to Webster and Thomas Dekker and to Anthony Munday, and H ow a Man May Chuse a G ood W ife from a Bad ( 1 6 0 2 ), usually attributed to Thomas Heywood;35 James Shirley’s first comedy, Love Tricks (licensed 1625, Y ou to Saffron-Walden ( 1 5 9 6 ), in T h e W orks of Thomas Nashe, ed. R. B. McKerrow (London, 1 9 0 4 ), III, 16 f. 13 See A Catalogue of the Singular and Curious Library, Original­ ly Form ed between 1610 and 1650, by Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstoun (W eybridge, 1 8 1 6 ), 1 52-54 . 14 C. E. Vaughan, "Tourneur and W ebster,” C H EL (N ew York, 1 9 3 3 ), VI, 196. 15 On T he Weakest see D . T. Starnes, "Barnabe Riche’s ‘Sappho Duke of Mantona’ : A Study in Elizabethan Story-Making,” SP, X X X ( 1 9 3 3 ) , 472, and T. M. Cranfill, "Barnaby Rich’s ’Sappho’ and T he Weakest Goeth to the W all,” University of Texas Studies in English, 1 9 4 5 -4 6 , pp. 1 6 6 -7 1 . On H ow a Man May Chuse see C. R. Baskervill, "Source and Analogues of How a Man May Choose a Good W ife from a Bad,” PM LA, X X I V ( 1 9 0 9 ) , 711 f.

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published 16 3 1 ); the weird Scottish comedy Philotus (1 6 0 3 ,1 6 1 2 ); and the weirder German comedy Tugendund Liebesstreit (performed 1608, published 1 6 7 7 ).16 Unlike Some of their fellows in Elizabethan fiction that was less in demand than Rich’s the characters in the Farewell were not, it seems, doomed to begin and end their careers in London. On the contrary, they flourished as far north as Edinburgh and as far south as Dresden, Graz, and Giistrow— not to mention Illyria. Although not all of Rich’s books enjoyed the success of the Farewell, none could have failed for want of im­ pressive chaperonage. Few of his contemporaries man­ aged to secure a galaxy of literary patrons more re­ splendent than his. Among them were Elizabeth, James, all three of James’s children, and an array of royal fa­ vorites, privy councilors, and military and political mag­ nates in both England and Ireland. Rich dedicated his first book to Elizabeth’s favorite, Ambrose Dudley (1 5 2 8 ? -9 0 ), the "Good Lord Warwick,” and his last to James’s favorite, Sir Oliver St. John (1 5 5 9 -1 6 3 0 ), lord deputy of Ireland and eventually Viscount Grandison and Baron Tregoz. Other patrons included Sir Oliver’s wife, Lady St. John; those powerful favorites of the Queen, Sir Christo­ 16 On Love Tricks see C. R. Baskervill, "T he Source of the Main Plot of Shirley’s Love Tricks ” M L N , X X I V ( 1 9 0 9 ) , 100 f. On Philotus see D. Irving’s edition of the comedy (Edinburgh, Bannatyne Club, 1 8 3 5 ), viii. On Tugend- und Liebesstreit see H . R. D . Anders, Shakespeare’s Books (Berlin, 1 9 0 4 ), 69.

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pher Hatton, Elizabeth’s 4mutton,” vice-chamberlain, and lord chancellor, Sir Francis Walsingham, Her Maj­ esty’s principal secretary, and Sir Robert Cecil, Viscount Cranborne, Earl of Salisbury, Elizabeth’s "little elf” and James’s "little beagle” ; Sir Thomas Ridgeway, Earl of Londonderry, vice-treasurer, treasurer at wars, and treas­ urer in Ireland; Ridgeway’s wife Cicely, sometime maid of honor to Elizabeth; Sir Arthur Chichester, Lord Chi­ chester of Belfast, lord deputy of Ireland, and member of both the English and the Irish privy councils; Sir George Carew, Baron Carew of Clopton, Earl of Totnes, favorite of both Elizabeth and Anne of Denmark, treas­ urer at wars and lord justice of Ireland; Joyce Aston, Rich’s "cosyn” and daughter of one of the richest men in England, Sir Edward Aston; and Sir Thomas Middle­ ton, lord mayor of London.17 Had editions of W ho’s W ho been available to Elizabethans and Jacobeans, one might almost suspect Rich of scanning copies systemati­ cally and overlooking few likely personages of affluence and power in English and Anglo-Irish military, govern­ mental, and court circles who might qualify as patrons and to whom his career in the army or in Ireland might somehow gain him access. The roster of his friends among literary notables is 17 For the titles and dates of the works that Rich dedicated to each see the article on Rich in the D N B ; his T h e Honestie of This A ge ( 1 6 1 4 ), ed. P. Cunningham (London, Percy Society, 1 8 4 4 ), vi-xvii; and T. M. Cranfill, "Barnaby Rich and King Jam es,” E LH , X V I ( 1 9 4 9 ) , 73 f.

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scarcely less impressive than the list of his patrons. He went on a journey with the great translator Sir Thomas North, and together they shared a series of remarkable experiences at Chester.18 In a commendatory poem pref­ acing Rich’s The Straunge and W onderfulI Adventures o f Don Simonides (15 8 1 ) Thomas Lodge speaks affec­ tionately of the "willyng mynde” of "Good Riche” and says he has "mended” certain errors in "your Booke.” Greater love hath no man of letters for another. For his pains Lodge may have felt repaid by verses prefixed to his own An Alarum against Usurers (1584) in which Rich calls attention to the estimable "birth and life” of "good Lodge,” praises his "pleasant stile and method,’* and attacks his archenemy, Stephen Gosson. Like Lodge, Lodowick Bryskett, Spenser’s close friend, also seems to have rendered Rich a signal literary service by lending him translations of three Italian tales for inclusion in the Farewell.™ The most thoroughly commended of all Rich’s works was his Allarme to Englande (1 5 7 8 ), which was sped on its way with verse tributes by Lodowick Lloyd, author of The Pilgrimage o f Princes (1 5 7 3 ), Thomas Lupton, author of Siuquila (1 5 8 0 ), and Thomas Churchyard and with a prose epistle addressed "To my very louing friend, is See T. M. Cranfill, “Thomas N orth at Chester,” H LQ , X I II ( 1 9 4 9 ) , 9 3 -9 9 . 19 See the Farewell, ed. J . P. Collier (London, Shakespeare Society, 1 8 4 6 ), 16, and E. M. Hinton, Ireland T hrough Tudor Eyes (Phila­ delphia, 1 9 3 5 ), 42 f.

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Captaine Barnabe Riche,” by Barnaby Googe. Another of Rich’s literary acquaintances was Richard Stanyhurst, the translator of Virgil, whom Rich confessed knowing in Antwerp after 1582, though a loving friendship be­ tween them could scarcely have blossomed after Stany­ hurst embraced Roman Catholicism and Rich offered caustic criticisms of what Nashe called Stanyhurst’s "foul, lumbring, boystrous, wallowing measure.”20 With Churchyard, however, Rich obviously enjoyed a long and cordial relationship, since the former acknowledged that he owed a section of a book published in 1602 to notes Rich had taken on a campaign in the Low Countries in 1572.21 Among the captains engaged in this campaign, furthermore, Rich listed George Gascoigne, another author who lent him literary aid and comfort, though the loans may have been involuntary.22 In Rich’s day it was a small world, especially for men who fought as well as wrote. 20 In T h e Irish H ubbub ( 1 6 1 7 ) , sig. B2, Rich says that Stany­ hurst, after writing his Description of Ireland, “professed Poetry, and among other Fictions, he tooke vpon him to translate Virgill, and stript him out of a Veluet Gowne, into a Fooles coate, out of a Latin Heroicall verse, into an English riffe raffe. After that [ 1 5 8 2 ], I knew him at A ntw erp! ’ 21 See Churchyard’s A T ru e Discourse Historicall of the Succeed­ ing Gouernours in the Netherlands and the Ciuill W a n es T here ( 1 6 0 2 ) , 19. 22 Rich borrowed from several of Gascoigne’s popular poems. For example, compare T h e Complete Works of G eorge Gascoigne, ed. J . W . Cunliflfe (Cambridge, 1 9 0 7 ), I, 38, and Rich’s Farewell, ed. Collier, 133.

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How "minor” a figure should one consider a soldierauthor who was thus handsomely befriended by the great and near-great in literature and government, who dis­ played prodigious industry and versatility, and who pro­ duced works of sufficient merit to attract Shakespeare, Webster, Shirley, and at least four other playwrights? Whatever the precise appraisal may be, in our opinion Captain Rich deserves a biography, though not the kind which Marlowe, Spenser, and Shakespeare have inspired and which only months of conscientious searching among the papers in the Public Record Office and elsewhere could yield. The outlines and often the details of Rich’s career, however, may be gathered from the writings of his contemporaries, from his own works, and from other widely scattered sources in and out of print. Thanks to the unpublished records of certain legal actions in which he was involved, some "new” facts about his life may now be made available.

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II Out of Essex into English ACCORDING to his own testimony, Rich was born in 1542.1 That he was a native of Essex is suggested by the title A Martiall Conference . . . N ewly Translated out o f Essex into English by Barnaby Rich, Gent. (1 5 9 8 ).2 His first military service, in 1562, was with a contingent of troops from Essex, and he was interested in a business venture in Maldon, Essex, in 1565.3 Al­ though several scholars have advanced theories and made assertions about the precise locale of his birth and about 1 As a witness in 1601, Rich gave his age as fifty-nine in Lea v. Banninge, PRO, Req. 2 /6 4 /8 3 . Twice in 1606 he said he was sixtyfour: in his testimony of July 18, 1606, in Levens v. Love, Ryth, et al., PRO, Sta. Cha. 8 /2 0 /2 9 , and in a letter to Lord Salisbury, HMC Reports, Salisbury Manuscripts, X V III, 437. 2 Only the title page of the work is now available. It is preserved in John Bagford’s collections in the British Museum (Harleian 5900, p. 3 8 ) and is quoted by J. P. Collier in A Bibliographical and Criti­ cal Account of the Rarest Books in the English Language (N ew York, 1 8 6 6 ), III, 296 f., n. 1. A copy of A Martiall Conference is described in Christie’s Bibliotheca Ratcliffiana. A Catalogue of the . . . Library of John Ratcliffe (London, 1 7 7 6 ), lot 1488, p. 77, but its where­ abouts is not now known. 3 See below, p. 19.

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his family connections, these are still matters for specula­ tion.4 On the title pages of most of his works he is de­ scribed as a gentleman, a dignification in which he evi­ dently took an acute pride.5 He refers to an inheritance from his relatives and to owning land before 1566, but 4 In the article on Rich in the D N B Sir Sidney Lee asserts that the author was “doubtless of Essex origin” and “distantly connected with the family of Lord-chancellor Rich,” but fails to give the evidence which led him to these conclusions. In “Rych’s Anothomy of Ireland, with an Account of the Author,” PM LA, LV ( 1 9 4 0 ) , 73, E. M. Hin­ ton writes, “By account of the College of Arms, and by Rych’s own account, he seems to have been of Essex origin (possibly W itham ) . . . and to have been related by blood to Sir Richard Rich, the Lord Chancellor.” No details of the “account of the College of Arms” or of “Rych’s own account” are disclosed. The latter may refer to the title of Rich’s lost work quoted above. In “Seven Anglo-Irishmen of the Tudor Times,” N Q , C L X X X V II ( 1 9 4 4 ) , 90 f , W . H. Welply conjectures that Rich was the son of Alice Bettes and Thomas Rich, yeoman, of Lexden, Colchester, Essex, who was granted arms in 1590. Thomas’ coat of arms, however, is far different from that, pre­ sumably Barnaby’s, which appears, after his name and motto, at the end of T h e Adventures of Brus.anus ( 1 5 9 2 ) . The two may be com­ pared in Br us anus, sig. Y 4 (see frontispiece), and Grantees of Arms, ed. W . H. Rylands, L X V I (London, Harleian Society, 1 9 1 5 ), 213. 5 In Roome for a Gentleman ( 1 6 0 9 ), sigs. B 2V-B 3 , Rich discusses both “the better sort of those that be knowne to be Gentlemen by birth, and others that by their places and professions are gentelized.” According to his careful definition (sigs. D l - D l v) , “a Gentleman born . . . must be discended from three degrees of Gentry, both by father and mother (for this is the opinion of the Heraldes) otherwise they are called Gentlemen of the first head, nightgrowne, mushrumpes, start-vppes and such other.” Among those he lists (sig. E l ) as eligible to use the title because of their professions are “all Mar­ tial men that haue borne office, and haue had commaund in the field. . . . The profession of Armes being honourable, euery ordinary Souldier that hath serued seauen years without reproch, ought to be

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he managed to retain neither inheritance nor land.6 Whatever the financial standing of his family may have been while he was a minor, he did not enjoy a university education, and so he several times indicates, as when he apologizes in his first publication for "the base and bar­ ren style of a simple Souldiers deuice, rather then the learned lynes proceding from such as hath bene trayned vp in Scoles.”7 For this "simple souldier” military life began with the grisly attempts of 1562 and 1563 to secure Le Havre for the British. He declares in A Path-tvay to Military Practise, "It is now 24. yeres agoe, sith I first vndertooke Armes & serued at Newhauen, vnder that most honouraccounted a Gentleman.” Thus Rich doubtless considered himself doubly "gentelized”— by his captaincy and by his long military serv­ ice, if not by birth. 6 In T he Adventures of Brusanus ( 1 5 9 2 ), sig. D l, Martianus (i.e., Rich) says: "It is now thirtie yeares sith I became a souldier . . . in this meane space, I haue spent what my friendes left me, which was some thing.” In Faultes ( 1 6 0 6 ) , sigs. D 3V-D 4 , he writes: "It is nowe more than fortie yeeres agoe, since there were some few that called me Landlord. . . . But so long as I was knowne by one foote of lande of mine owne, Lord how I was haunted with these gaping spirites that haue purses at commaund to purchase reuenues, yet not one penny to lend an honest friend. . . . W ell, they hadde it amongst them, and much good do it them for me.” 7 A Right Exelent and Pleasaunt Dialogue ( 1 5 7 4 ) , sig. Aiiv. See also sigs. Aiii, A 2V-A 3 . Rich’s second publication, his Allarme to Englande ( 1 5 7 8 ) , sig. *ii, contains a further apology for his "simplicitie & trayning vp, which hath not bene so much with my penne, but more with my pyke, nor in the scholes amongst learned clarkes, but rather in the fields amongst vnletered companions, or as some will terme them, amongst a company of rusticke souldiers.”

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able Earle of Warwicke (a father to Souldiours at this day).”8 The affection and admiration apparent in his mention of the soldiers’ father are also discernible in his comments on "Captain Dercy, brother to the right honourable Lord Dercy, whose souldiour I sometime was at New Hauen, where the Gods aspecting his vertuous disposition bereft vs of this noble Gentleman, although to our griefe and sorrowe yet to his continuall comfort and consolation, where hee now hath resydence amongst the most renowned wightes.”9 Although Rich himself vouchsafes no further infor­ mation about his deeds in France, a few state communi­ cations reveal what life was like for a soldier of Captain Darcy. One of three captains who reached Le Havre about December 1, 1562, with six hundred men from Essex, Darcy was confronted with the problem of equip­ ping his men with armor and weapons, an expensive task which the justices of the peace and the sheriff of Essex had shirked, though it was their responsibility to perform it. The resourceful Captain Darcy and one "Capten Hyegate” were compelled "to shyft of them selfes by meanes of theyr frendes” to outfit their troops. 8 Sig. A 4. Though published in 1587, the Path-way was completed in 1586, so one of Rich’s observations (sig. C4V) shows: "our gratious Elizabeth . . . happily hath raigned ouer vs this 28. yeeres.” Rich "first vndertooke Armes,” therefore, in 1562. 9 A Right Exelent and Pleasaunt Dialogue ( 1 5 7 4 ) , sig. A 7. Cap­ tain Darcy’s brother was John, who became second Baron Darcy of Chiche, Essex, in 1558 and died in 1581. See T he Complete Peerage, ed. Vicary Gibbs (London, 1 9 1 6 ), IV , 78 f.

16

Even so, the Essex men could hardly have been made immediately ready for battle, since one of their friends in need, Captain Cuthbert Vaughan, controller at Le Havre, had to send for his own "furniture . . . out of Kent” to oblige them.10 Possibly in repayment of this favor, Rich elevated Vaughan to the Valhalla where Darcy and the other "most renowned wights” dwelt.11 Of the weapons finally obtained Darcy and his soldiers made good use on at least one occasion, May 22, 1563, when their company along with several others undertook a sally and slew or captured five hundred of the enemy.12 But if Darcy’s men shared the fate of the rest of the Eng­ lish at Le Havre, the fighting days of most of them were over by the end of July. Typhus fever struck on June 7, was killing men at the rate of sixty a day on June 27, and had reduced the garrison from seven thousand to three thousand by June 30. On July 11 only fifteen hundred were left. The pestilence took the accommodating Cuth­ bert Vaughan on July 2313 and in all likelihood was the 10 The history of these tribulations may be traced in APC, 1 5 5 8 1570, 133 f., Privy Council to justices of the peace in Essex, date il­ legible; CSPF, 1562, 509, Vaughan to Cecil, December 2, 1562; and ibid., 513, W arwick to Cecil, December 4, 1562. The six hundred commanded by Darcy and his two colleagues were probably those levied from Essex November 3, 1562. See CSPD, 1 5 4 7 -1 5 8 0 , 210, and CSPF, 1562, 425, 504. 11 A Right Exelent and Pleasaunt Dialogue, sig. B l : "I called three of them [M ars’s four champions] perfectly to my remembrance, for that I sometime had knowne them: The one was Captain Vahan, sometime Controuler of Newhauen.” 12 CSPF, 1563, 362. 13 Ibid., 472.

17

means by which "the Gods . . . bereft vs” of Captain Darcy. At some time during the frightful siege Rich, tyro though he was, may have become a captain himself, since he is described in 1614 as "haveing ben a comaunder in the service of the warrs ever since the seige of New Haven in the beginning of the late Queene’s tyme.”14 Whether he succeeded Captain Darcy as commander of a company of the Essex men, whether such a promotion might have been due to valor or the plague, and when and how he made his way out of the appalling death-trap of Le Havre and back to England, there is no telling. After long delay, with the utmost reluctance and bitter­ ness, Elizabeth granted the Earl of Warwick permission to surrender, and on July 29 the French generously al­ lowed him and the few English survivors to embark for England with their arms and goods.15 Such was Rich’s initiation into the military profession. The next enterprise in which he is known to have en­ gaged may have been a result of his experiences abroad. During the difficulties with France in 1562 and 1563, Elizabeth encouraged privateers, particularly those from the western counties, to prey upon French commerce.16 Their gains were immense. To cite only two examples, 14 APC, 1 6 1 3 -1 6 1 4 , 453. 15 On the details of the campaigns in France see J. History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Spanish Armada (London, n .d .), V I, 584, and V II, W . Fortescue, A History of the British Army (London, 16 Froude, A History of England, V II, 66.

18

A. Froude, A D efeat of the 6 2 -7 2 , and J . 1 9 1 0 ), I, 131.

within three weeks one Francis Clarke, who had fitted out three vessels, captured eighteen ships worth fifty thousand pounds, while one John Bryan, "captain of a bark of his own, and servant to Warwick,” took " twentythree sail of Bretons and Normans, and brought them into Newhaven,” according to a list of prizes at Le Havre dated June 27, 1563.17 With such examples before him, how could a young soldier at Le Havre fail to speculate upon his own chances of acquiring some day "a bark of his own”? When Rich’s chance to play the perilous game of pri­ vateering came, however, he found no such luck as Clarke’s and Bryan’s. On November 10, 1601, thirty-six years after he had tried to emulate them and had failed, he described his efforts in the bill of complaint in a suit he brought against one Richard Cooke.18 In 1565, he testified, he and "some others did furnishe a shipp at Maldon,” Essex, "upon a voyage to sea havinge letters of Mart [marque]” from the Queen.19 Richard Cooke, gentleman, "beinge desyrous to make some adventure” with Rich, advanced him twenty pounds and for this sum accepted a bond to be answered "proporcionable as the adventure should fall oute.” It fell out, alas, very badly. 17 On Clarke see W . L. Clowes, T h e Royal Navy (London, 1 8 9 7 ), I, 4 7 7 ; on Bryan, CSPF, 1 5 6 3 ,4 31. ™ PRO, Req. 2 /5 5 /1 2 . 19 According to a report of 1565 summarized in T h e Victoria History of Essex, ed. W . Page and J. H . Round (London, 1 9 0 7 ), II, 274 f., Maldon was one of the five Essex towns which had the great­ est maritime trade.

19

Rich’s partners went to sea and lost the ship "and theire wholle adventure.” How, then, was Cooke’s loan to be repaid "proporcionable as the adventure should fall oute”? The implication of Rich’s testimony is clear: ex nihilo nihil fit. Cooke, however, took a different view of the matter, one gathers from his statement of February 10, 1602, in reply to Rich’s complaint. Rich asked him for the twenty pounds, he protested (compare Rich’s delicately worded assertion that Cooke was "desyrous” of joining in the project), and in return for the loan entered into a bond for forty pounds to be paid to one Gynne. Gynne after­ wards sued Cooke, who paid the debt and was thus pre­ sumably out the twenty pounds lent Rich plus the forty pounds paid Gynne minus whatever he had from Gynne originally. Small wonder that about 1570, when Rich (to whose testimony we now return) was appointed to service in Ireland and was "readie to departe the Realme, the said Richard Cooke gettinge understandinge thereof and havinge a purpose to crosse your Subiect in his appointed voyage did arrest” him and "laide him in one of the Compters in London.” Until he sealed and delivered a bond of eighty pounds for the payment of forty-five, Cooke would not allow him to be "freed of imprison­ ment”— "a thinge” Rich pathetically and revealingly described as "allwaies hatefull to your said Subiect.” When Rich came home from Ireland about 1572, Stansfield Cooke, Richard’s brother, sought out the re­ 20

turned soldier, confronted him with the news that Rich­ ard "had gevene unto him the said dett and made unto him a letter of Attorney for the same,” demanded the money, and threatened to have the debtor arrested if he did not pay. For one to whom imprisonment was "a thinge allwaies hatefull” the threat seems to have been enough. He handed Stansfield twenty pounds in ready money— probably the savings of two hard years in Ire­ land— and gave him in addition "one horse for the resi­ due of the said dett.” Stansfield then made out a note of acknowledgment and promised to cancel the bond, "whereunto your said Subiect gevinge faith and beinge for manie yeeres togeather ymployed in your Majesties service did never call for” the canceled bond. His faith, he eventually learned, was misplaced. At Easter, 1601, Richard Cooke produced the bond "that had slept for soe manie yeeres” and had moreover been paid, and had Rich arrested by process out of the Queen’s Bench. Obviously in Cooke’s opinion the bond was far from canceled. And obviously the only means by which Rich could prove that it should have been were not avail­ able to him: he had lost the receipt Stansfield Cooke had given him for his twenty pounds and his horse, and Stansfield Cooke was dead. In this plight, innocent though he was of having tried all these years to escape the debt as Richard Cooke’s charge implied, what was he to do? He compromised with Cooke, who agreed to ac­ cept as full payment the assignment of one hundred marks (about sixty-five pounds) on a bond from one 21

Lambert to Rich’s relative Richard Lea.20 And yet, de­ spite his agreement, Cooke had sued him in the Court of Common Pleas. So much for Rich’s affirmations in the bill of complaint. Cooke’s explanation of his failure to honor this agree­ ment was forthcoming in his response. With the help of William Walgrave, Esquire, steward of Her Majesty’s courts in Essex, he had discovered that the Lambert who was supposed to give him one hundred marks was dead. What is more, he was clearly piqued at Rich’s making him out a relentless, spiteful, usurious creditor given maliciously to "crossing” the plans of poor, honest men on their way to Ireland to fight for a living. On the con­ trary, to hear him tell it, he was more a Good Samaritan than a Scrooge. To be sure, about 1570, he admitted, he did indeed cause Rich "to be arrested into the Compter where he laye in verye great distres,” unable to pay a penny; but when he saw that the prisoner was "in suche wante as he was not able to paye his owne ordinarye Chardges,” he not only withdrew the action but also paid a great part of the prison bill "in pittye and Comiseracion.” After his deliverance Rich called at Cooke’s lodgings and agreed to pay forty-five pounds within a year: Rich also owed his creditor "for an Ensigne, a drume certeyne Armor Callyvers & weapons” worth twenty marks— an inventory suggesting that, far from "havinge a purpose 20 See below, p. 95.

22

to crosse” Rich in his appointed voyage, the Good Sa­ maritan was willing to speed him on his way with the supplies he needed for himself and the men under his command. Two days after their conference, however, Rich returned to Cooke’s lodgings and announced that imprisonment had so discredited him that he could find no one to make him a loan. As a consequence, Cooke, Good Samaritan to the last, accepted Rich’s own bond of eighty pounds for the payment of forty-five. When the bond still had not been paid by Easter, 1601, he again had the debtor arrested. Thus Richard Cooke. Unfortu­ nately, the court’s decision in Rich v. Cooke is not known. Despite a certain vagueness about dates— understand­ able since the litigants were recalling events that had oc­ curred over a quarter of a century before— the records of the suit prove that Rich first served in Ireland about 1570-72, earlier than biographers have hitherto be­ lieved. A paucity of evidence makes it difficult, however, to define precisely his military activities during the rest of the seventies. He was unquestionably in Holland be­ fore writing the Allarme to Englande (registered in April, 1578), in which he says, "I haue seene euerie streate in Flushing, lie as full of Englishe ordinance, as if it had beene the Tower Wharfe of London.”21 After the Allarme, he confides in his Farewell (1 5 8 1 ), he had intended to "set forthe the orders of sondrie battailles, and the maner of Skirmiges, with many plattes of fortifi­ 21 Sig. H4. 23

cation: but especially those of the lowe Countries, as Delfte, Delftes Hauen, Roterdame, Leiden, the Breylle, bothe the hedde and the Toune[,] Gorcoum, Gouldfluce [Goudasluice], Maaselandfluce [Masslandsluice], the Crympe, with diuerse others worthie the perusyng, for suche as haue not seen them.”22 The implication is that the author had seen them, and presumably only a com­ mentator with firsthand knowledge would undertake to provide maps of fortifications and describe the "orders” of skirmishes and battles. Yet the names mentioned are no help in dating Rich’s movements with exactitude be­ cause these places figured more than once in the wars in the Netherlands from 1572 through 1576. In A True Discourse Historicall o f the Succeeding Gouernours in the Netherlands and the Ciuill W anes There (1 6 0 2 ), Rich’s friend Churchyard admits in a marginal gloss that for certain information he is indebted to "Captaine Barnabey Rich his notes.”23 This acknowl­ edgment stands opposite a paragraph relating how about November 21, 1572, Don Frederico, the Duke of Alba’s son, besieged Zutphen and shortly after took it, how the Prince of Orange’s army included "Englishmen and their Captaines, by name Captaine Turner, who serued there some 8. yeeres, Captaine Cotton, Captaine Christopher Hunter, Captaine Candish, Captaine G eorge Gascoyne and others, which were all voluntaries,” and how in 1572 "neere at ende” Frederico began to besiege Haarlem, 22 Sig. B l v.

23 P. 19.

24

which he conquered after "profligating” and "dispers­ ing” the Prince’s troops. Rich’s notes, one has the impression, were those of a man who was on the spot, among the "others” of the unnamed captains, and therefore able to supply such details as approximate dates, names of the English vol­ unteers, and the length of Captain Turner’s service. Churchyard moreover insists that in preparing the mili­ tary commentaries " I . . . followe the true report of those I knowe, will not fable with the worlde, in matter of trothe and crédité.”24 If Rich’s notes represented a true, eyewitness report, he returned from his first expedition to Ireland about 1572, dealt with Stansfield Cooke, and t; :n was off to the wars in the Low Countries, like Gas­ coigne and many another volunteer who seized the op­ portunity to gain fortune and fame fighting for the Prot­ estant cause against Spain.25 That he was also in the Netherlands in 1576 is sug­ gested by three passages in his Allarme and Path-way. In the former he gives a detailed, evidently eyewitness ac­ count of the mistaken tactics of the willful, rash, hare­ brained captains of "certeine bands” near besieged Zierikzee, which surrendered in June, 1576; then he discuss­ es fully the strategy the Spaniards should have pursued after the fall of the town.26 In the Path-way he introduces 24 A General Rehearsal of Wars ( 1 5 7 9 ), sig. L2. 25 On British volunteers and enthusiasm for the war in Holland see C. T . Prouty, George Gascoigne (N ew York, 1 9 4 2 ), 49 f. 2* Sigs. K 4 -L 1 , L3.

25

a humorous, probably apocryphal, anecdote thus: "if you will beare with me, I will shewe you the like president. About tenne yeeres agoe [i.e., about 1576], (vpon oc­ casion) beinge in H ollande at a towne called Gorcum, a good fellow comming to the States, craued of them some recompence, for his indeuours.”27 In the light of Rich’s addiction to loosely used participial constructions28 and of his knowledge of the fighting near Zierikzee in 1576, the participial phrase may perhaps be paraphrased "when I was at Gorcum about 1576.” The probability, then, is that he fought as a mercenary in the Low Coun­ tries in 1576 as well as in 1572 and 1573. To return to certainties, regardless of the precise time Rich served in the Netherlands between 1572 and April, 1578, his service there Could not have been continuous for six years. There may be some connection between the fact that the siege of Haarlem, chronicled in the para­ graph opposite Rich’s notes, ended July 12, 1573, with the formal surrender of the city29 and the fact that Rich was on the point of returning to Ireland on July 17, 1573. A note of that date lists "the Lord Riche’s armour and other furniture laden in the Black Bark wherein Barnaby Riche goeth for Ireland.”30 One is tempted to guess that Captain Rich, fresh from an unprofitable turn 27 Sig. B4. 28 See T. M. Cranfill, “Barnaby Rich: An Elizabethan Reviser at W ork ,” SP, X L V I ( 1 9 4 9 ) , 412 f. 29 J. L. Motley, T h e Rise of the Dutch Republic (N ew York, 1 8 7 0 ), II, 452. 30 CSPI, 1 5 0 9 -1 5 7 3 , 518.

26

in the Netherlands, owed his assignment with the Black Bark to family, county, or former military connections when one learns that Baron Riche of Essex took part in the first Earl of Essex’s famous expedition to quell and colonize Ulster, that the Earl was also accompanied by Lord Darcy of Essex, and that Lord Darcy was the hus­ band of Frances Riche, Baron Riche’s sister, and the brother of the Captain Darcy whose soldier Barnaby "sometime was at New Hauen.” No record tells whether the Black Bark proceeded to Ireland in July or was among the vessels that set sail August 16 with the three peers from Essex, their impres­ sive retinues, and a great cargo of arms and stores. If Captain Rich was in the elaborate expedition of August 16, he experienced a distressing voyage. The small fleet was blown down the Irish Channel, some ships as far as Cork. Lord Riche reached the shore near the mouth of Lough Strangford at Kilclief and, escorted by Captain N icholas Malby, went by way of Belfast to join Essex at Carrickfergus.31 Further evidence identifying Rich with particular campaigns, commanders, locales, or affairs of state in troubled Ireland from 1573 to 1586 is meager. In the Allarme there is an affecting encomium of the most cele­ brated of all lords deputies of Ireland, "that noble gentleman, Sir H enrie Sidney . . . the onely man th at. . . [the Irish] themselues haue so muche desired, and so 31 On the details of the expedition and voyage see Richard Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudors (London, 1 8 8 5 ), II, 243 f-

27

Note in Rich's hand, evidently addressed to the cele­ brated bibliophile Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstown, on the flyleaf of Sir Robert’s copy of Rich's first publi­ cation, A Right Exelent and Pleasaunt Dialogue (1574). The note reads: Bycause dyverse fawghtes have escaped by the prynters neclygence I have byn bowld to corecte as many as I cowld fynde in the margente long time wished for”; but the eulogist failed to state what service, if any, he had performed under that lord deputy and moreover clearly advocated replacing Sir Henry’s "humanitie and gentlenesse,” "pittie and mercie,” with "seuere iustice without mercie.”32 In "the time of the Desmonds warres [1 5 6 7 -7 3 , 1 5 7 5 -8 3 ],” Rich reveals in The Irish H ubbub (1 6 1 7 ), "my selfe being an Officer of the field, I remained at Lymricke with certaine companies of English Souldiers.”33 His sojourn there may have been the aftermath of a letter Sir Nicholas Malby wrote from Kilmallock, 32

sigs. E 3 -E 3 v.

33 Sig. B2.

28

in southern Limerick, to Walsingham on September 10, 1579, promising "favour to Mr. Ryche”34— military fa­ vor, presumably, since that is the only kind Malby had to give. On October 3, 1579, Malby with about a thousand men defeated twice as many of the Desmonds’ forces in Limerick. On the same day Sir William Drury died after heroically taking the field, ill though he was and barely able to sit in his saddle, with Malby against the rebels.35 His death, a grievous loss to the English, was lamented by Rich in a verse "Epitaph vpon the death of syr W il­ liam Drury.”36 When not busy with his pike in Ireland during the seventies, Rich devoted his pen to prose as well as to poetry: "what I haue written, was onely done in Ire­ land,” he confided in the Allarme of 1578,37 a statement that could conceivably apply also to his first publication, the Right Exelent and Pleas aunt Dialogue of 1574. The stories in the Farewell also were written "in Ireland at a vacant tyme, before the commyng ouer of James Fitz Morice,” that is, before July 18, 1579, so Rich says in a preface to these "louyng histories.”38 In addition to writing and performing certain military duties as "an Officer of the field” and in the garrison in 34 CSPI, 1 5 7 4-1585, 185. 35 Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudors, III, 2 8; articles on Malby and Drury in the D N B . 36 Published in the 1580 edition of T h e Paradise of Dainty D e­ vices and probably earlier as a ballad registered April 11, 1580. See Rollins’ edition of T h e Paradise, 1 2 1 -2 4 , 266. 37 Sig. *iii. 38 Sig. B l v.

29

Limerick, he served as a courier on at least one occasion, earning fifty shillings for the "bringing of letteres in poste for her Majesties affaires, from [Drury’s successor] Sir William Pellham knighte lorde Justice of Irelande, being then at Dublin to the Courte at Whitehall” on January 30,1580, according to a warrant signed by Walsingham and dated February 20, 1580.39 Again, about January 6,1581, Rich was sent from Dublin to Sir Chris­ topher Hatton "to intercede for [the Earl o f] Kildare,” who, left in charge of the Pale by Lord Grey, had striven to please the English and the Irish at the same time, had of course succeeded only in alienating both, and had been jailed for treason December 23,1580, in Dublin Castle.40 Rich’s intercession secured neither release nor a prompt trial for the Earl, who languished in the castle till June, 1582, when he was removed to London and the Tower. 39 Declared Accounts, PRO, AO 1 /3 8 3 /1 8 . For this reference we are indebted to Professor Franklin B. Williams, Jr. 40 In a letter of January 6, 1581, CSPI, 1 5 7 4 -1 5 8 5 , 279, Sir Henry W allop reported Rich’s delicate mission without naming who sent him on it. On Lord Kildare’s difficulties see ibid., 276, 376.

30

Ill From Pike to Pen HE LOT of the military man in Ireland, never an easy one, was especially evil late in 1581 and early in 1582. The Desmond Rebellion being all but smothered by the autumn of 1581, Elizabeth suffered a fit of what one historian calls "ill-timed parsimony” and ordered more than half of Lord Grey’s forces discharged. Over three thousand were accordingly released from the serv­ ice in November and December, another seven hundred after Sir John of Desmond was slain in January. The consequences of these wholesale dismissals were fright­ ful for the dismissed. Official communications from Ire­ land abound with pathetic news: the "scarcity and dearth in Ireland” were appalling; in "all Munster” there was "no victuall”; for his men in Cork, Colonel Zouche had "neither meat, drink, nor money”; "the people left from the wars” were dying everywhere of the famine; Lord Grey bitterly protested that he "would not thrust out the 700 last ordered to be cassed to nakedness and famine for want of their due” ; some were forced desperately to beg in the streets, others to sell their weapons and gar-

T

31

ments; "the 800 that come out of Munster” were "likely to live in as great misery”; Grey’s heart ached with 'grief at the flocks of poor souls” who were detained for want of wind since the last of January and who cried to him in vain for relief or passage.1 From this purgatory of destitution and famine Rich made his escape about March 1, 1582, along with Captain Thomas Maria Wingfield and Captain Thomas North, upon whom the ax of econ­ omy also seems to have fallen.2 The three captains’ trip home, described in some detail in Rich’s T he True Report o f a Late Practise Enter prised by a Papist (1 5 8 2 ), was full of interest and excitement. Arriving in Chester on Saturday, March 3, they broke their journey, heard on Sunday an edifying sermon by that celebrated Puritan divine Christopher Goodman, and after church accepted the invitation of Mayor Rich­ ard Bavand "to goe home with hym to Dinner,” a feast that Rich, late of starving Ireland, dignifies with a capital and gratefully describes as "very worshipfull entertainement.”3 The travelers also witnessed— most exciting of all— a remarkable scene in Chester Cathedral. After Goodman’s sermon warning his congregation against Papists, Elizabeth Orton, an attractive girl fourteen or fifteen years old, "stoode foorthe in open veiwe . . . be­ 1 I b i d 340, 341, 342, 348, 350; Bagwell, Ireland under the T u ­ dors, III, 94 f. 2 For Wingfield’s loss of his command and for the three captains' preparations to leave Ireland see CSPI, 1 5 7 4 -1 5 8 5 , 343, 352. s Sig. A 4V.

32

fore the whole assembly there present/* related how she had been misled by a Roman Catholic schoolmaster into pretending to see visions, exhorted her hearers to avoid such "trayterous Papistes,” and solicited prayers that she be forgiven.4 The Orton affair, which for months had been arousing national as well as local interest, kept Rich busy even after he had left Chester behind him.5 From Goodman he obtained a copy of an anonymous Papist pamphlet full of rhapsodies about Elizabeth’s "unseene visions,” and this account he reprinted, with scathing introductory and concluding sections and with ironical marginalia of his own devising, as the main body of The True Report. The work was registered for publication on April 23, 1582. Between that date and the time of his arrival in Chester on March 3, then, Rich spent part of his energies in pre­ paring for the press this his fifth major publication. There is something admirable about the spirit of a man who could, like thousands of others, lose his employ­ ment in his chosen profession, make his way out of the afflicted Ireland from which multitudes were clamoring to depart, and immediately seize his first opportunity to earn an honest penny in a second profession. For his in­ dustry and journalistic alertness in reporting the Orton case while it was still of national moment let us hope 4 Sig. A 3V. 5 For the history of the Orton case and further details about the Cestrians whom the three captains met on their trip see Cranfill, “Thomas North at Chester/’ H LQ , X I II ( 1 9 4 9 ) , 9 3 -9 9 .

33

that he was well rewarded by the printer and the dedi­ catee of his book. For the latter, Sir Francis Walsingham, described in the dedication as ‘ you, who haue bounde me by seuerall good turnes, and in whom those in necessitie alwaies finde refuge,” Rich left Ireland about March 1, 1582, bearing a letter from Robert Pypho, a cousin of both the bearer and the recipient.6 Back in Ireland in 1584, Rich was eager, with Pypho’s help, to be bound by still another good turn to Her Majesty’s principal secretary. On No­ vember 15, 1584, Pypho wrote asking his powerful cousin "to procure him the lease of certain tythes in Lynster stayed for him these five yeares by my meanes and that the bill may passe in Barnaby Riches name,” a request that Rich reinforced with a plea of his own to Walsingham on November 17. The likeliest explanation of these petitions seems to be that Pypho was for some reason ineligible to receive a grant Walsingham had reserved for him since 1579, and that Rich was willing to lend his name to the trans­ action perhaps in return for a share of the gains should the needy cousins’ suit obtain. The refuge of those in necessity jotted his answer in the margin of another petition. It read, "absent from the Courte remember at 6 No doubt one of the good turns had something to do with Malby’s promise to Walsingham, September 10, 1579, that he Would favor Rich. See above, pp. 28 f. For the letter in which Pypho men­ tions his kinship to Walsingham and Rich see CSPI, 1574—1585, 352.

34

my returne to the same effect,” and probably meant, "again, no, for the present.”7 If either of the petitioners ultimately succeeded in enriching himself with Leinster tithes, his good fortune was not noted in the state papers. Whatever disappointment Rich suffered from the at least temporary failure of this suit doubtless paled in the face of the calamity which overtook him the next year. "In the time of Sir lohn Parrat es Gouernment [1 5 8 4 8 8 ],” Rich writes in A N ew Description o f Ireland (1 6 1 0 ), "I my selfe lay at Colrane, with a hundered souldiers vnder my leading.”8 He then lyrically describes the excellent fishing near the town but fails to mention the fate of his company in November, 1585, though it was sufficiently bloodcurdling to inspire reports from both Sir Henry Wallop, treasurer at wars in Ireland, and Sir Richard Bingham, Malby’s successor as president of Con­ naught. Wallop tersely informed Walsingham, "Most of Capt. Riche’s band in O ’Cane’s country [Coleraine, were] killed by the Scots”; while Bingham treated the old gentleman to a more detailed account "O f the man­ ner in which Barnaby Riche’s company was drawn out by their friends, and treacherously overthrown during his absence at Dublin.”9 These unfortunate victims of mur­ derous kin were probably Irish mercenaries, with whom harassed English commanders sometimes filled up deci­ 7 Ibid., 537 f.; PRO, SPI 6 3 /1 1 2 /N o . 86. 8 Sig. B3. 9 CSPI, 1574-1585, 585 f.

35

mated companies "since Englishmen could not be found to serve without pay or clothes.”10 There is evidence that the survivors of the massacre may shortly have had a chance to fry their luck in another theater of war. On a list of "Companies that be cast out reduced into the Companies that be at the States’ pay” appears the somewhat cryptic note, "Capts. Phulford and Riche, to my Lord Audley.”11 But no further mention of Rich in the state papers reporting the wars in the Low Countries in 1586 and 1587 indicates that he may have joined his men and Baron Audley in the fighting there. On the contrary, not long after the debacle of Novem­ ber, 1585, he may have been considered for employment of a different sort, if J. P. Collier’s description of a docu­ ment dated January 5, 1586, is to be trusted. This rec­ ords, Collier asserts, "The names of Sea Captayns,” among them Sir Walter Ralegh, four members of his "immediate family,” Sir John Perrot, Sir Richard Gren­ ville, and Barnaby Rich, the poet and prose writer, of whom we for the first time hear in a naval capacity. He began life as a soldier, published several books connected with the land service, and was employed in France, Flanders, and Ireland. Here we see, as was not then unusual, that he was also considered qualified 10 Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudors, III, 147. 11 CSPF, 1 5 8 6 -1 5 8 7 , 300. The "States” were the States General of the Low Countries. On George Tuchet, Baron Audley, who lived mostly in Ireland and served as Governor of Kells, County Meath, and of Utrecht, see Gibbs, T h e Complete Peerage, III, 86.

36

to command a ship, and enjoyed the honour of having his name enrolled with men like Sir Richard Grenville and Sir Walter Raleigh.12 That the honor subsequently led to any actual service at sea for Rich is doubtful. But in this connection it is interesting to recall the Black Bark, in which "Barnaby Riche goeth for Ireland” with Lord Riche’s armor and provisions in the Essex expedition of 1573. In the light of Collier’s list, the quotation should perhaps be taken to mean that Rich served as the master of the ship. The only other "naval capacity” in which we have heard of Rich involved fitting out a ship at Maldon, Essex, in 1565 "upon a voyage to sea” with letters of marque from the Queen and losing the ship and the "wholle adventure.” This episode, however, was scarcely apt to have per­ suaded anybody that Rich was fit company for Ralegh and Grenville. After reviewing the career of a man who suffered im­ prisonment for debt, the loss of a ship at sea, and the decimation of his company in a bloody massacre, the student of Rich’s life may find it refreshing to pause— before pursuing further misfortunes which dogged the Captain— over two events recorded in 1586 and 1587. Exactly one week after being classified as a sea cap­ tain, Rich, whose spirit was obviously not permanently 12 “Additional Information Respecting the Life and Services of Sir W alter Raleigh,” Archaeologia, X X X I V ( 1 8 5 2 ) , 150 f. Collier characteristically says nothing of the whereabouts of the document.

37

crushed by the annihilation of his men at Coleraine, took a wife. On January 12,1586, the names "Barnabe Ryche & Katheryn Easton” were entered in the marriage regis­ ter of St. Mary Somerset, London.13 Another spelling of the bride’s surname was, one suspects, "Aston,” since Rich dedicated The Adventures o f Brusanus (1592) to "My very good cosyn,” the "woorshipfull and vertuous yoong Gentlewoman, mistrisse Iayes [Joyce] Aston, daughter to the right woor­ shipfull Sir Edward Aston knight.” She was also the granddaughter of Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote and the sister of Walter Aston, later the sec­ ond Sir Walter and the patron of Michael Drayton. Small wonder that in 1604 Rich let it be known that his wife’s sister, and consequently his wife as well, was "of as worshypful a parentage, as any other in the He of Wyght.”14 By birth Katheryn may have been quite as "worshypful” as Joyce and Sir Edward, but she was unquestionably not as wealthy. Sir Edward derived a prodigious annual in­ come of ten thousand pounds sterling from estates in four counties.15 Katheryn and Barnaby, on the other hand, suffered from chronic penury, as those who follow their careers to the end will discover. 13 T h e Register of St. Mary Somerset, ed. W . B. Bannerman, I (London, Harleian Society, 1 9 2 9 ), 188. 14 Hinton, Ireland, 98. 15 For these and further financial and genealogical details about the Astons see Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages (London, 1 8 8 3 ), 14.

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Whether this was a first marriage for the bridegroom, who was forty-three or forty-four, whether the marriage was the culmination of a long courtship, whether Katheryn was as mature a bride as Barnaby was a groom,16 and whether Rich considered himself in a position to marry because he thought he was at last assured of some steady employment and income, we can only guess. Perhaps he was somehow able to anticipate the good fortune which befell him on September 17, 1587, when Queen Eliza­ beth granted him a pension of two shillings sixpence a day for life, to be paid by the treasury in Ireland.17 Why he received the grant must, again, be left to conjecture. Disabling wounds or some particularly distinguished bit of military service might have earned him the pension. Or, more likely, since he first took up arms in 1562, it may have been the reward of twenty-five years of honor­ able service in the army. In 1587, moreover, he dedicated A Path-way to Military Practise to the Queen, and it is pleasant to entertain the theory that the pension was Elizabeth’s way of signifying her thanks for the dedica­ tion. Let us hope that Rich and his wife enjoyed their daily two shillings sixpence somewhere in peace and 16 If the union was blessed with issue, the names of none are known, and in Faultes, published in 1606, when the Captain was sixty-four, he states (sig. H 2 ), "I haue no daughter to marry.” 17 Calendar of the Patent and Close Rolls of Chancery in Ireland, ed. James Morrin, II (London, 1 8 6 2 ), 143; T h e Sixteenth Report of the Deputy K eeper of the Public Records in Ireland (Dublin, 1 8 8 4 ), Appendix II, 92.

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security throughout the year of the Armada, when no news of them has been discovered; for they were on the threshold of what must have been the most miserable decade of their lives.

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IV The Passionate Archbishop and That Rascal Dean Jones N MARCH 17, 1589, Rich, again in Dublin, pre­ sented to Sir William Fitzwilliam, the lord depu­ ty, a nineteen-page essay exposing the "negligence” and "abuses” of the Anglican clergy in Ireland.1 Although he called no culprit by name in his tract, it was nevertheless the "orygynall whye the Lord Chancellor [Adam Loftus, archbishop of Dublin] and his brother [-in-law, Thomas Jones] the Bishoppe of Meathe conceyved ferst displeas­ ure agaynste me,” he later explained to the Privy Coun­ cil.2 "Displeasure” seems too mild a word. "The Lord

O

1 CSPI, 1 5 8 8 -1 5 9 2 , 152, 182 f. 2 Ibid., 547. This explanation of July 15, 1592, is printed by Hinton, Ireland, 8 6 -8 8 . In the tract Rich named no names, to be sure, but he castigated the clergy for fighting ‘ against the erecting of a University in Ireland/’ a chief bone of contention between Loftus and Jones on the one side and Sir John Perrot, Fitzwiiliam's prede­ cessor as lord deputy, on the other. Also unlikely to endear Rich to Loftus was the list of witnesses before whom Elizabeth Orton re­ cited her visions. Published in A T rue Report of 1582 (sig. D 4y), this included John Edwardes and John Humphey, "seruauntes to

41

Chancellor (whom the booke did by no meanes particu­ larly touch), knowing hys owne guiltines did not only fall into a dislike with me, but also chalenged such gentlemen of unkindnes as did but converse and hold me company,” wrote Rich in his explanation. "The bishop of Meathe likewise hys brother (in most unreverent manner consyderinge his place and calling) threatened me with disgraceful wordes in the open street, calling me by the name of a libeller.” Worse was yet to come for Rich. Where was a lowly pensioner to turn for protection against two such adver­ saries? Fitzwilliam, whom Rich had in the first place favored with his animadversions on the clergy, was not likely to view Rich’s plight with sympathy. In fact, throughout his career in Ireland the Lord Deputy con­ sistently served Loftus and Jones as an ally ("accom­ plice” would probably be a juster word). Instead of be­ ing moved to thanks or action by Rich’s tract of March 17, he dispatched on April 11 letters to both Walsingham and Burghley warmly praising the "indispensable,” the "wise, temperate, and useful” Loftus.3 The next day, as if tired of inaction and of being ignored, Rich sent a copy of his essay to Walsingham, that refuge of those in necessity who had accepted the dedication of one of the Lorde Chaunceler of Irelande.” To appear thus in print in such gullible, recusant company must have been especially embarrassing to the Lord Chancellor and Archbishop. 3 CSPl, 1 588 -1 5 9 2 , 152. For more "great praise of Loftus’* by Fitzwilliam see ibid., 173.

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Rich’s efforts and could be counted on to give serious attention to another. Despite the reception accorded the tract in certain quarters in Dublin, it evidently provoked no displeasure in London. On March 13,1590, the Privy Council wrote Fitzwilliam "recommending captaine Barneby Riche to his Lordship, to whome his service was best knowen, being a Pencioner in that Realme, to bestowe suche chardge on him as he should thinke meete out of the fower companies which his Lordship was lefte to have the denominación of captens for out of the Pencioners of that Realme.”4. Rich’s service was no doubt all too well known to Fitzwilliam. It would be agreeable to be able to report that this communication secured Rich the com­ mand of a company, and that he consequently returned to the profession in which he was by this time greatly experienced and devoted himself to fighting Scottish marauders and Irish rebels instead of prelates. Like Rich's tract, however, the Privy Council’s recommenda­ tion probably fell on deaf ears. At any rate, the state papers indicate that ecclesiastical rather than military af­ fairs continued to occupy the Captain. The struggle that began March 17, 1589, and raged literally for years is more thoroughly documented than any other episode in Rich’s life. Since it came close to ruining him permanently, students of his life might do well to give careful attention to the background of the *

APC, 1589-1590, 41 2 .

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drama and to the protagonists and antagonists in it. No­ table among Rich’s allies were his cousin Robert Pypho, Robert Legge, deputy remembrancer in the exchequer in Ireland, Sir Robert Gardener, chief justice of the King’s Bench, and, presumably, their friend at court, Pypho’s cousin Walsingham. To determine who else was likely to have sided with Rich and his faction and who with Loftus, Jones, and Fitzwilliam, one has only to study the alliances and altercations in Irish officialdom as they are revealed throughout the Calendar o f State Papers, Ire­ land, 1588-1592, comprising the years when Rich’s battle against the churchmen was hottest. Suspicion, self-seeking, jealousy, and distrust among certain officials, great and small, had led to a deplorable state of affairs. Sir John Perrot, Fitzwilliam’s predecessor as lord deputy, and Sir Nicholas White, master of the rolls, were under indictment for treason on charges un­ earthed or trumped up largely by Loftus and Fitzwilliam. The Bishop of Meath, Sir Robert Dillon, chief justice of the Common Pleas, and the Deputy were making a deter­ mined effort, quietly backed by Loftus, to disgrace Sir Richard Bingham, president of Connaught. Though de­ fended by Fitzwilliam and Loftus, Dillon himself faced serious accusations of corruption and maladministration of justice. Richard Colman, chief remembrancer in Ire­ land, whom most accounts make out to be honest but a miracle of ineptitude, was fighting, with the aid of the majority of the Irish Council, to rid himself of his capa­ ble but too energetic deputy, Rich’s friend Legge. Legge 44

strove with considerable moderation and lack of personal animosity to keep his position and have his superior pen­ sioned. Gardener, whose distrust of Loftus was patent, upheld Bingham and Legge. Both the exchequer and the attorney general’s office were demoralized by inefficiency, neglect, and dishonesty. The Irish Council itself, always prone to split between its English and Anglo-Irish members, was now too deep­ ly rent by personal issues to function as a unit. The Privy Council in London took sides according to their various relationships with accusers and accused, and so variously countenanced or disallowed the charges, countercharges, and justifications which flocked across St. George’s Chan­ nel with every bearer. Small wonder that in an atmos­ phere thus surcharged with bitterness and spite Rich should have incurred the "displeasure” of Loftus and Jones, two of the busiest combatants. Infirm though he was, Pypho’s cousin and Rich’s bene­ factor in London was still capable of righteous indigna­ tion and of showing precisely what he thought of Loftus’ brother-in-law in a letter of June 24, 1589, that must have made the episcopal ears ring. "My Lord of Meath,” he thundered, I am sorry to write to a man of your calling in such sort as I am justly occasioned by your ill usage of Sir R. Bingham, to­ wards whom you have borne such malice ever since his good dealing in the matter of the office for Sligo’s lands, which by your means was corruptly found against Her Majesty. It was told me at what time you were in England that I should in the 45

end find you a hypocrite. And what better reckoning can I make of you. If you had been so wise either in divinity or policy as you would be taken to be, you might easily have con­ sidered that such loose persons as they are that broke out in Connaught could and should in no better sort be repressed than by . . . the course adopted by Sir Richard Bingham. Y ou and some others think by cunning dealing to overthrow the gentleman, but this practice of yours . . . is sufficiently dis­ covered already from that realm, and the gentleman I doubt not will stand upright there, in despite of all your malice. I am sorry that a man of your profession should under the color of justice carry yourself so maliciously.5

Fitzwilliam’s turn came next. On July 8, 1589, Walsingham sent him five scorching pages, again about the Bingham case, for the conduct of which the Deputy was responsible. "You must give me leave . . . to deal plainly with you___ I never saw in any cause so strange, so hard, and so unjust a course taken.” With majesty and con­ tempt he cited the "lewd and corrupt dealing” of "Sir Richard’s mortal enemies,” Jones and Dillon. In London, he continued, "we proceed . . . in a more just course, for we do not condemn men here before they are heard.. . . To appoint the enemies of a party complained of . . . to be his commissioners agreeth with no rules of justice”— and here he introduced an observation calculated to make Fitzwilliam’s hair start from his head— "and it may fall out my Lord Deputy to be your own case, for it is no new thing in that realm to have deputies accused.”6 With such 5 CSPI, 1 5 8 8 -1 5 9 2 , 208 f.

« Ibid., 216 f.

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an ally as this letter writer, Rich might have been able, despite the enmity of Jones and Loftus, to "stand up­ right” in Ireland, as Walsingham was confident Bing­ ham could. But the wise and loyal old secretary died on April 6, 1590, and left his cousin Pypho, Sir Robert Gardener, Rich, and Legge to fight alone. Beyond Loftus’ angry assertions that Pypho as well as Rich and Legge was responsible for "the complaints against himself and the Bishop of Meath” and that Gar­ dener was "a gentleman not well affected towards me, as I have just cause to conceive by his dealings . . . stirring up Leg and Rich to prefer untrue and malicious libels against me,”7 we actually know little of Gardener’s and Pypho’s part in the fray. Some clue to Pypho’s role may be found in the advice of Sir Henry Sidney to Lord Grey, who was about to succeed him as lord deputy: "spare for no Coste to gette Spies; Knaves wilbe bought for Money, and for helpinge of you to suche. I knowe none so apte Men, as Thomas Masterson, Robert Pipno [sic], and Robert H arpole, all which I fownde honeste, seruisable, and faithful; all which I doe recomend vnto your good Lordships Fauoure.”8 Even had Pypho’s aptness at procuring spies not un­ nerved Loftus, Rich’s cousin would no doubt have pro­ 7 Ibid., 537; Loftus to Burghley, May 27, 1594, printed by John Strype, Annals of the Reformation (Oxford, 1 8 2 4 ), IV, 2 8 9 -9 1 , but not calendared in the CSP1. 8 Arthur Collins, Letters and Memorials of State (London, 1 7 4 6 ), I, 281; HMC Reports, Lord De I’Isle and Dudley Manuscripts, II, 93.

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voked the Lord Chancellor's most extreme displeasure by stoutly defending the Earl of Kildare, Loftus’ bitter ene­ my, in whose behalf, as we have seen, Rich was sent to London to intercede.9 Furthermore, Pypho, clearly a man of standing in Ireland, had served as both seneschal and sheriff, in which offices he had certain fiscal duties to per­ form.10 Specifically, the sheriff— or in his absence the seneschal— collected in his district fines imposed by the courts and debts due the Crown and delivered his ac­ counts to the remembrancer, who was responsible for collecting such debts throughout the realm. That Pypho and Legge, the deputy remembrancer, should have be­ come allies is therefore not surprising. With Loftus and Jones, however, functionaries whose duty it was to in­ vestigate and collect debts were not popular. Pypho once had occasion to complain to Walsingham of the "toil he sustains as Sheriff of Dublin county,” toil which the Archbishop and his brother-in-law evidently did nothing to lighten.11 Legge’s toil was also unremitting. To Walsingham he described his "pains in collecting and sorting Her M aj­ esty’s records” in the remembrancer’s office and asked to be made "an overseer of other officers”; he reported his "pains and travel in calling in divers debts upon 9 On Pypho’s connections with Kildare and the charges of treason he faced as a result of his cordial relationship with the Earl, see CSPI, 1 5 7 4 -1 5 8 5 , 221, 233, 234, 242, 266, 274, 291, 332. 10 Ibid., 2 34 ; CSPI, 1 5 0 9 -1 5 7 3 , 294 f. 11 CSPI, 1 574 -1585, 234.

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recognizances, bonds, and arrearages”; he deplored the "evil of custodiams” and in the next breath admitted that he feared the Archbishop of Dublin.12 Fear or no fear, he outlined for Burghley also "The disorders in the Ex­ chequer” and gave him a "Book of collections of things amiss in the state of Ireland.”13 And, finally, on Febru­ ary 17, 1590, he registered further complaints of the "Abuses in the Exchequer,” offered advice on "How to save fees given for needless offices,” noted "How arrear­ ages have increased to 28,000/. in 10 years,” gave warn­ ing of "How Her Majesty’s courts are like to decay,” and then courageously got down to specific cases in a "Book . . . touching the debts of the Lord Chancellor, the Bishop of Meath . . . and other principal officers.”14 The book makes it clear that Rich was not the only victim of episcopal tongue-lashings in Dublin. "On first examining the books in Dublin,” Legge wrote, "I found the Chancellor Loftus greatly indebted to Her Majesty, and when I began to call upon him to answer the same he was sore vexed that his debts should now appear which had long time been concealed. He sent for me and used me most hardly in foul terms and reproachful names, as knave, slave, rascal, and he grew into such choler as he wished the ship’s bottom out which brought me over.” But by this pious wish and the abuse of the Archbishop, Legge was not deterred from giving in his book certain 12 Ibid., 561; CSPI, 15 8 6 -1 5 8 8 , 228, 248. 13 Ibid., 408. 14 CSPI, 1 5 8 8 -1 5 9 2 , 3 0 8 -1 0 .

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illuminating particulars of the Archbishop’s misconduct in office. In fact, the book contains the most explicit description of the machinations which were exercising Rich as well as Legge. Loftus, it seems, took a fine from one John Eustace in Lord Gray’s time for a pardon and concealed it until I found it out. He procured Nicholas Kennye, clerk of the first fruits, to antedate eight several bonds five or six years before they were made in order to defeat Her Majesty of the double fruits of four spiritual livings he had given to his own children and kinsmen. . . . He keeps many churches and livings in his hands to maintain his children, who are unlike to be preachers or ministers, whereby other learned men are kept out. He holds bills of title to Crown lands before him in Chan­ cery which ought to be tried only in the Exchequer. He useth in Chancery almost no subpoenas at all, but only command­ ments under his hand, which are very beneficial to his men, who have two shillings and sixpence for each commandment, where Her Majesty would have sixpence for the seal to every subpoena. W hile he was, contrary to the course of the com­ mon law, holding a plea of debt before him in the Chancery between the dean of St. Patrick’s and Henry Parkyns, he re­ ceived from the dean or the dean’s brother 7/. and 4 0 pecks of corn to favour the dean. He thereupon committed Parkyns to the Marshalsea. It is commonly reported that upon a time he borrowed 120/. from certain merchants of Drogheda, and, retaining it long, the merchants besought him for their money, and he un­ willing to pay, there was a device to fetch up the merchants to Dublin to appear before him for papistry. W hen they came

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up the matter was so hot, and the poor men put in such fear, as they durst not but release their 120/. to be discharged home again. Note here.—He is Chief Commissioner in the High Commission, and Principal for the Faculties and Archbishop of Dublin, and Lord Chancellor, so as he is all in all. Certain hogsheads of salmon sent to the Lord Chancellor’s cellar pro­ cured the release of Sir John O’Dogherty from the Castle, and that too, without the poor constable getting his fees. If he grant an injunction to restrain any man it is an easy matter to get it released or dissolved to-morrow, whereupon all people cry out upon him. Some think that angels, beasts of the field, and fowls of the air do fly or run to Rathfarnham [the Archbishop’s seat]. The Bishop of Meath shared his brother-in-law’s sharpness of tongue and reluctance to surrender any of the gains to which his office had helped him. Legge’s indictment of the Bishop, while much shorter than his charges against Loftus, is no less damning: Touching the Bishop of Meath, he was greatly indebted to Her Majesty, and when called upon for payment he used me most hardly. He hath been contented to take anything, but unwilling to part with any duty to Her Majesty. He endeav­ oured by means of untruth and an unworthy trick to obtain a pardon of his debts under the Great Seal [of which Loftus was keeper]. The bishop and the Lord Chancellor, his rela­ tive, do everything. It were good a caveat were sent over that no pardon of premunire be granted to any bishop or arch­ bishop. The prelates, thus attacked where they evidently found 51

attack most painful, did not of course content themselves with merely verbal retaliation. Only the briefest review of the tribulations of Rich’s ally Legge may be given here, but even this will show what incurring the wrath of the powerful in Ireland could mean. On November 27, 1589, Deputy Remembrancer Legge was dismissed, os­ tensibly for insubordination, by the Irish Council, of which Loftus and Jones were leading members.15 When he went to London to try to regain his position, the Privy Council, acting with unusual alacrity, ordered his rein­ statement on March 2 , 1590.16 One reward for resuming his diligent efforts to clean the Augean stables of finance in Ireland overtook him about April 29, 1591, when Loftus’ good friend Fitzwilliam "flew upon him and beat him.”17 On June 23, 1591, Fitzwilliam and the Irish Council ordered Robert Legge’s expulsion the second time.18 1S Ibid., 550. 16 Ibid., 315. 17 Ibid., 391. For Fitzwilliam’s version of this assault see his letter of July 1, 1591, to Sir George Carew, Calendar Carew Manuscripts, 1 5 8 9 -1 6 0 0 , ed. J . S. Brewer and W . Bullen (London, 1 8 6 9 ), 56 f.: "And for Legge’s report (which I am told is common) that I should so beat him and tread him under my feet till he was almost dead, and struck two of his best teeth out of his head, is most untrue, for upon my credit, if I be worth any honesty or belief, I laid no hand upon him, but having seven or eight sheets of paper, holding them longways in my hand, I confess I did so lift up his nose with them as I think the gristle of his nose ached with it, and sure I am it bled. I will not tell you how knavishly he dealt with me and my daughter Mary in speeches, besides that he did scorn me with his smiling and laughing.” is C SP 1,1 5 8 8 -1 5 9 2 , 550.

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Again the brave man repaired to London to sue for reappointment and was at last rewarded with a letter from the Privy Council July 28, 1592, again urging his reinstatement.19 He was clearly armed not only with the letter but with certain instructions from the Privy Coun­ cil, for "he ceases not daily to press with great impudency into all offices and courts within this realm to search out some matters against us, commonly reporting in every place where he comes that he has special instructions to sift us both,” Loftus and Jones angrily protested on November 21, 1592.20 His conscientious "sifting” was soon interrupted: first, his house was unlawfully searched by the sheriff of Dub­ lin; next, Legge himself was cast into Dublin Castle. His imprisonment elicited from the Privy Council one of the sternest rebukes it ever composed, ordering the Irish Council to "sett him at libertie and permitt him to proceede in his causes and service as hathe ben appointed, and therof not to faile as you will answeare the contrary at your perills.”21 After this thunderbolt the prisoner was released, but he never recovered his office. So much for the second member of the Pypho-Legge-Rich triumvirate. The articles on the triumvirate’s formidable opponents in the Dictionary o f National Biography seem too chari­ table to those who have been exposed to the opinions of Loftus’ and Jones’s contemporaries. Although the extent 19 APC, 1592, 6 2 -6 4 . 20 C SP 1,1 5 9 2 -1 5 9 6 , 28. » APC, 1592, 383.

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of these dignitaries’ peculations cannot now be accurately estimated, the charges of Rich and Legge were on the whole unquestionably just. As late as the eighteenth cen­ tury Jonathan Swift complained of "that rascal Dean Jones, and the knaves or fools of his Chapter,” who leased for 161 years "253 acres, within three miles of Dublin, for 2/. per annum, now worth, 150A”22 Of Loftus, whose fortunes were said to have risen steadily be­ cause Queen Elizabeth saw him perform as a student at Cambridge and was enchanted by "his graceful elocu­ tion” and "comely person,” Thomas Fuller wrote: "Wonder not that he should desire his own degradation, to be removed from Armagh (then primate of Ireland) to Dublin, a subordinate archbishopric, seeing herein he consulted his safety^ ( and perchance his profit) more than his honour, Armagh being then infested with rebels, whilst Dublin was a secure city.”23 Here Fuller hits upon the two most conspicuous mo­ tives behind all the Archbishop’s deeds: his concern for his own safety and his concern for his own profit— and the profit of his twenty children. There is more than idle gossip in the report of Andrew Trollope, a traveler in Ireland, to Walsingham: I was certifyed and I fynde yt very lykely to be trewe that 22 Quoted by J . R. O ’Flanagan, T h e Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of Ireland (London, 1 8 7 0 ), I, 296, n. 2. 23 Ibid., 2 63; T he History of the W orthies of England, ed. P. A. Nuttall (London, 1 8 4 0 ), III, 412.

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my Lord Busshopp of Dublen is a partener in the profytts of the commyssyon of faculties, and enything almost wilbe suf­ fered in Ireland for gayne and frendshipp. . . . My Lord . . . hath many children, and is so desyerous to preferr them as he hath maryed one daughter to one Mr. W arren, another to one Mr. Cowley, another to one Mr. Ussher, and yt is said gave 500/. a pece in maryage with them, and bought land in Kent sume saye as much as is worth 200/. a yere and kepeth one of his sonnes at the Temple in London, and hath other sonnes and daughters, all which have made hym take upp money at interest, as he dyd 400/. of Sir W illiam Drury; and to paye this, and defraye all charges, and gett more money for his sonnes and daughters, many thinke maketh hym have a cheverelle [elastic] conscience.24

Even Sir Henry Wallop, treasurer at wars in Ireland, who had served with Loftus as one of the two lords jus­ tices in the absence of a deputy, 1582-84, quailed at the rumor that he was again to be asked to undertake such a service and deluged Walsingham with "reasons why he would not willingly meddle with the government of Ire­ land” or with Loftus, "who when they were last joined as colleagues, chiefly sought his own profit and the pleas­ uring of his friends, which are many in respect of the matches made and to be made with his children. Besides by nature he is and always hath been inconstant, and oftentimes passionate, and now will haply be higher minded than formerly . . . 'he ys a very good precher and petye he ys not imployed only therein.’ ”25 24 CSPI, 1574-1585, 318 f.

25 Ibid., cxxxiii f., 559.

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In the fight against this "inconstant,” "oftentimes pas­ sionate,” haughty-minded man, Rich performed valiant­ ly, as a captain should. On May 20 and June 21, 1591, he sent Burghley unfavorable comments on the delibera­ tions of the ecclesiastical commission of which Loftus was head; and in the second of these reports the author who had discreetly forborne to mention names in his tract of March 17, 1589, but had even so suffered Loftus’ en­ mity did not hesitate to call a spade a spade: "Gerrot Aylmer [a recusant] gave the Lord Chancellor’s son a horse to get leave for his going to England.”26 By November, 1591, Rich’s zeal for reform had led him to indite a seven-page "Caveat to Her Majesty,” which he personally delivered to the Queen and which she "seemed graciously to accept”; and in Lent, 1592, the indefatigable crusader again "came over into England, and . . . delivered into hir Matis owne hands a small book contayning such matters as concerned hir Matis honour­ able profyt, and the bettering of hyr highnes service, the which she graciously receiving and perusing amongst other favours it pleased hyr Ma11 that I should be hir sworne man.”27 The "small book,” no copy of which is known, was in 26 CSP1, 1 5 8 8 -1 5 9 2 , 394, 399. 27 All quotations of the “Caveat," of which Rich sent Sir Robert Cecil "a true copy” in December, 1599, are from CSPI, 1 5 9 9 1600, 3 5 2 -5 6 , where the pamphlet is described, paraphrased, and sometimes quoted. On the "small book” see Hinton, Ireland, 86 f.

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the same vein as the "Caveat,” it is safe to assume. In the latter the wary author, already the victim of prelatical ire "in the open street,” again named no names, pru­ dently observed that the dishonest dealing of bigwigs in Ireland "may be thought matters of too high importance for a man of his sort to look into,” and, "knowing that authority is able to suppress verity,” confessed that he dared "not therefore signify particulars of some abuses.” But there was no need to "signify particulars” or names either. Everybody who was likely to see the "Ca­ veat” knew against whom such passages as the following were directed: "I do see the realm mightily increased in substance and wealth.. . . I do likewise see many that are there in authority . . . purchase store of lands, build fair houses,28 give great sums of money with the marriage of their children;29 to con28 A ccording to the D N B article on Loftus, in 1589 or 1590 the Archbishop purchased the rich estate of Rathfarnham near Dublin, “where he erected a stately castle.” 29 Compare Andrew Trollope’s testimony on the prodigious dow­ ries of two of Loftus’ daughters, quoted above, p. 55. Compare also "A true advertisement of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland his children, how they are bestowed,” February 5, 1587, CSPI, 1 5 8 6 -1 5 8 8 , 252 f., and "how the Archbishop of Dublin hath linked and allied himself in strong friendship and kindred by means of the marriages of his children marriageable and unmarriageable, wrought by bargains and matches of marriages by the said Archbishop, to extol his line and offspring” and "to heighten and uphold his loftiness unmeasurable, and his ambition insatiable,” June ( ? ) , 1592, CSPI, 15 8 8 -1 5 9 2 , 5 3 4 -3 6 .

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elude . . . I do see them thrive of all hands throughout the whole country, your Majesty only excepted. . . . Moreover, our Bishops throughout the country are so negligent of their charge, that friars, Jesuits, seminaries, massing priests, and such others, have free and common recourse throughout the diocese[s].” . . . It is to be considered that, whereas there are many bishops . . . who hold in their hands more spiritual livings than is agreeable to godly policy, there are other bene­ fices "holden in such men’s names as are not known what they are, nor whether the parties be living or nay, some other in like case are holden by laymen, and some by children and such other persons, as, neither by God’s law nor by the laws of the realm, are capable of them.” . . . If the book of the Clerk of the First Fruits were perused, it would appear that the Irish clergy have deceived Her Majesty of more than 4 ,0 0 0/. within these very few years. Has heard the Receiver of Her Majesty’s revenue in Ireland protest that he never received a penny for any manner of ecclesiastical fine. If all escheats . . . were converted to Her Majesty’s use, they would stop a good gap. A t present they are purloined, and stand her in no stead.

Strong language, this. How could it gain for Rich any­ thing but further vilification, and worse, in Dublin? In London, however, his and Legge’s informations were beginning to attract serious attention. Before May 31, 1592, the Privy Council sent the Irish Council indignant commands to mend their ways, specifying that "ecclesi­ astical persons. . . be not employed in temporal exercises, as to deal in commissions for finding offices, keeping sessions, or sent in commission for compounding contro­ 58

versies,” but should "do their duties in teaching and per­ suading of the people, both by example of their own lives and by charitable instruction.”30 The strongest possible proof that the Rich-Legge re­ ports were beginning to bear fruit is to be found in the enraged and prolonged trumpetings of the accused. These began June 1, 1592, and went on at least till September 20, 1594, when Loftus whined that he was "worn away with the troubles brought on him by the accusations of Legg and Riche.”31 Of Loftus’ jeremiads, which almost invariably contain specific and malicious references to Rich and Legge, only a specimen need be submitted here. To Burghley, the Archbishop wrote on June 27,15 9 2: Barnabe Rych, a gentleman, one of her Majesty’s pension­ ers in the kingdom, whom albeit in my life I never offended, yet am I advised by some of his own confederacy that for these twelve months past and more, he and some others, have been strict observers of all my doings, and have secretly col­ lected and booked some accusations both against myself and some other of my bretheren of the clergy here: which, as he him self hath commonly reported, were delivered to her Majesty’s hands at his last being in England, the cause of which his dealing and practise against us I cannot ascribe to any other thing but to the malicious disposition of some papists and atheists in this kingdom (with whom for the most part Rych is conversant) who (to disgrace our persons 30 C S P 1,1 5 8 8 -1 5 9 2 , 5 3 4 -3 6 . 31 CSPI, 1 5 9 2 -1 5 9 6 , 273.

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for our profession’s sake) have as I conceive raised him as another Martin to sow the seeds of sedition by this godly course, being a man of himself very needy, by nature immod­ est and subject to many and very gross infirmities.32 Only four days later, on July 1, 1592, the Lord Chan­ cellor, still vociferating as innocent men seldom find it necessary to vociferate, again wrote Burghley: I cannot conceive from whom any accusations against my­ self or the Bishop of Meath could proceed unless it be from Barnabe Rych, or from one Legg, a late officer of her Majes­ ty’s exchequer . . . a man . . . noted and detected of great lewdness, dishonesty and corruption, both . . . being joined in league of friendship with one Pypho, a renowned Atheist, and a most filthy liver . . . [These], wanting not encourage­ ment from the papists of this country, have been for this year past and more secret collectors and lookers on of matters against us.33 Noisome though the tone of injured innocence in these communications may seem, it is yet easier to bear than the hauteur with which Loftus finally replied to the charges against him. Dated September 17, 1592, his "answers,” which are far too indignant, glib, and prolix to be alto­ gether credible, contain such pontifications as, "A l­ though it is not meet that men of Ryche and Legge’s condition should meddle with the bestowing of ecclesi­ astical livings, yet for your thorough satisfaction, and to the end it may appear to you how much I am in every way 32 Hinton, Ireland, 57 f.

33 Ibid., 58.

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wronged by these two lewd men, I will answer every particular point in this article.”34 In thus airily assuming that he could provide "thorough satisfaction,” His Grace was too sanguine. From the accusations of "these two lewd men” his reputation did not fully recover for years, if ever. And yet he remained archbishop of Dublin and lord chancellor of Ireland until he died, in 1605. And he was succeeded as both archbishop and lord chancellor by his brother-in-law, "that rascal” Thomas Jones. For exposing the misdeeds of these political and reli­ gious potentates Rich’s partner, as we have seen, suffered verbal abuse, unlawful searching of his house, loss of his employment, physical assault, and imprisonment. It is now time to examine further the consequences of the cru­ sade for Rich himself. His fate, as he related it in a long letter to the Privy Council, July 15, 1592, was scarcely less grim than Legge’s. First, after the tract of March 17, 1589, came the "displeasure,” "dislike,” threats, and "disgraceful wordes” of Loftus and Jones, the malice of whom, who is able to abide that dwelleth in Ireland, considering their authoritie . . . their great combina­ tion again by the marriage of their children, for whom they provyde matches at foure or fyve yeares old, and that of the best inheritours in all parts of the country, for what is he that dares deny them but they smart for it, . . . and I being now disgraced amongst this whole generation, was many tymes 34 CSPI, 1 5 8 8 -1 5 9 2 , 586 f. For Loftus’ further comments on Rich and Legge see ibid., 564 f., 574; CSPI, 1 5 9 2 -1 5 9 6 , 75, 273; and Strype, Annals, IV, 2 8 9 -9 1 .

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warned of my freendes to take heed of my self, and some­ times chalenged by the Lord Chancellor’s men of most shame­ ful untruthes, intending (as I perceived) to have drawne me into quarrels the which I resolved with myself still to refuse.35

After being "disgraced,” "warned,” and "chalenged” upon who knows how many occasions, Rich went to Eng­ land to put his "small book” into the Queen’s own hands during Lent, 1592, received the royal commendation and certain "favours,” and, fortified with these, returned to Ireland. Loftus, "gauled with a guilty conscience, was easily persuaded that the book concerned hymself and his brother Meathe” and took action that went far be­ yond scoldings in the street and accusations of libel. On Tuesday, June 13,1592, Nicholas Walshe, accompanied by his brother Piers and others of the Archbishop’s henchmen, accosted Rich in the street with "shamefull wordes,” "sodaynly struck me with hys fist,” and "stabbed at me three or foure times” with his dagger. But when Walshe drew his sword, "being driven to defend my selfe I gave him a small hurt.” Hearing of the wound, Loftus issued a warrant to the sergeant at arms "that he should forthwith carry me to prison.” When Rich confronted Loftus to complain of his man’s abuse, the Archbishop’s temper slipped away from him again: "he called me knave and villayn, with other most unfitting names, to a man of his place, when I demanded the peace of his men he called me cowardly 35 All quotations of Rich’s letter are from Hinton, Ireland, 8 6 -8 8 .

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knave and would graunt me none.” Even so, "undrestandinge by the information of others that his man had first stroke me,” Loftus "was contented to release me from prison.” Prison, it presently appeared, was for Rich a safer place than the streets of Dublin. But before allowing Rich to proceed in his melancholy tale, one should in all fairness allow the Archbishop to give his version of the fracas of June 13. For "a further manifestation of his malicious heart against me,” Loftus informed Burghley on June 27, a fortnight after the affray, Rich "very lately in the street of Dublin assaulted one of my poor servingmen and after some spiteful words used against him be­ cause he was my servant, almost even at my heels with his drawn sword cut off one of his fingers and desperately wounded him.”36 With Rich’s "outrageous part I patient­ ly put up,” Loftus continued, "and gave straight charge to all my servants to forbear to revenge, hoping that in time Rych would more advisedly consider of his behav­ iour . . . towards me.” Not a word of Rich’s imprison­ ment and release because "the information of others” evidently proved Walshe, not Rich, the aggressor. Not a word of the grueling afternoon of June 14, when Lof­ tus’ strict orders to his men "to forbear to revenge” were so flagrantly violated that one suspects the orders were never issued at all. Whether Walshe sustained merely "a small hurt” or 36 All quotations of Loftus’ account are from Hinton, Ireland, 58.

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whether he lost a finger and was "desperately wounded,” who can presume to decide at this date? But any student who has followed Loftus’ repeated and violent explo­ sions throughout the Calendar o f State Papers, Ireland knows how incredible is his portrait of himself as a man of patience and forbearance, putting up with the out­ rages of an informer whose investigations he mortally feared in the hope that the informer would "more ad­ visedly consider of his behaviour.” But to return to Lof­ tus’ letter: despite his own saintly deportment during the case, the Archbishop concludes, "Mr. Rych, not yet satis­ fied with the injuries he has done, is suddenly departed into England . . . to burst forth into some exclamations with me and some others of this clergy.” "Suddenly departed” are probably the most accurate words in Loftus’ entire letter. It is a pity he did not under­ take to describe the events of June 14 which precipitated this sudden departure. His version would make interest­ ing reading. In its absence we must rely upon the account of Rich, who may now be allowed to resume his doleful narrative of July 15 , 15 9 2 . About 6 p . m . on Wednesday, June 14, he and an unarmed friend, en route to Rich’s lodging, walked along "the high street of Dublyn” into an ambush. Six men had been "layde to murther” Rich, three "behind a Cundytte with their swords ready drawn to do the act” and three nearby in the house of one Kelly, a surgeon. The first trio "starting out hewed at me with their swords, I having no leisure to draw my sword, but 64

only with a cudgell that by chance I carried in my hand, was driven to ward and beare their blows.” Retreating "down a street before them,” Rich lost his footing in a broken gutter and fell. One of his assailants fell with him; the second struck a blow "when I was down” and cut the trusty cudgel, "being hacked and hewed before, . . . clean asunder so that I had not scarce half of it left in my hand”; and the third, "likewise when I was down,” aimed "a full blow at my head” which an unidentified young man, a stranger to Rich, "seeing me so distressed brake . . . with his sword from me.” As Rich was rising on his knees, one of Loftus’ men attempt­ ed to "run me through with his sword,” but another Good Samaritan, a merchant of Chester named Thorn­ ton, threw "his cloak upon the thrust as it was aimed at me and by that means it mist me.” Again on his feet, the victim continued to retreat be­ fore the "thrusts and blows the which it pleased god that I still bore of with the piece of the cudgel left in my hand till seeing where a door stood open I recovered a house.” Here, let us hope, he finally had time to draw his sword. For the moment, at any rate, thanks to the sheltering house, a nameless young stranger, Thornton of Chester, his own handiness with a cudgel, and a wealth of experience earned in the French, Dutch, and Irish wars, Captain Rich seems to have been safe. More than a hundred Dubliners, Rich goes on to say, stood gaping by while he fought for his life, yet none 65

dared detain the attackers as "they went their ways open­ ly through the streets, towardes the Lord Chancellor’s house.” Even the mayor of Dublin rushed to the scene "by reason of the rumor” and met two of the ruffians "with their swords drawne in their hands,” but "know­ ing to whom they did appertain, durst not demand the apprehending of them.” The assassins not only scorned to leave town "for what they had done” but still awaited Rich in sundry places. And Loftus, "understanding of all what had passed would yet take no ordre in the matter.” The Archbishop had at last won a crucial battle. " I was enforced to fly the country for the safeguard of my life,” Rich concludes, "and at my coming away was fain to be guarded aboard the ship by five or six captaines and divers other gentlemen for fear of being murthered.”

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V Rich v. the Archbishop and St. Peter A T THE TIM E of his flight Rich had served in Ire-tJLland continually for over twenty years. His pen­ sion was paid from the Irish treasury. In Ireland lay his employment and his principal interests. He had hosts of friends and connections there. Though able at fifty to hold his own with a cudgel against formidable odds, he was by Elizabethan standards an old man. The odds against his being able to make a fresh start elsewhere must also have seemed formidable. To be driven out of Ireland in June, 1592, was therefore a cruel blow to him. Yet the prospect was not entirely bleak. After all, the Queen had recently twice granted him audiences, deign­ ing to accept his "Caveat” of November, 1591, 'gra­ ciously receiving and perusing” the small book he de­ livered into her own hands during Lent, 1592, and among other favors making him her "sworne man.” Surely, then, a "sworne man” might expect to find at •court further graciousness, a sympathetic hearing, serious 67

attention to his case against Loftus, fresh employment, perhaps even additional favors as a reward for his dili­ gence. Fate, however, conspired with the Archbishop against him. Any hopes for preferment in London he may have entertained were soon dashed. In December, 1599, he explained sadly to Sir Robert Cecil that Eliza­ beth "seemed graciously to accept his endeavours, but they were crossed, although he was soliciting for three years [1 5 9 2 -9 5 ]. Why, how, and by whom they were crossed for these three long, bitter years may be discovered partly in the official documents of the period and partly in two works published by Rich in 1592 and 1593. To begin with, the times were extremely unpropitious for petitioners. The perennial plots against the Queen’s life and rumors of fresh conspiracies in 1592 were making access to her presence, and even to the outer fringes of the court, in­ creasingly difficult.2 Worse, Rich had fled from Ireland soon after narrowly escaping with his life on June 14 and consequently had reached London just about the time the Privy Council took action on June 24 to make it more difficult yet for "the multitude of Iryshe suitors that do 1 CSPI, 1599-1600, 353. 2 See, for example, "A Proclamation to restraine accesse to the Court, of all such as are not bound to ordinarie attendance,” issued October 12, 1592, and printed as a broadside by Christopher Barker; similar broadsides of September 15, 1593, and February 21, 1594; and Robert Steele, Bibliotheca Lindesiana . . . Royal Proclamations (O xford, 1 9 1 0 ), I, 95, 96, 97 (N os. 854, 864, 8 6 7 ) .

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repaire hether” to get into court.3 On July 28 their lord­ ships took still firmer measures : There have ben a multitude of pryvate suitours for causes determynable in that realme [Ireland] . . . and many also for private suites for rewardes. . . . And therefore her Majestie hath presentlie given order to dysmysse all soch particuler suitours with intención not to give audience to the same. . . . And for other particuler suites for rewardes, her Majestie myndeth to admytt and allowe of none soche, but uppon speciall recommendacion of the Deputie and Councell [in Ireland].4

Rich’s chances of obtaining such "speciall recommen­ dacion” while Fitzwilliam was deputy and Loftus and Jones were leading members of the Irish Council were of course nil. In addition, an outbreak of the plague was rendering the lot of suitors at court even less happy, since it prompted Elizabeth to go on progress in August and to issue such pronouncements as that of October 26: "her Majestie by her proclamación hathe given comaundement in this tyme of infection that no suitours shall re­ paire to her Courte.”5 It was Rich’s further misfortune that the only two members of the Privy Council upon whom he might have counted to help him penetrate this barrage of proclamations had died— Sir Francis Walsings APC, 1 5 9 1 -1 5 9 2 , 587. 4 APC, 1592, 82 f. 5 Ibid., 128 f., 241. For similar orders issued September 19 and October 25 see ibid., 205, 231.

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ham on April 6, 1590, and Sir Christopher Hatton, who had accepted the dedication of three of Rich’s works and to whom Rich had journeyed from Ireland to intercede for the Earl of Kildare, on November 20, 1591. Under the circumstances how could even a deserving "sworne man” find easy access to the presence from whom gra­ ciousness and favors flowed? Captain Rich was not a man to stand uncomplainingly by while his endeavors were being crossed. He took to his pen and poured out his bitterness and frustration in The Adventures o f Brusanus, registered October 23, 1592, and in Greenes N ew es Both from Heaven and H ell, registered February 3, 1593. Both works, though ostensibly fiction, abound in autobiographical passages. In Brusanus, for example, the story of the old soldier Martianus is clearly the story of Rich himself during the trying summer and fall of 1592. It begins: "I have serued . . . these thirtie years as a Souldier [1 5 6 2 -9 2 ], and com­ forting my self with some hope of reward . . . I came to the Court, where I became a suter.”6 The details of the old soldier’s quest as revealed in the allegorical accounts in Brusanus and Greenes N ew es are melancholy. What little money the Captain had he spent while trying vainly to further his suit. He was conse­ quently reduced almost to beggary. His failure was due partly to his inability to interest some influential courtier in his cause and partly to his inability to bribe some 6 Sig. E2.

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groom, clerk, or secretary to smooth his way to the sanc­ tum sanctorum. At every turn he was baffled by delays, indifference, and red tape. Often the treatment accorded him was unbearably highhanded and cavalier. One pow­ erful court dignitary seems to have been particularly un­ yielding and offensively pompous in his attitude. And all this despite the Captain’s long service- and obvious desert.7 No part of Rich’s allegory is more interesting than that which deals with the powerful personage who clearly had much to do with Rich’s frustration. To his identity the author has left very strong clues in such passages as the following from Greenes N ew es: "what might be the cause,” inquires Robert Greene’s spirit of a stranger at the gates of heaven, that there is no more regard to the dispatching of poore suters, that haue laboured & tyred themselues many wayes in hope to haue heere a speedy release, aswel for the redresse of their sustained wrongs, as also to be rewarded as they shalbe found worthy by desart? . . . My good friend (answered the other againe) . . . one of the greatest matters that doth hinder the forwarding of sutes at this instant. . . is this . . . the wonderfull affayres of great importance, and the continuall busines that S. Peter is dayly troubled withall . . . he hath so many affaires to run through, that it is almost thought im­ possible how he should execute them all: for first, he is 7 For these details see Brusanus, 1 9 -2 3 , 31, and Greenes Newes, ed. R. B. McKerrow (Stratford, 1 9 2 2 ), 8, 16 f., 41 f., 61 f. All sub­ sequent quotations of Greenes N ew es are from this edition.

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Knight Porter heere of heauen gates . . . then, he is consti­ tuted the Prince of the Apostles . . . so that al the rest of the Apostles can doo nothing without his allowance, and whatsoeuer he dooth they cannot recall: then, he is the Popes Fac­ tor, & hath the handling & determining of all causes for him . . . fourthly, he is the Master of the Requests, chosen by the papists to present their prayers to God, and they ply him euery day with moe pelting petitions, than his leysure will permit to looke ouer in a moneth after: these & so many other matters hee hath still to looke into, that if he had sixe able bodies, they were all too little to run through his other affayres.8

This overtaxed individual, who had plainly earned a place in Rich’s catalogue of enemies just below Loftus and Jones, is probably to be identified as Sir John Fortescue. The leading master of requests in 1592, Sir John was also serving as a frequent host to state prisoners, as a member of a plethora of commissions, as a member of the Star Chamber, as a member of Parliament, as a mem­ ber of the Privy Council, as chancellor of the exchequer, as under-treasurer, and as keeper of the Great Wardrobe. One of his particular responsibilities as a master of re­ quests was to deal with the arrests, suits, and petitions of Roman Catholics or of those suspected of recusancy. Since nearly forty such cases are recorded in the Acts o f the Privy Council from June 1 through December 31, 1592, this responsibility alone must have been stagger8 Pp. 14 f. 72

mg.9 Thus not only was Sir John as busy as Rich’s har­ assed St. Peter, but he filled similar offices. It is not sur­ prising that "‘this Counsayler,” as Rich goes on to say, "is so troubled . . . that he hath no leysure in the world to remember you.”10 Rich’s phrase "Knight Porter heere of heauen gates” seems also to be aimed quite specifically at Fortescue, who was knighted in September, 1592,11 and at an especially galling bit of red tape with which the masters of requests surrounded themselves. After the petitioners in Greenes N ew es have cooled their heels for an unconscionable length of time, finally "S. Veter came foorth to a place where he vseth to sit for the hearing of causes, fo r . . . hee taketh assured order that none may enter, but such as shall be thought worthy for their desarts to continue the place.”12 To the petitions of Rich’s characters the Knight Porter is of course unfavorable; and when one of them "woulde very faine haue replyed in mine owne excuse,” "S. Veter cut me off, telling me that I was aunswered, and that hauing mine aunswere, I should trouble him no fur­ ther.”13 An explanation of the place to which St. Peter came forth and of his peremptoriness about the answer may be found in the official description of "a room without the 9 For these details of Fortescue’s career see the article on him in the D N B and the index to the APC, 1392. 10 P. 41. 1 1 W . A. Shaw, T h e Knights of England (London, 1 9 0 6 ), II, 89. 12 P. 16. 13 P. 18.

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Court gates” where the masters of requests 'may receive and give answers to suitors, and the porters are to appoint all suitors to repair thither, and suffer none to come into the Court, except by a license from a master . . . nor to stay about Court after their answer, for which purpose the master is to give a ticket of the date of their an­ swer.”14 So much for the frustration that greeted Rich, fresh from his grueling experiences in Ireland, when he had every right to be overwrought, righteously indignant, persistent, and even clamorous. When one considers the Captain’s frame of mind, the wonder is not that he should have written in such detail and with such bitter­ ness of his reception in London, but that he did not write at greater length and more vitriolically. While pillorying in his allegories the Knight Porter, his new enemy, Rich did not so spend himself that he had no energy left for the old. If Brusanus and Greenes N ew es ever reached the Lord Chancellor in Dublin, they may have given him cause to reflect on the dangers of scotching but not killing. The captain who was remark­ ably handy with a cudgel was even handier with a pen. In the portrait of Gloriosus, a pompous, vaunting fool in Brusanus, Loftus might have descried certain of his own features, not to mention an irreverent pun on his name: "the loftines of his lookes was much to bee marueld at.” Again, "Gloriosus bending his browe answered: thou base borne fellowe, what doest thou thinke I would 14 CSPD, 1591-1394.. 433.

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a companion of thee.” And like the Archbishop, whose fidgety concern for his progeny was notorious, Gloriosus "was as testy as a goose that hath yong goslinges, yet easy to be pleased againe with a handfull of otes.”15 In Greenes N ewes the telling blows— and the puns— continued. One passage may suffice for illustration: what is it for a Clergy man, be he Parson, be he Vicar, be he Deacon, be he Archdeacon, be he Byshop, be he Archbishop, or let him be what he wil, if he be one that will rather endeuour himselfe to fleece his flocke than to feed it, that hath not so much care of the children of God, committed to his charge, which he suffereth dayly to perish: as he hath to prouyde marriages for his own children, in theyr very infancie, and when they are vnder age: that dooth builde houses, and purchase rents by corruption, extortion, and briberie, that dooth eat and drinke the sinnes of the ignorant people dayly at his table: that will not admit of a pardon from the Pope, yet dares not bee without fiue or six seuerall pardons from the Prince, for treason, for murther, for theft, for robbery, for conspyracy, for confederacy, for rasyng, for forging, for extortion, for bryberie, and for many other filthy matters, shamefull to be spoken off . .. and what though from a base and beggerly parentage, he could shewe himselfe lofty in minde, lofty in lookes, and lofty in all the rest of his demeanures.16 Furthermore, in his dedication, as Professor Hinton has remarked, Rich provided an allegorized brief of the is P. 14.

16 P. 58.

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make career of Adam Loftus and alluded to his own late unpleasantness with knaves who "are not afraide to shroude themselues behinde a Condite.”17 As no one has yet observed, in the same dedication Rich also paid his respects to "that rascal” Thomas Jones. The dedicatee is Gregory Cole, "chiefe Burgermaister of the Castle of Clonarde,” whose brains had long been "pesterd . . . for the losse of a Myll, dismembred and shaken downe by the rage of a pelting puffe of winde.”18 As agent for the dowager Countess of Sussex, Cole lived at the Countess’ manor of Clonard, which had a stream and a mill, and derived his income from the property. But over the estate, which was in the diocese of Meath, there was lengthy strife between Cole on the one hand and Loftus and the Bishop of Meath on the other. That the prelates eventually won, as usual, is indicated by a license which Loftus issued in 1598 "to Thomas, Bishop of Meath, and his clergy, to alienate and convey to Ed­ ward Loftus, son of Adam, Lord Archbishop of Dublin,” several estates, including the manor of Clonard with the mill and watercourse, to "hold forever.”19 To whom more fitting could Rich have inscribed his book than to another victim of Loftus and Jones— to a victim, incidentally, who, even as Rich wrote, was inhab­ iting a "chaste Chamber in Dublyne,” that is, a dungeon 17 Hinton, Ireland, 9 1 ; Greenes N ew es, 6. 18 P. 4. 19 Morrin, Calendar of the Patent and Close Rolls, II, 4 9 6 (N o . 5 ) ; see also II, 14 f. (N os. 18 and 1 9 ).

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cell in Dublin Castle, to which there is good reason to suppose his powerful enemies had consigned him?20 The dedicatee, one hopes, was duly gratified and heartened and the "pelting puffe of winde” duly discomfited by the dedication and the allegories which follow. As a matter of fact, for those who appreciate the circumstances sur­ rounding its composition, Greenes N ewes makes gratify­ ing and heartening reading even today because it stands as a small monument to the courage of a man who had lost his employment, his adopted country, his hopes, and almost his very life and yet had sufficient resourcefulness and spirit left to seize the only weapon left him and strike a blow at tyranny. Greenes N ewes was registered on February 3, 1593. On March 20, 1593, the Privy Council issued a "warraunt directed to Roberte Browne, a Messenger of the [Star] Chamber, for th’ apprehendinge of Barnabie Riche, and as occacion served to require the aides and assystaunces of her Majesty’s publick officers as well for th’ apprehencion of the said partie as for the bringinge him before theire Lordships in the companie of this bearer.”21 The likeliest explanation for this ominous document is that Rich was in trouble over Greenes Newes. As one authority puts it: "It was a 'star chamber matter’ . . . to speak scandal of men in high position. . . . Next to riot­ 20 For Cole’s imprisonment and release and for further details of his feud with Loftus and Jones see CSPI, 1574 -1 5 8 5 , 156, 163; CSPI, 1 5 8 6 -1 5 8 8 , 145; APC, 1592 , 312 f. 21 APC, 1 5 9 2 -1 5 9 3 , 130.

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ing and forgery, the ‘infamous libel’ was more often the cause of action by the star chamber than any other of­ fence.”22 Although there is no record of either the cause or the result of the warrant for Rich’s arrest, after 1593 he wrote like a man who had suffered much for literary in­ discretions. The critic who would fearlessly attack dis­ honesty, he pointed out in The Honestie o f This A ge (1 6 1 4 ), was sure to "be conuict in an action of Slander and in the epilogue to the same work he ostentatiously put himself on record: "for Satyryck inueyghing at any mans pryuate person it is farre from my thought.”23 That this cautious writer here had in mind a sobering lesson learned in the Star Chamber shortly after March 20, 1593, seems highly probable. In the absence of evidence identifying the official responsible for the warrant, one can only recall that Loftus, Jones, and the Knight Porter were the three dignitaries whom Greenes N ew es gave some reason for wanting to chastise Rich and that Sir John Fortescue was in an especially favorable position to wield the rod. 22 J. B. Black, T h e Reign of Elizabeth (Oxford, 1 9 3 6 ), 173. 23 Sigs. B2, G 4V.

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VI A Fayre Cypress Hatt Band HE W ARRANT from the Star Chamber in March was not the last of Rich’s woes in the spring of 1593. The story of his next misfortune is related in two letters dated July 21 and August 1, 1594, from Lord Buckhurst to David Lloyd, mayor of Chester, regarding charges Rich preferred against Alexander Coates of Chester; in Lloyd’s reply to Buckhurst, August 4, 1594; and in the testimony of one James Persivall, aged twenty-two "or thereabouts,” "waggon man” of Lymm, Chester, witness in the case Rich v. Coates.1 Persivall’s deposition, taken on July 20,1594, is a strange combination of caution and

T

1 HMC, Eighth Report, Papers of the Corporation of Chester, Part I, Appendix, 377 b. D r. Leslie Hotson generously called our attention to the three letters calendared here. They have been hither­ to unnoticed by biographers of Rich because in the index to the volume his name appears as "Ritchie, Rytche, Rytch, Capt. Barnabie.” Miss Margaret J . Groombridge, archivist of Chester, has very kindly provided transcriptions, in modern spelling, of Lloyd’s letter and of Persivall’s deposition. The latter, Miss Groombridge writes, is pre­ sumably the original of a copy enclosed with Lloyd’s letter. She fur­ ther informs us that Buckhurst’s two letters are adequately summa­ rized in the Eighth Report.

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breathlessness. About Easter (April 1 5 ), 1593, as he described "the robbing of Captain Barnaby Rich, es­ quire,” Rich rode in the deponent’s wagon from London to "Hewodd.”2 About noon, approximately a mile from Middleton, Warwickshire, between this town and Coleshill, the travelers were intercepted by three or four men on horseback, but "who they were or who any of them were this examinee knoweth not.” For the Captain, Warwickshire, it seems, was, like Dublin, full of dangers. One of these persons on horse­ back demanded to know "what man he was that rode in that wagon.” When the wagoner "answered that it was Captain Rich . . . this man drew his sword and made at the said Captain Rich (being in the wagon) and there­ with this captain got out at the other side of the wagon and would have got out a staff from the side of that wagon.” (Shades of the stout cudgel in Dublin!) But in drawing it forth Rich chanced to fall under the wagon wheel. While "this Captain Rich was down off his ledge under the wheel,” "this man who so drew upon and at” him again threatened "and called him villain and said but for shame he would run him through.” The "rest of that company desired that man so offering at the said Captain to be quiet for God’s sake.” One peacemaker "ran to the examinee’s foremost mare . . . 2 Probably Heywood, Lancashire, northeast of Manchester. W heth­ er this was Rich's ultimate destination and why he was making the journey are not divulged.

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and stayed them all for fear lest that wagon wheel should go over the said captain’s body.” Early in the affray Rich’s hat had fallen from his head; and now, while he lay in danger of being spitted or crushed to death, "one did take away the said captain’s hatband but whether any of that company or other that came to keep the peace . . . he knoweth not and deposeth further that none of the rest of the said persons did offer to draw at the said Captain Rich nor offered any injury to him but sought to make the best between them.”3 According to Lloyd’s letter of August 4, 1594, Rich, unlike Persivall, was in no doubt about the identity of his assailant by July 9,1594, when he went to the Mayor, described the assault and robbery, and "required th at. . . Coates (being in the City) might be forthcoming to an­ swer such matter as might be objected against him at the then next Quarter Sessions of the Peace within this City then next to be holden.” Whether Rich had recognized Coates at the time of the attack but had managed to track him down only after a lapse of fifteen months, between April, 1593, and July, 1594, or whether he had spent 3 Those familiar with the events of Rich’s life from June, 1592, through March, 1593, might suspect that this curious episode— in which a stranger on horseback detained a wagon, identified its inmate as Rich, and forthwith rushed to the charge crying "V illain!”— was somehow connected with the assaults on Rich in Dublin or with the warrant for his arrest and was thus simply another bout in his feud with the Archbishop or the "Knight Porter.” But the documents re­ garding the case contain nothing that confirms such a suspicion.

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part of this interval in sleuthing, identifying the culprit, and trying to apprehend him, there is no way to deter­ mine. At any rate, when Rich told the Mayor his story, His Honor imposed a bond of one hundred pounds on Coates to insure his personal appearance at the quarter sessions and also bound Rich "to prosecute a bill of felony against . . . Coates.” On July 12, Coates and Rich duly appeared in court, and the plaintiff preferred a bill against the defendant for stealing his hatband and produced the cautious, breathless Persivall as witness.4 That the wag­ oner was either unable or unwilling to identify Coates must have weakened Rich’s case seriously. At some point during the trial, moreover, the captain who seems to have been doomed to lose his footing in gutters and tumble under wagon wheels apparently lost his footing in a welter of legal technicalities. His case, Lloyd explained to Buckhurst, "fell out to be foreign” ; therefore "the jurors in this County have no power to enquire of . . . an assault and affray in that foreign coun­ ty” Warwickshire. Furthermore, "Capt. Rich being de­ manded could not show nor make proof of any matter for Her Majesty”; he could not "show proof that he had prosecuted law . . . for the said supposed felony at any time heretofore being fifteen months since this fact sup­ posed to be done in Warwickshire where this is by law to be tried . . . nor show any copy of indictment in proof 4 Unfortunately, the records of the quarter sessions for this date are missing, the archivist of Chester informs us.

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thereof”; and "besides . . . the said captain seemed will­ ing to give over prosecuting of felony . . . so as he might have consideration for the assault.” As a consequence, "having no sufficient matter to detain” Coates, Lloyd delivered him by proclamation, acting "with the advice of the Recorder of this City, Mr. Sergeant Warburton.” At the same time the Mayor promised Rich that "if he could make proof” then "Coates should be bound with sufficient sureties” to compel him to stand trial in War­ wickshire. If Lloyd expected to satisfy the plaintiff, who had little reason to be patient in the face of inaction and de­ lays, by treating him to similar explanations, however sane, learned, and judicious they may have sounded, the Mayor misjudged his man. All this talk of jurors, pre­ vious indictments, foreign counties, making proof of valid matter for the Crown, recorders, and sergeants-atlaw failed to persuade the Captain meekly to abandon his suit. Make proof indeed! Why, had he not been at­ tacked and robbed, and had he not now finally caught up with the felon? Could he not believe the evidence of his own eyes? Was his word to be doubted and that of a dimwitted wagoner who was not even sure of his own age and obviously suffered from a short memory, if he were capable of remembering at all, credited? So the Chester mighty were not going to see justice done? So the case lay outside Cestrian jurisdiction? Very well, then. He would appeal to the mightier; he would have the case tried under the ultimate, national jurisdic83

tion, where county politics and local favoritism counted for nought. And this time, for a wonder, his efforts to gain the ear of the mightier availed. By July 21 he had even succeeded in having the culprit jailed. On this date Lord Buckhurst wrote Lloyd directing that "before one Alexander Coates be discharged from prison at Chester, he be bound over to appear before the Lord Chief Justice in London” to face Rich’s charges that in "this violent robbery . . . he was despoiled” of a "fayre cypress hatt band.” This thunderbolt from on high did not reach its desti­ nation until July 30, Lloyd said in his reply of August 4. But by July 30 it was too late. The chicken had flown the coop: "immediately upon receipt of your honoured Lord­ ship’s said letter,” wrote Lloyd, whose turn to be breath­ less had now come, I have made diligent inquiry and search for the said Alexan­ der Coates to have apprehended him and as yet cannot find him within this my authority but (as is credibly affirmed) he is departed down to the waterside for his transportation over into Ireland [on July 2 8 ] two days before receipt of your Lordship’s said letter, whose apprehension I will endeavor myself what I may to the uttermost if he shall return again to this City and then shall further proceed with him as by your Lordship’s said letter I am commanded and in this mean­ while do humbly beseech the good acceptance of this my . . . service.

But "in this meanwhile,” before Lloyd could have had a chance to judge whether his service had found good or 84

bad acceptance in London, another and more terrifying thunderbolt descended upon him. On August 1, Lord Buckhurst wrote "Calling the mayor’s attention to the case of Capt. Barnabie Rytch, who declares that he was hindered in obtaining justice by the said Mayor and his bretheren.” Lloyd "is admonished to give satisfaction” to the Captain "if the allegations of the latter are true, as in that case an enquiry into the affair would result in discredit to the Captain’s adversaries.” It would be entertaining to learn how the Mayor re­ acted to this admonition. Unfortunately, however, no further official documentation of Rich v. Coates has been discovered. Consequently we shall probably never find definitive answers to a number of questions that may occur to us. Did Lloyd keep his promise to do his utmost to apprehend the fugitive if he returned to Chester? Did Buckhurst’s letter of August 1 electrify the Mayor into redoubling his efforts? Did Coates indeed make his get­ away to Ireland on July 28, as Lloyd maintained, and if so did he flee thither because he knew he would be safe from Rich in Loftus’ realm? Did the "enquiry into the affair” at which Buckhurst hinted ever come to pass? Did poor Rich ever recover a penny of recompense for the assault, for his hatband, or for his pains in tracking Coates down? Confronted with such questions and lack­ ing further letters from Buckhurst or Lloyd, not to men­ tion the missing records of the quarter sessions at Chester for the period when Rich v. Coates was under considera­ tion, we may be tempted to resign ourselves to a nescience 85

almost as profound as James Persivall’s. Before doing so, however, we might do well to review certain peculiarities of the case and then venture a conjecture or two. First, Rich seems to have been certain of his man; otherwise he could scarcely have afforded to press his accusations to such lengths. Despite his witness’ inability or unwillingness to corroborate the identification, the plaintiff was prepared to carry the case to the chief justice himself. Second, if Lloyd’s report may be believed, Rich "seemed willing to give over prosecuting of felony against this Coates so as he might have consideration for the assault.” It may be that this willingness represented a retreat in the face of Coates’s steadfast refusal to admit any knowledge of the crime. On the other hand, it seems equally likely that the suggestion of a compromise may have originated with Coates, for whom a charge of assault would of course have been less grave than a charge of felony. If so, the suggestion may be regarded as tantamount to a confession of guilt— and so, incidentally, may Coates’s alleged flight to Ireland. Finally, and most interesting of all, there were Rich’s declaration that he was "hindered in obtaining justice by the . . . Mayor and his bretheren,” Buckhurst’s admonition to the Mayor to give satisfaction to the plaintiff, and the privy councilor’s mention of a possible inquiry into the affair which might "result in discredit to the Captain’s adversaries.” Not "adversary” — that is, Coates alone— but "adversaries.” One explanation for such peculiarities might be that

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the defendant was a man of some consequence in Chester. As a matter of fact, the only Alexander Coates we have been able to discover was precisely that. On March 20, 1581, "Alexander Cotes gentelman was made free [o f the city of Chester] without any paymente onely in respecte he shalbe a good citizen & give to the maior his beste advise & councell towchirige the weale of the same citie from tyme to tyme to the best of his knowledge.”5 According to a brief biography of this gentleman given in a Latin inscription on his monument, he was born in 1547 in Staffordshire and died in 1609 in Ches­ ter. He was buried in a prodigious tomb erected by the celebrated Flemish artist Maximilian Colt, designer of the monuments of Queen Elizabeth and other royalty. Coates was appointed clerk to the barons of the excheq­ uer of Chester County about 1569, controller of the port of Chester in 1579, and lay impropriator and patron of St. John’s Church, Chester, in 1587, holding all these offices till his death.6 Against such a personage James Persivall, wagoner of Chester County, might have been understandably reluc­ tant to give damaging testimony. Around such a person­ age the Mayor and his "bretheren”7 might have been 5 R. H. Morris, Chester in the Plantagenet and T udor Reigns (Chester, n .d .), 450. 6 T he Cheshire Sheaf, Third Series, X ( 1 9 1 4 ), 58; Journal of the Architectural, Archeological, and Historic Society for the County and the City of Chester, New Series, V III ( 1 9 0 2 ) , 8 -1 0 , 12. 7 Including Lloyd’s adviser, "the Recorder of this City Mr. Sergeant [-at-law Peter] W arburton” of Lincoln’s Inn, M. P., appointed

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understandably eager to rally. After accusing such a Coates as this, Rich might thus have found himself com­ pelled to deal also with the defendant’s fellow officials, or with more adversaries than he had bargained for. In fact, if Rich’s Coates was the Alexander Coates, most of the mysteries with which the trial and the case in general have seemed to be fraught remain mysteries no longer. One other detail in Rich v. Coates deserves comment. That Rich should go to considerable lengths to bring to justice a man who sent him tumbling under a wagon wheel and threatened to run him through is understand­ able. But why all the pother and hue and cry about a hat­ band? For one thing, it was a "fayre cypress hatt band,” and cypress was a "cloth of gold or other valuable ma­ terial”;8 for another, in April, 1593, Rich was ill able to afford the loss of anything, even of small value. As we have already observed, he complained of having ex­ hausted his small reserve funds in vainly trying to gain his suit at court in London. That the complaint is to be regarded not as a bit of rhetoric but as the literal truth is further suggested by Collier’s finding of Rich’s name "in queen’s attorney at Chester May 19, 1592, and vice-chamberlain of Chester, in 1593 and 1594, on whom see T h e Cheshire Sheaf, II ( 1 8 8 0 ) , 206. 8 N E D , under cypress, l.a. Under hatband, the N E D quotes a pas­ sage written in 1594 about a hatband adorned with eighteen gold buttons. Although cypress was also used "as a band for the hat . . . in sign of mourning,” there is no indication that Rich had any occa­ sion to be in mourning in 1593.

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a list of Captains . . . without charge. . . in 1593.”9 Since he had left his employment behind in Ireland and was without his captain’s pay, let us hope Brusanus and Greenes N ewes earned him something besides a warrant from the Star Chamber. Apart from possible fees from the printer for these two works, he had nothing to rely on, so far as we know, except his daily two shillings six­ pence from the Queen. And there is reason to believe that after he fled Ireland he could no longer count on even his meager pension. On August 11, 1591, the Queen commanded the lord deputy of Ireland to stay the "payment of pensioners during their absence from Ireland.”10 O f this order Fitzwilliam, Loftus, Jones, and the rest of the Irish Privy Council took advantage, presumably as quickly as they could after Rich’s flight in June, 1592, to withhold his pension. This may have proved to be the crowning aggra­ vation of his financial woes which reduced him to riding inelegantly in a wagon from London to "Hewodd,” to spending his energy clamoring for his lost hatband, and perhaps even to a humiliating willingness to compro­ mise with Alexander Coates in order to gain some "con­ sideration for the assault.” Relief from his financial dis­ 9 Bibliographical and Critical Account of the Rarest Books in the English Language (N ew York, 1 8 6 8 ), III, 297 n. Collier had per­ haps seen the list of March 14, 1593, of “7 captains . . . requiring employment” calendared in CSPD, 1 5 9 1 -1 3 9 4 , 328. CSPI, 1 5 8 8 -1 5 9 2 , 439.

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tress due to his inability to collect his pension could not have been forthcoming till after December 18, 1597, when the London Privy Council sent to the Irish lords justices (Loftus and Gardener) and Council a letter which doubtless galled Rich’s ancient foes: whereas her Majesty having granted heretofore to Barnaby Riche in recompence of his service a pension of ij s. vj d. per diem to be paid out of her Highnes’ revenue, the same of late hathe ben kept from him by direction of restraint from their Lordships [in Ireland] that none should receive pencions but suche as personally did serve there. In regard the service of the gentleman is used here and that the said pencion was first graunted without checque, they were required to pay the same unto him with the arréragés according to the letters patentes.11 11 APC, 1 5 9 7 -1 3 9 8 , 191.

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VII The Service of the Gentleman Is Used Here F PARTICULAR interest in the Privy Council’s command in 1597 is the revelation that "the serv­ ice of the gentleman is used here.” Hence, despite his complaint of December, 1599, that in London he "was soliciting for three years,” 1592-95, without success,1 he was not doomed to worklessness and utter poverty throughout the nineties. Precisely when his new employ­ ment began and what it was is not altogether clear. One strong possibility is that for perhaps a decade, beginning about 1595 or 1596, he was assigned to some sort of military duty in or near London, including the training of recruits at the celebrated Mile End, Stepney, Middle­ sex County. For such duty he may have been considered just the man— a captain in his middle fifties, too old for the rigors of active campaigning in the field but enriched with about thirty-five years of vast experience in the French, Dutch, and Irish wars, the author of the Allarme

O

1 CSPI, 1 5 9 9 -1 6 0 0 , 353.

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to Englande (1578) and that popular military handbook A Path-way to Military Practise (1587), and conse­ quently a recognized authority on military science. On October 19, 1595, the Privy Council ordered the sheriff of London, Recorder William Fleetwood, and others to engage as supervisor of the newcomers to the military profession in Middlesex County Captain Chris­ topher Levens, whom they had in "former letters’*recom­ mended "to take a veiwe of the trayned bandes of horse and foot” of the county "and for this tyme to muster and trayne them”; and again on November 9, 1595, to the same officials the Council expressed a desire "to be thoroughly satisfied, as well by report of some skilful captain as otherwise, of strength of the forces” in Mid­ dlesex County, "and as it is doubted whether you have one sufficiently experienced amongst you for the training and mustering of soldiers, we recommend Capt. Levens, to whom you are to make the usual allowances for his services.”2 These recommendations are worth noting not only be­ cause they show lively official interest in the doings at Mile End Green but also because Levens and Rich were close friends and military associates. From law suits in 1600, 1601, 1604, 1605, and 1606 we learn that Rich resided at Mile End, Stepney, during these years, that he tried to give evidence in behalf of his friend Levens on 2 APC, 1595-1596, 22;CSPD, 1595-1597, 124 f. Levens is listed as the muster master of Middlesex County in 1595: HMC Reports, Salisbury Manuscripts, V, 524.

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May 2, 1604, but was not allowed to do so, and that he tried again on July 18, 1606, and succeeded.3 In 1604, moreover, Rich and Levens, together in the Isle of Wight, undertook with disastrous results a bit of joint intelligence work, as we shall see in the next chapter. Clearly their relationship was for years very close. That both captains occupied positions of military re­ sponsibility in Middlesex County in 1601 is also indi­ cated by certain services they performed on Sunday, Feb­ ruary 8, of that year. On that day they helped put down the Essex Rebellion. Captain Levens, who sustained gun­ shot wounds in both legs, wrote Sir Robert Cecil on March 9, 1601, asking "rewards for services done on the occasion of the late rebellion’* and listing Captain Rich among "the most deserving.”4 It is touching to discover these two somewhat antiquated officers— who may have thought their fighting days were over and resigned them­ selves to the axiom "Those who can, do; those who can­ not, teach”— rushing to the defense of the old Queen when she needed them most. In the same action, inci­ dentally, another veteran and old friend of Rich’s, his former traveling companion Sir Thomas North, also fought valiantly. Although North received ten pounds for his "paines and service” in action and Levens thirty 3 PRO, C 2 4 /2 8 2 /4 7 and Sta. Cha. 5 L 1 /1 5 (Lea v. Lyons, Trinity, 1600, and February 10, 1 6 0 2 ); Req. 2 /6 4 /8 3 and Req. 1 /1 9 8 ( Lea v. Bannynge, Easter, 1 6 0 1 ); Sta. Cha. 8 /2 0 1 /2 9 - 3 0 and Sta. Cha. 8 / 2 0 2 /1 8 (Levens v. Love, Ryth, et al., November 26, 1605, and July 18, 1 6 0 6 ). 4 HM C Reports, Salisbury Manuscripts, X I , 49 f., 117.

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for displaying "verie great forwardnes in the service . . . against the rebells,”5 what reward, if any, Rich got as a result of his fighting and Levens’ assurance of his desert, the records do not disclose. Before leaving Rich’s military doings in London, we might note an odd letter from one Jack Roberts to Sir Roger Williams.6 Roberts writes, "Captayne Rich hath gotten duringe life by helpe of the Recorder [William Fleetwood], that no man whatsoeuer he be, shall haue to doe w [i]th Midsommer watch, or Mylend greene serv­ ice, but him selfe.” According to the editor of the letter, which Roberts failed to date, it was written before Au­ gust, 1585 (about the period when, as we have seen, Rich was busy in Ireland), it is whimsical and ironical in spirit, and therefore "Roberts’ statement should not per­ haps be taken seriously.” Perhaps not; but in the light of Rich’s close connections with Levens, muster master of Middlesex County in 1595, the Privy Council’s reference to his "service . . . used here” in 1597, his residence at Mile End, 1600-1606, and his part in quelling the Essex Rebellion in 1601, the statement seems, at the least, curi­ ously prophetic. If it could be dated later, it would great­ ly strengthen the possibility that Rich lived at Mile End because his duties were closely akin to Levens’ in train­ ing the youth of London in the military truth. Whatever his official employment might have been 5 APC, 1 6 0 0 -1 6 0 1 , 225, 240. 6 Published with a short introduction by F. P. Wilson, M LR, X V ( 1 9 2 0 ) , 7 9 -8 2 .

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during the nineties, it was obviously not altogether to his liking. In December, 1599, he reminded Sir Robert Cecil that his "former endeavours to do Her Majesty service have banished him out of Ireland, for fear of his life, which has been several times assaulted/’ and pleaded that "he might be returned thither again in any able sort.”7 That the plea was not to be granted for at least six years is proved by the records of half a dozen legal actions in which he was inyolved during 1600-1606. One of these is especially noteworthy because it shows that Rich’s "service . . . used here” in London did not consume so much of his time as to exclude him from the world of business. His connections with his kinsman Richard Lea, citizen and draper of London, were particularly close. Rich twice testified in Lea’s behalf, in Lea v. Lyons, 1600-1602, and in Lea v. Bannynge, 1601; and Lea returned the compliment by deposing in Ridi’s favor in Rich v. C ooke, 1601, and, further, by assigning a bond due him to Rich’s creditor in a vain attempt to settle the suit.8 From the testimony of Lea, a witness named Thomas Richardson, and Rich himself in Lea v. Lyons one may learn how deeply Rich occupied himself with Lea’s affairs and how earnest and tireless were his efforts to aid his "cousin” both before and during the trial. i CSPl, 1 5 9 9 -1 6 0 0 , 353. 8 For the location of these records in the Public Record Office, see above, pp. 19 and 93. In the quotations that follow, the contractions and abbreviations of the original documents have been expanded.

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About 1595, Lea confessed, "havinge sustayned greate losse . . . by Sea and suertyshipp,” he was made bankrupt and, being in debt, did not dare "to goe abroade for feare of arreste.” John Lyons, who had married Mistress Lea’s stepdaughter, kindly offered to procure a supersedeas for stay of the bankruptcy and advised Lea in the meantime to settle his lands and goods "in some strangers.” Lea asked Lyons to take the copyhold of the house Lea occu­ pied in Mile End and surrendered the house to the lord of the manor of Stepney for Lyons’ use, "but neverthelesse vpon a secrett trust” for Lea’s own use. Next, Lyons refused to pay Lea rent on the house he had taken over and denied that the surrender was on trust. Although Lea sued in Chancery in 1600, Lyons, "not havinge the feare of god before his eyes nor regardinge his owne soule did then and there upon his corporall oathe” swear that the surrender was absolute. Upon this troubled scene Rich and Thomas Richard­ son entered about May or June, 1599. Richardson, who happened to be "walking abrode towarde Myle end,” be­ thought himself of his acquaintances John Lyons and his wife, found himself near their house, and decided "to goe see how they dyd.” With Lyons he "fownd one Capten Barnaby Rytche . . . who presentlye”— and dramatically — "desired to speak aparte” with the caller and prayed his "presence to here what was spoken.” Rich then en­ treated Lyons "that for as much as there was a trust re­ posed in him by . . . Richard Lea concerning the howse where in he then dwelt and now dwelleth that he would

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resygne over his interests in the said howse . . . unto the said Lea whoe then was bargening with one Mr. Dennys tuching the sale of the said howse” for five hundred pounds cash. Lyons expressed his willingness to surren­ der the property on condition that I may be saved harmless from the Creditors of Lea, because I used the favor of my Lorde and Master therein for the good of him his wief and children and . . . if I shall not be dis­ charged or secured in the like manner as I toke yt uppon me and be allowed suche charges as I have bestowed vppon the grownd I shall not onlye be a loaser but the Creditors of Lea will thinke that I dyd take the trust uppon me to Cousen them and . . . I haue a wife and children and I would be lothe for suche kyndnes as I have shewed to Lea to leave them incombered yf I shoulde dye. According to Rich, the conference to which he had in­ vited Richardson to lend a careful ear was not character­ ized by the moderation, sweet reason, and amiability which shine throughout Richardson’s account. On the contrary, in Richardson’s presence Lyons, "swearing a bytter othe,” exclaimed, "tys I am the Cousoning Knave for I have Cousoned all the Creditors & now you will have me delyver upp the howse agayne to my discredit & shame.” To this vaunting, defiant ejaculation Rich re­ torted, "so then . . . you have fyrst Cousoned the Credi­ tors and nowe you will cousen him that trusted you toe.” But Lyons was still unreformed when Rich and one Humfrey Lofield, vintner of Stepney, revisited the de­ 97

fendant at Mile End Green between Christmas, 1599, and Shrovetide, 1600, and asked him to pay his rent to Lea. "I vnderstand he . . . will goe to lawe with me,” re­ plied Lyons, "and shall I give him money for that pur­ pose Noe I will kepe him short ynough for that.” Lyons also contended that Lea "had defeated him self of his rent in comming into the said house”— "the great new house at Myle end green,” as it is once described— "and taking a parcell thereof.” After reporting this second fruitless parley with the defendant, Rich adds a few details which help explain the role he played in the case. He was "intreated by his kynswoman” Mistress Lea, he testifies, "to get her a Chapeman to buye the said howse least the same should be quite lost.” As a consequence, Rich persuaded Captain George Aldriche with his wife and others to inspect the property, informing Lyons "that he had brought theither a gent by his Cousen Leas appointment to see the same howse and that the sayd gent had a purpose to buy the same.” Obligingly, Lyons "therewith dyd leade them in­ to every roometh of the howse and into the orchard and gardyns thereof.” But apparently Captain Aldriche’s pur­ pose to buy evaporated. With the next client Rich had better luck. He showed the house to one Dennis, who advanced a hundred pounds earnest money. Now Rich was in a position to say, "M r Lyons my Couson Lea hathe sould his howse to this gent and prayeth you as you have receved the howse Coulorabely so likewise you will receve this mony and 98

bondes colorably to his use.” Lyons meekly answered, "You have done very well for I have bene often in hand with your Cousen to gett a Chapeman b u t. . . to receve the money or the bondes what have I to doe therewith,” and then meekly promised to surrender the property. Afterwards, however, his meekness, like Captain Aldriche’s intentions, evaporated, and he refused to keep his promise. Beyond this impasse neither Rich’s testimony nor that of any other carries us, and no record of the judgment in Lea v. Lyons has been discovered. We shall therefore probably never know whether Rich eventually managed to consummate a deal on the Lea-Lyons "great new house” at Mile End Green. Did Rich go often between Lea and Lyons, engage in disagreeable conferences with the latter, and "by his Cousen Leas appointment” escort prospective buyers through the house merely out of cous­ inly love? Or did he expect some reward for his exer­ tions? In reply Deponent saith not. But the available evi­ dence justifies the suspicion that Captain Rich was not above trying to supplement his income with a real estate commission. To the already long list of ways in which he tried to turn an honest penny— soldiering, writing, fit­ ting out a ship, serving as a courier, and informing— an­ other should in all probability be added: acting as a real estate agent. From the Rich-Lea relationship may have stemmed two other legal actions in which the Captain was in­ volved. On June 10, 1605, "Barnabas Riche de Milend 99

esquier” was bound in his own recognizance to appear at the next general sessions for Middlesex and meanwhile to keep the peace towards John Glasse, minister, of Step­ ney. The clerk noted that Rich duly appeared and was discharged from his recognizance.9 To find so clamorous an Anglican as Rich thus restrained from assaulting a reverend gentleman from his own home town is amusing — and somewhat perplexing. A clue to the mystery may lie in Lea v. Bannynge, 1601, in which both Rich and one John Glasse, "Clerk of St. Mary Woolners,” deposed.10 If Glasse testified for Bannynge, a kinsman of John Lyons’ wife, and against Lea while Rich was as usual deposing in favor of Lea, then the bad blood between the Captain and the divine may have originated in the law­ suit. Also connected somehow with Rich’s dealings with Richard Lea is an injunction "to Barnabie Ritch and Richard Borrowe esqrs. to performe an order at the sute of Israeli Lea and Danyell Lea,” dated February 16, 1606, perhaps after Richard’s death, since Israel is de­ scribed in January, 1607, as the "son and heir of Richard 9 Middlesex Guildhall in Westminster, Middlesex Sessions Roll 432, item 151. For this reference we are indebted to Professor Mark Eccles. 10 Both St. Mary Woolchurch and St. Mary Woolnoth were tradi­ tionally associated with "the trade in wool,” according to Wilberforce Jenkinson, London Churches before the Fire (London, 1 9 1 7 ), 136. The deponent in Lea v. Bannynge may be identical with the Rev. John Glasse who was instituted vicar of St. James’s, Clerkenwell, July 3, 1578, and perpetual curate of Holy Trinity, Minories, August 22, 1595, on whom see George Hennessy, N ovum Repertorium (London, 1 8 9 8 ), 243, 429.

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Lea, citizen and draper of London, deceased.”11 Without knowing what the order was and what prompted the suit, we can only surmise that Israel and Daniel did not inherit their father’s esteem for Rich and his trust in him. 11 PRO, Req. Bk. 1 /1 8 2 /4 2 ; Req. 2 /3 0 1 ( Lea v. Westarrey, Janu­ ary 24, 1 6 0 7 ).

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VIII A Privat Quarrel about a Kisse?

ESPITE his activities, in court and out, in Middle­ sex County between 1600 and 1606, Rich’s resi­ dence at Mile End during this period was interrupted at least once by a sojourn on the Isle of Wight in 1604. Here awaited him yet another embroilment, the genesis and whole history of which may be studied in a long report and a number of letters he addressed to Sir Robert Cecil between September 3 and December 3, 1604.1 There was, it seems, no rest for the weary— and litigious — even in so pastoral a setting as the island village of Shanklin, where, according to Rich’s first account, on Monday, September 3, between ten and eleven in the

D

1 In an appendix entitled "A Tudor Informer at W ork ,” Hinton, Ireland, 9 2 -9 9 , prints the report and three of the letters and briefly discusses them. These and other documents concerning the embroil­ ment which Professor Hinton does not treat are summarized in HMC Reports, Salisbury Manuscripts, X V I, 3 1 9 -2 2 , 375, 447 f. All quota­ tions about the case are from Hinton’s transcriptions or from the sum­ maries in the Salisbury Manuscripts. For another brief account of the episode see Cranfill, "Barnaby Rich and King Jam es,” EL H , X V I ( 1 9 4 9 ) , 72 f.

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morning, he and his old friend Captain Christopher Levens were visiting with Thomas Dennis2 in his or­ chard. What brought the two captains to so pleasant a spot Rich does not say in the report, but from other informa­ tion he later volunteers, one gathers that they were gain­ fully employed neither on the island nor elsewhere at the moment. Their visit with Dennis was interrupted by the announcement that Bowyer Worseley and Captain Rob­ ert Gosnold had come to call. The hospitable Dennis pressed the newcomers to remain and join the party at dinner, a function also attended by Rich’s wife, his wife’s sister and brother-in-law Jane and John Hollis, and Den­ nis’ sister, "an ancient gentlewoman.” After the meal, the party, "sitting stil at the table,” engaged in what seems surely an innocent enough postprandial entertain­ ment. The "new book of statutes of this last parliament” was called for, and Worseley read aloud many titles. Gosnold punctuated this recitation "as it wer in a jesting maner” and "semed by his words to make trifles of many of them,” particularly of those against sorcerers and biga­ mists. To Gosnold’s "unsemely speaches” Mistress Rich took exception, so that she and the stranger "grew into a long discourse” heeded only by John and Jane Hollis since Rich, Levens, and Worseley were occupied in "rea­ soning of other matters.” 2 Possibly the gentleman to whom Rich showed the Lea-Lyons house at Mile End Green and to whom Lea sold it conditionally. See above, pp. 97, 98.

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Between one and two the party dispersed, Dennis and Levens escorting Gosnold and Worseley to their horses. Only Rich and Hollis remained in the dining room. Iagolike, Hollis paced "up & down (as it wer in a petty chafe) ” and muttered "3 or 4 times together,” "I se wyse men can sometimes play both the fooles & the knaves.” Rich’s inevitable demand for elucidation provoked this dialogue: "why did you not hear how the Captain [Gos­ nold] did speak villainous words against the king: to whom did he speak those words (said I ) , to your own wife (answered h e ).” At this revelation Rich recalled hearing Gosnold aver that "he never before that day had hard any woman to speak so wel of the king as she had done” and Mistress Rich answer that "she had never yet sene the king, but she had heard al the good that she had said, & that, she had read in many books that he had ever been a godly and great [prince] & therefore she would both speak wel of him & pray for him as long as she lived.” (In the re­ port this is only one of a series of eulogies on her sover­ eign by that loyal subject Katheryn Rich, whose rhapso­ dies her husband seemed never to tire of quoting.) Rich therefore went at once to his wife "in her chamber to­ gether with hir sister” to learn what controversy it was she and Gosnold "had so debated on.” When she an­ swered that she had found her dinner companion "an evil disposed person, towards our good king, but she hoped his Mw should find a better affected Captn when he should have need,” Rich’s testy comment was, "But

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y e t. . . you do not tel me what I ask you, therefore say what wer his words & how began your speeches. ’’ Before Mistress Rich could satisfy this demand as an obedient wife should, Jane Hollis interjected: "why did you not hear, how lewdly this Captaine behaved him self in his speaches toward the Kings Ma11, i lewde yenough, & I jumped Captn Levens, who sat next me, with my elbow, because he might take notice of his undutiful and presumptious demeanor.” There was to be more of this elbow work before dinner was over. Rich next rather imperiously "wild them both to tel me the truth” about how the dispute began and "what the words wer,” not varying "in any one point, so nigh as they could.” As Worseley turned the pages and read out the titles, they said, Gosnold sat next to him looking into the book. First, Gosnold exclaimed, "w hat. . . methinks ther is an act against Jesuytes,” to which Worseley’s innocuous re­ joinder was, "true . . . here it is.” Next, "in a scoffing manner” the culprit said, "o . . . that acte against 2 wives & that other against sorcerers are of great importance, I promise you.” This provoked from Katheryn Rich her first rhapsody, the gist of which was that "the statutes wer of great importance indeed, & that against 2 wives was a most godly edict, fit to be confirmed by a Christian king wherein his Mau hath expressed that vertue which I have overheard to be in him.” Gosnold’s next remark displays a teasing and disrespectful spirit toward Mis­ tress Rich as well as toward the King and his statutes: 105

"Gentlewoman, gentlewoman,. . . you have taken a good subject in hand, you may boldly speake in thys, when ther is no man dare contrary you,” to which the staunch lady replied that "ther is no body can contrary me . . . & I besech gDd to bless the king & to send him & his long to reign over us.” "W ell,” said the Captain, "the king is beholden to you.” After quoting this bit of pertness Rich again rehearses at length the only remarks he himself had overheard Gosnold and Mistress Rich make and thoughtfully adds rather extensive and pious observations by his friends Levens and Dennis, putting them firmly on record as favoring James, Mistress Rich, and monogamy. Then he is ready to return to his wife’s rhapsodies: "marry, and he’s a good king” for dealing kindly and loyally with his queen, "but I love him as well for all other good qualityes that I hear to be in him.” "I Mr8 ryche (said the Captayne) you speake thys because the king useth sometimes to kyss his wife, but ther belonges more to the matter, than a kiss.” To this leering impropriety Katheryn Rich had a ready answer: "that is truth . . . but what is it that the Queens Mali hath had three or four children, besides she neither wanted dignity honor or any other pleasure that this world can afford, thankes be to god for it.” By this unassailably logical retort the Captain was unabashed: "the king is a good hunter,” he went on, "& he killeth bucks, but he is good to does, and he grows weak in the back, his date is almost out!” This gross gibe galvanized Mistress Rich into using her elbow, with

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which she " jogged” Dennis "that he might take notice of thes words.” Her worthy host, however, was listening with only one ear, was overcome by a sudden attack of obtuseness, or willfully chose to misconstrue the gibe, for he said mildly, "yea his date is almost out for hunting of the buck, this year, by cause they grow shortly out of season.” Gosnold, unwilling to be misconstrued, persisted and underlined his quip by "casting down his head” as he repeated, "hys back is weak, & he is going on his last half yeare.” His persistence piqued his adversary to her final outburst, "God bless the king . . . & I hope in god he shall live amongst us yet thes forty years.” As she pro­ nounced these words she rose abruptly from the table and went in a huff to her chamber, thus "leaving to offend me,” her perhaps easily offended spouse contin­ ues in his report, "by agravating matter against a stran­ ger, that she had never sene before . . . a soldier, & one of mine own profession.” Rich was nothing if not thorough in preparing his informations. When Mistress Rich and Jane Hollis had "truly protested” the course of these speeches, Rich "im­ mediately set them down whylst they wer fresh in mem­ ory” and then sought out Levens to interrogate him. Levens regretted not having "better marked” the wrangle. Jane Hollis’ elbow-plying had, alas, been in vain: "I remember, Mrls Hollys jogged me to several times but I thinking it was because I sat too nyre her did but verge my self to give her more room.” Even so, Levens could 107

not have been entirely somnolent (as the phrase ''jogged me to” suggests) because "something I heard, something I said,” he assured Rich. Had he been thoroughly atten­ tive, he declared, Gosnold "could not in such sort” have "carried . . . away” such treacherous utterances, "neither do I think fit that they should be smothered.” This deposition taken, the inquisitor went to Dennis, who freely repeated all he had said and heard. Into the investigation he also injected what seems to have been a warning note, "saying, further that the Captain [Gos­ nold] was apertayning to a noble man, highly in favor with his Matf & whom him self did likewise honor.” But "as he had never sene the Captain . . . before, so he de­ sired no farther friendship with him whom he thought to be counterfeit papist: & therefore yll affected to the king.” Upon what grounds Dennis based this diagnosis the report does not specify, unless Gosnold’s exclaiming, "w hat. . . methinks ther is an act against Jesuytes,” could be considered grounds. Instead of specifying, Rich added to his section on Dennis’ deposition the piquant sentence: "other words he said unto me that I will conceal till tyme may serve.” Finally, the indefatigable Rich, "because I would build upon a stony ground,” reviewed the whole case in the presence of Levens and Dennis "that the one might witness, what the other should say” and ventured the opinion that Gosnold should be "rather condemned for the unreverend speeches against the prince, then hys words smothered up so presumptiously affyrmed.” On this note "A report of certain speaches . . . colected 108

6 set down . . . that self & same night after they were spoken” ends. Signed by both Rich and Levens, it was sent to Cecil on September 29,1604, with a note express­ ing the willingness of the signers and their relatives and friends to appear and testify against Gosnold and with a postscript by Rich begging Cecil to pardon him and Levens, "who are not in case at this present to repair to your honor,” for not delivering the report personally. Instead, the captains who were apparently too poor to travel "presumed to send this messenger.” From the postscript it also appears that Rich, who knew a thing or two about the difficulty of gaining access to the court, prudently directed the report "for the service of the king” in order to help the bearer to "the speach of your hor.” Much of the episode the report describes is, as Pro­ fessor Hinton remarks, suggestive of opéra bouffe. To many a modern reader the "unreverend” Captain Gosnold may appeal more than the elbow-jabbing Katheryn Rich with her utterly sober outbursts in defense of King James or than Captain Rich with his grave, tireless ferret­ ing. Before pronouncing Rich guilty of an excess of gravity and zeal, however, we should recall that in his day nothing about royalty was properly a jesting matter. Reports like his frequently engaged the earnest attention of the Privy Council and led to drastic punishment for those who uttered "lewd” speeches about the monarch.3 s See, for example, APC, 1 5 9 7 -1 5 9 8 , 26, 28 ; APC, 1 5 9 8 -1 5 9 9 , 7 f.; ACP, 1 6 0 0 -1 6 0 1 , 367, 466.

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Gosnold, however, was not destined to stand in the pillory, languish in prison, or lose his ears. Rich’s in­ forming prospered only up to a certain point. His report safely reached its destination, its contents were duly noted, and Cecil summoned many of the fateful dinner party to London. But there the veteran captains seem to have been thoroughly routed by the saucy, urbane Gos­ nold. Increasingly aggrieved and frustrated in tone, the communications of Rich and Levens to Cecil which fol­ lowed the initial report tell a bitter story. In London, Gosnold, abetted by Worseley, contended that the whole affair was predicated "upon a privat quar­ rel” between him and Katheryn Rich "about a kisse” and upon Mistress Rich’s consequent pique. Rich’s heated reply to these "exceptions taken” by the defendant was that, though Mistress Rich had never clapped eyes on him, "yet at dyner time when she cam out of her chamber to sit down, she entertained Cosnoll & worsely with each of them a kiss, here was then no shew of quarrel.” But "after wardes yf in fyndynge hyr self dyscontented with Cosnoll for his sawcy & traitorous demeanure towardes the king, she denyed him an other kiss for a farewell, is her testymony therefore, the worse because she hath showne her dutiful affection to her prince” ? Observe that as Rich’s frustration mounted, so too did the heat of his words: whereas he wrote in his initial report of "un­ reverend speeches” and "words . . . presumptiously affyrmed” he now treats Cecil to phrases like "sawcy 110

& traitorous demeanure,” not to mention such strongly worded talk as "when he vented forth hys treasons.” In the course of the trial Rich and Levens were ob­ viously not cheered by the deportment of the witnesses. W orseley,ft a known compn to Cosnall at whos house he is lodged in the He,” they had of course expected to de­ pose in the defendant’s favor. In fact, they observed to Cecil, "if it would have pleased yr hor to have marked all circumstances,” Worseley "had been fitter to have been apprehended for a confederat then receved for a witnes.” O f Mr. Dennis, however, they had expected better things. When he was interrogated "relative to speeches used by Capt. Gosnold,”4 his testimony was evidently of such small help to the complainants that Rich felt com­ pelled to try to explain it away: "First for Mr Denys, a man beloved of all for his honesty, that keeps great hos­ pitality, and is hurtful to none, but willing to do every man good, and yet of so mild a nature as is easily to be seduced, and in kindness to be carried away as a man list to work him. In May last past by a hurt received in his head by a grievous fall, he is so enfeebled, as he forgets in the morning what he has done or said the very night before.” Rich’s brother-in-law, John Hollis, whose pacing and muttering had set Rich off on the inquisition in the first 4 CSPD, 1 6 0 3 -1 6 1 0 , 154. Though dated "Sept. ?” by the editor, Dennis’ answers could not have been given earlier than October. This is the entry from which we learn that Dennis’ first name was Thomas.

Ill

place, was scarcely more useful as a witness for the plain­ tiffs than Mr, Dennis. Nature (rather than a fall) had rendered Hollis’ head untrustworthy, so that the poor, trembling deponent could only artlessly and ineffectively blurt out his testimony— or perhaps his oral report of Gosnold’s traitorous remarks failed to agree altogether with Rich’s transcription of them. According to Rich’s not very fraternal account, "hollys . . . we knowe to be so sylly that he is not able partyculerly to delyver the very wordes as he hard them, yet. . . hys sympl[icit]y is a good subject to boult out the truth, having neither cun­ ning to cast any coulers, ner other conceypt to make any florish more than is true.” But the discomfort which the defection of their two star witnesses caused Rich and Levens was as nought compared to the frustration, humiliation, and rage which the defendant and his chief supporter inspired at the trial. As the little group from Wight "stood together, waiting till your Honours came forth of the Council Chamber,” Bowyer Worseley "fell to open railing and threatening of” the plaintiffs and, worse, next "slaundred & railed at” them "with teasynges & untruthes” in the presence of Cecil himself. Rich could only gaspingly surmise that Worseley "durst so openly seek to quarrel with us at such a time and place” because "he was backed by somebody” very important— namely, the Earl of Southampton, to whom the tippling Worseley "will drink a health . . . and then make those braves which 112

might more touch” His Lordship "in honour and credit than I presume to think on.” Ah,, to be thus teased and flouted "before yr hos face”! And by Bowyer Worseley, a man whose grandfather, Rich would have His Honor know, was a tanner and whose father was "of a most dissolute life, a man of memorable infamation throughout the whole island, who stood in a sheet and did penence for his ungodly life.” Furthermore, "Bowyer himself, a right brat of such a breed . . . a breeder of debates, yet himself a rank cow­ ard,” has served a sentence in "a base prison, called . . . Little Ease,” is "given to all manner of licentiousness,” is "reputed in the whole Isle of Wight to be but a pot companion,” and "now in his reports has done your Honours that wrong, that if I should have done I should smart for; he has dared to smother up treason against his Majesty, and then to brag and brave of it in every ale­ house where he comes.” Thus Rich poured out to Cecil his disappointment, hurt, and anger— and the gossip from Wight about the Worseleys. But to no avail. The last extant document concerning Rich and Levens v. Gosnold and Worseley ends on a bitter note, and there is no hint that any punish­ ment whatsoever overtook Worseley and Gosnold or that for their pains Rich and Levens ever received more than a thorough flouting and maybe a free trip to London. Why Rich took pains in the first place to compile the charges is not altogether explicable. Was he simply doing 113

his patriotic duty as he saw it? Or had he, as Gosnold seems to have hinted, "had . . . purpose to inform this matter against” him and "laid . . . plot” against him? What could a captain who said he was too impoverished to pay his way to London have hoped to gain by convict­ ing Gosnold, whom he describes as "a great commander in the Isle of Wight, in the King’s pay” ? Could he have hoped to receive as a reward for his diligence Gosnold’s command and share of the King’s pay? If he cherished any such hope it was utterly dashed, one gathers from a further word to Cecil on the case, a lamentation worthy of Jeremiah: " Y f all this will not serve to convyct a trai­ tor, god save the king, & send him long to raign over us, for men shoull show more wit to pray for him in secret, then openly to detect any treason conspyred against him.”

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IX Dim of Sight and Lame of Limbs

I

T IS DOUBTFUL that Rich was able to nurse his dis­ appointment in Mr. Dennis’ garden on the Isle of Wight. One obviously could not incur the enmity of the scion of an old family, no matter how dissolute, and "a great commander in the Isle” and still expect to remain comfortable there. The swift and deadly boomerang returned to Rich and Levens even while the trial was in progress: "we are delt withall both ther [in W ight] & her [in London], more liker of persons that had conspyred a treason then to faithful subjects, indevoring ther prince to reveal a treason” ; "we are daily scandalised, and my poor wife (for saying the truth) is threatened and abused in the Isle of Wight”; and despite her dis­ tress "I am not able to fetch her from thence for want, my poor pension being denied me upon this innovation of the money coined for Ireland.” The "poor pension” of two shilling sixpence a day for life which Elizabeth had granted him in 1587 had failed, then, to bring him permanent financial security. As a matter of fact, this revelation of his chronic penury, in­ 115

troduced thus carefully into a report ostensibly on an­ other matter, is only one of many during the last twenty years of his life. His financial history for this period makes interesting though usually sad reading. Perhaps as early as August 11,1591, his old enemies on the Irish Council kept from him the grant of 1587, which was not ordered restored to him until December 18, 1597.1 On May 20, 1601, another blow fell. Elizabeth debased the coinage of Ireland, so that the Irish shilling was worth only from two-thirds to three-fourths of the English shilling. This financial maneuvering worked a great hardship on pensioners like Rich who received their payments in "harp shillings” from the Irish treasury. At a clap the value of Rich’s pension thus sank from half a crown to one shilling eight- or tenpence. The alarming fluctuations of the "harp,” finally stabilized at threequarters of the English shilling by James in 1606, doubt­ less added further to the discomfort of the poor pen­ sioner.2 Besides, as he reveals in the report of 1604 to Cecil, even a fluctuating pittance was for a time denied him be­ tween 1602 and 1604. In 1606 either a continued denial or a renewed one next evoked from Rich one of the most pathetic of his appeals, again addressed to Cecil: 1 See above, pp. 89, 90. 2 On these fiscal matters see CSPI, 1 6 0 1 -1 6 0 3 , 4 0 7 -1 0 , 547, and Steele, Royal Proclamations, II, 14 f., 16, 18 (N os. 162, 172, 173, 1 8 7 ).

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I am now enforced to become a suitor at the Council Stool for my poor pay in Ireland, which for 10 [certainly not unin­ terrupted] years I have received here in England, but is now denied me by an order of his Majesty’s Privy Council. I could speak of many things that might move a favourable consider­ ation, but appeal to that privilege that has ever yet found favour, that is to say, mine age and impotency; my years being 64, and by reason of 40 and odd years’ continuance in service, I am dim of sight and lame of limbs.3

Another of Rich’s attempts to relieve his want may have come in 1610, when he was listed on "Jan. 29?” among the "Servitors of Ireland who are willing or may be induced to undertake . . . the escheated lands in Ul­ ster.”4 Pioneering, however, was for the robust man with sufficient capital to import English settlers for his land, erect stone redoubts, and develop agriculture and indus­ try in benighted Ireland. It was not for an old warrior who had already plied the Privy Council with protesta­ tions of poverty and infirmity. Next, on a list of "Annuities or Pensions” dated September, 1611, and "payable usually out of his M aj­ esty’s revenues [in Ireland] . . . for one whole year end­ ing at Michaelmas 1611, compared with the year 1602, showing the amount of increase,” appears the entry "Barnaby Riche, life pension, 1602, 60/ . 16j*.8^.” 5 But 3 HMC Reports, Salisbury Manuscripts, X V III, 437. 4 CSPl, 1 6 0 8 -1 610, 365, 367. 5 CSPl, 1 6 1 1 -1614, 110, 116.

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that this sum, which probably would have seemed astro­ nomical to the impoverished veteran, was only an entry in the books, payable annually but not actually paid, is suggested by the final and most pitiful description of his financial plight. On May 31, 1614, when Rich was seventy-one or two, the Privy Council at last went through the motions of coming to his rescue and wrote Lord Chichester, the lord deputy of Ireland: The bearers hereof, Capten Barnaby Rich and Capten Hugh Done, beinge auncient servitors in the warrs, aswell in that kingdome of Ireland as elsewhere (as is well knowne unto your lordship), have a longe tyme ben humble suitors here for some meanes of reliefe in their olde age, being other­ wise unable to followe any course of service for their liveli­ hood and maintenance; and although the condicion of these tymes is such as affordeth litle meanes of bounty or reward; yet the desert of these poore men is such^ Capten Rich haveing ben a comaunder in the service of the warrs ever since the seige of New Haven in the begining of the late Queene’s tyme . . . as wee have ben moved to recomend them both to your lordship’s good favor for some such reliefe, either out of the casualties of that kingdome or otherwise (as to your wisdome shall seme expedient), as these tymes may afford to any such well deserveing servitors.6 Although this communication may have wrung the Lord Deputy’s heart, there is no sign that it wrung anything from the Irish treasury for the needy veterans. e APC, 1613-1614, 453 .

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The Privy Council’s description of Rich in 1614 as unable to follow any other course of service for liveli­ hood and maintenance was, one suspects, not quite ac­ curate. As early as 1606, to be sure, he had reminded Cecil of his age and impotency, pronouncing himself "dim of sight and lame of limbs”; but he was not lame of hand or brain. Much of the intrepidity that Rich dis­ played when he lost his military position in Ireland in 1582, forthwith turned to writing, and in about a month had a book ready for the press survived in the Rich in his sixties and seventies. Books continued to pour from his pen— in 1606, 1609, 1610, 1612, 1613, 1614, 1616, 1617— and readers in 1609, 1612, and 1613 were glad­ dened by two works from Rich in each of those years. In addition to whatever he had from the printers and patrons of these outpourings, he may have earned a bit from certain confidential reports, which were not of course for general publication. Addressed to Cecil, Sir Julius Caesar, and James himself, these are all on an old and favorite topic with Rich: Ireland and the official and native abuses there. Adam Loftus, Rich’s watchful and vindictive old foe, died on April 5, 1605, presumably leaving the Irish coast clear for the return of the captain he had driven out in June, 1592. Yet Rich seems not to have seized, until about 1608, the opportunity to go back to Ireland, where he had begged in 1599 to be sent "in any able sort.” His Room e for a Gentleman, registered for publication Octo­ ber 3, 1608, was "collected and gathered for the true 119

Meridian of Dublin” according to its title page, was dedicated to Sir Thomas Ridgeway, treasurer in Ireland, and seems to have been written in Dublin. In November, 1608, though in London at the moment, Rich presented to Cecil, "but to the prince and him only,” a manuscript analysis of Irish affairs, embodying "those experiments which 40 years’ observation” had "taught him to know. ’7 Another of his confidential exposés of assorted cor­ ruptions in Ireland reached Cecil in 1610, and the sub­ stance of this was repeated in a third, entitled "Remem­ brances of the State of Ireland,” and sent to Sir Julius Caesar in August, 1612.8 Cecil having died on May 14, 1612, the "Remembrances” in August may have served to impress Caesar with Rich’s value as an intelligencer. The final confidential report, "The Anothomy of Ire­ land,” was addressed to James himself in 1615.9 In most of these Rich proceeds as if he were an informer acting with official permission, if not on official instructions, lay­ ing about him with bold strokes, sometimes sparing none from the highest to the lowest in the Anglo-Irish govern­ ment. If he was indeed officially employed, let us hope he was well rewarded for his informations by Cecil, Cae­ sar, and James. Of greatest interest to a biographer are those portions 7 CSPI, 1 6 0 8 -1 6 1 0 , 106. 8 Ibid., 551 f. For the “Remembrances,” ed. C. L. Falkiner, see Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, X X V I ( 1 9 0 6 ), 12 5 -4 2 . 9 For “The Anothomy,” ed. Hinton, see PM LA , LV ( 1 9 4 0 ) , 8 1 101.

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of the confidential reports which reveal that a dim-sight­ ed old gentleman could yet display a notable sharpness of spirit and pen. Rich’s frank characterization of the principal administrators of Ireland makes fascinating reading, as a few brief specimens will show. In the "Re­ membrances” of 1612 he paid his respects to his ancient enemy Thomas Jones, now Loftus’ successor as lord chan­ cellor, by observing that "it cannot be hydden hys toleratyng wyth popery when Dublyne itselfe . . . doth swarme wyth popysh prystes and . . . throughowt the wholl yeare ther be more masses in Dublyne then ther be sermons.” Sir Robert Newcomen, general purveyor and issuer of victuals in Ireland, had been so blatant about "abusynge the Quene” and about "so many colusyons” that Lord Burgh, the lord deputy in 1596 and 1597, had been on the point of hanging him; yet the culprit not only "well fethered hys neast” but "found meanes to gratyfy hys former crymes, & was very shortly after made knyght” and "at thys present houre . . . is one of the rychest Englyshe knyghts that is in all Irelande.” Sir William Par­ sons, the surveyor general, "so well surveyed for hymselfe, t hat . . . he hath gotten a greater cyrquet of landes . . . then all the surveyors that hath byne in Irelande for thes 40 yeares before hym.” The solicitor general, Sir Robert Jacob, married a cer­ tain notorious Moll Target, a "sailers wydowe of South­ ampton,” presently "found meanes (by the helpe of frendes) to becom . . . solycyter,” and "shortly after . . . 121

for hys wyves sake . . . got to be made knyght when he had neuer a foote of lande, neuer a house, nor so much as a bedde of hys owne to lye uppon.” And now "the wholl parquysytes of hys [predecessor’s] offyce amount­ ed not so much in one wholl yeare, as Syr Robert Jacob’s lusty wyf wyll play at a payre of cardes in a peece of a nyght.”10 Comments of this sort did little, of course, to render Rich’s declining years in Ireland peaceful. Even confi­ dential reports do not always remain strictly confidential. Rich intended his report of November, 1608, for the eyes of King James and Cecil only, though a scrivener who had made a neat copy of it and one "friend here in London . . . a gentleman of good understanding and of long experience in the affairs of Ireland” knew its con­ tents. Yet despite the author’s precautions "some of their Irish inquisitors here about the town,” having learned of the report, spread abroad the vicious rumor that Rich was slandering "the Lord Deputy himself by name,” "His Majesty’s Council in that realm,” and, indeed, the whole realm of Ireland. Naturally Rich was worried about the "disgrace and mischief” they would "practice” against him back in Dublin.11 Still he persisted in speak­ ing his mind, sometimes in print, with the result that his neighbors in Dublin persisted in regarding him as a 10 "Remembrances,” ed. Falkiner, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, X X V I ( 1 9 0 6 ), 130, 1 3 2 -3 4 . 11 CSPI, 1 60 8 -1 6 1 0 , 106 f.

122

Judas. "I am censured for writing of a Book [A Short Survey o f Ireland, 1609], to be a malicious enemy to Ireland,” he complained in 1610; and, again, in 1616 he had "incurred the displeasure of a great number . . . that doth taxe and torture me with their tongues.”12 What was worse, some Dubliners not only verbally taxed and tortured but overcharged him, so that he was moved to devote a paragraph in My Ladies Looking Glasse (1616) to "The extortion of Bakers and Brewers [in Dublin], pitious to be suffered.”13 It may be that Rich’s bread and ale came dearer in Dublin than that of other Englishmen who were less busy with their pens. Rich could not even count on a peaceful meal "at an honest Aldermans house at Dublyne.” There, at a dinner party, a woman "beeganne to picke quarrelles both at me and my booke [ A N ew Description], belying and slaundering both it and me,” so that in time "I was brought into a generall obloquie throughout the whol citie of Dublyne, but especially amongst the citizens wiues.”14 Even the sheriffs of Dublin conspired with the brew­ ers, bakers, and citizens’ wives to make Rich’s old age un­ comfortable. What a Dubliner should be taxed was up to the sheriffs to decide, and their decisions were, according 12 A N ew Description of Ireland ( 1 6 1 0 ) , sig. A 4; My Ladies Looking Glasse ( 1 6 1 6 ) , sig. A2. 13 Sig. D 3. 14 A T rue and a K inde Excuse . . . of That Booke . . . a N ew e Description of Irelande ( 1 6 1 2 ) , sig. C l .

123

to Rich, capricious and full of bias: "where they ceasse a Papist at sixe pence, they will aske a Protestant tenne shillings”; and "although I bee not a Freeman of Dublyn, yet. . . the two late Sheriffes . . . because I would not giue them tenne shillinges which they had imposed vpon m e . . . I know not why nor wherefore, vnlesse it were for writing a Booke against the Pope . . . verie kindly drew me out of mine owne house and carried me to prison, where they kept me forth-comming for one night.”15 Like a certain bard, a commentator on Ireland can, it seems, chant too often and too long. Although Rich was clearly without troops of friends in Dublin during his last years, he was far from friend­ less in London. There is impressive evidence that the King himself befriended the aged Captain, and to dis­ cover his concern for his needy subject is all the more gratifying because he had not always entertained a kindly regard for Rich. Rich’s most popular work, his Farewell toM ilitarieP rofession (1581, 1583, 1594, 1606), ends with a sprightly version of a Straparola tale about the devil who marries a mortal, deserts her, and in a devilish pique possesses the Duke of Malfi. The trouble with Rich’s adaptation, from James’s point of view before 1603, was that Rich substituted the King of Scotland for the Duke of Malfi. The royal reaction to this literary affront— "the K ing is not well pleased thereat”— found its way from Edinburgh to England in a diplomat’s re­ 15 A N ew Description, sig. L2.

124

port June 18, 1595.16 James’s complaint may have re­ sulted in the suppression of the offending story in the third edition of the Farewell, 1594; and in the fourth edition, 1606, some reviser, probably Rich himself, dis­ creetly replaced the King of Scotland with "our Grandseigniour the Turke” as the devil’s victim.17 After suffering who knows what apprehensions as a result of the literary indiscretion which had annoyed James in 1595, Rich lost no chance after 1603 to call his undying affection and loyalty to his monarch’s attention. In 1604 he plunged into the fiasco on the Isle of Wight simply to defend James’s honor— or so he maintained. In the same year he dedicated both The Fruites o f Long Experience and A Souldiers W ishe fo r Britons W elfare (T h e Fruites again, under a different title) to Prince Henry. With these volumes Rich succeeded in getting his foot in the royal door, and he consequently proceeded to shower James’s children with dedications— two more to Henry in 1606 and 1612 and one each to Prince Charles and Princess Elizabeth in 1613. Precisely when these attentions to the royal bairns be­ gan to tell on their sire no one can say, but the title pages of five of Rich’s works, beginning with A Catholicke Conference (1612) and ending with The Irish Hubbub ( 1617) , proclaim the pleasant news that Rich was "ser16 For more of the report and of the relationship between Rich and James see Cranfill, "Barnaby Rich and King James,” E LH , X V I ( 1 9 4 9 ) , 6 5 -7 5 . 17 Ibid., 6 9 -7 1 .

125

uant to the Kinges most excellent Maiestie.” In "The Anothomy of Ireland” (1615) Rich reminded his mas­ ter, "I am Inioyned by oathe (beynge your Matis sworne servant) ” to prepare such reports.18 What is more, some of these were actually honored by the sovereign’s perusal. Rich boasted that James had "pleased to peruse” A N ew Description o f Ireland ( 161 0) , and so had Prince Hen­ ry, the Earl of Salisbury, and "most of the Lords of his maiesties most honorable counsayle.”19 Who would not suffer any amount of obloquy from bakers, brewers, sheriffs, and citizens’ wives in Dublin to gain such an audience in London? It is agreeable to be able to report, in conclusion, that Rich’s diligence at last gained for him something more than the honor of being read in the very highest circles in England. On " J uty 4?” 1616, from Westminster there was issued a "Warrant to pay to Barnaby Rich, the eldest Captain of the Kingdom, 100/. as a free gift.”20 " I have preferred to be rich rather than to be called so,” the wist­ ful posy usually printed on the Captain’s title pages, had finally lost its pathos.21 Happily, he seems to have lived for more than a year to enjoy his good fortune. On December 22, 1617, Sir Oliver St. John, the lord deputy of Ireland, authorized a grant to one William Bourne 18 "T he Anothomy,” ed. Hinton, PM LA , LV ( 1 9 4 0 ) , 81. 19 A T ru e and a K inde Excuse ( 1 6 1 2 ) , sigs. B 4v- C l . 20 CSPD, 1611-1618, 378. 21 For the motto in its usual Latin form, see the frontispiece of this volume.

126

"of a pension of 12d. a day, being half of the pension granted to Capt. Barnaby Riche and Owen ap Hughe, the former being dead.” The payments to Bourne were to be retroactive from November 10,1617, evidently the date of Rich’s death.22 22 CSPI, 1 6 1 5 -1 6 2 5 , 174.

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Index of Names and Titles

Acts of the Privy Council, 17 n., 18 n., 43 n., 53 n., 69 n., 72, 73 n., 77 n., 90 n., 92 n., 94 n., 109 n., 118 n. Adventures of Brusanus, 14 n., 15 n., 38, 70, 71 n., 74, 89 Alarum against Usurers, 10 Alba (o r A lva), Fernando A l­ varez de Toledo, Duke of, 24 Aldriche, Captain and Mrs. George, 98 f. Allarme to Englande, 5, 10, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29, 91 f. Anders, Henry R. D., 8 n. Anne of Denmark, Queen of James I, 9, 106 "Anothomy of Ireland,” 14, 120,

126

Aylmer, Gerrot, 56 Bagford, John, 13 n. Bagwell, Richard, 27 n., 29 n., 32 n., 36 n. Bannerman, W illiam Bruce, 38 n. Bannynge (M rs. John Lyons’ kinsman), 13 n., 93 n., 95, 100 Barker, Christopher, 68 n. Baskervill, Charles Read, 7 n., 8 n. Bavand, Richard, 32 Bingham, Sir Richard, 35, 4 4 -4 7 Black Bark (sh ip ), 26 f., 37 Black, John Bennett, 78 n. Borrowe, Richard, 100

"Apolonius and Siila,” 3 n.

Bourne, W illiam , 126 f.

Archaeologia, 37 n.

Brewer, John Sherren, 52 n.

Aston, Sir Edward, 9, 38 Aston, Joyce, 9, 38 Aston ("Easton ” ) , Katheryn (later Mrs. Barnaby R ich ). See Rich, Katheryn Easton Aston, Sir W alter, 38

Atlantic Monthly, 3 n. Audley, Lord. See Tuchet

Brooke, Arthur, 3 Browne, Roberte, 77 Bruce, Dorothy Hart, 3 n. Bryan, John, 19 Bryskett, Lodowick, 10

129

Charles, Prince, later King Charles I, 125 Cheshire Sheaf, 87 f. n. Chichester, Sir Arthur, Baron Chichester of Belfast, Lord Deputy of Ireland, 9, 118, 122

Buckhurst, Lord. See Sackville Bullen, W illiam, 52 n. Burgh, Thomas, fifth Baron Burgh, 121 Burghley, Lord. See Cecil (W il­ liam)

Christie, James, 13 n. Churchyard, Thomas, 4, 24 f.

Burke, Sir John Bernard, 38 n. Caesar, Sir Julius, 119 f.

10 f.,

Clarke, Francis, 19

Calendar of State Papers, D o­ mestic, 17 n., 74 n., 89 n., I l l n.

Clowes, Sir W illiam Laird, 19 n. Coates, Alexander, 79, 8 1 -8 9 Cole, Gregory, 76 f.

Calendar of State Papers, Fo r­ eign, 17 n., 19 n., 36 n.

Collier, John Payne, 3 n., 10 n., 11 n., 13 n., 36 f., 88, 89 n.

Calettdar of State Papers, Ire­ land, 26 n., 29 f. nn., 32 n., 34 f. nn., 41 f. nn., 44, 4 6 49 nn., 52 f. nn., 55 flf. nn., 59 n., 61 n., 64, 68 n., 77 n., 89 n., 91 n., 95 n., 116 f. nn., 120 n., 122 n., 126 f. nn.

Collins, Arthur, 47 n. Colman, Richard, 44 Colt, Maximilian, 87 Cooke, Richard, 1 9 -2 3 , 95 Cooke, Stansfield, 20 f., 25 Cotton, Captain, 24

Calendar of the P atent. . . Rolls, Ireland, 39 n. Candish. See Cavendish

Cowley (son-in-law of bishop Loftu s), 55

Carew, Sir George, Baron Carew of Clopton, Earl of Totnes, 9, 52 n.

Cranfill, Thomas Mabry, 7 n., 9 n., 10 n., 26 n., 33 n., 102 n., 125 n.

Catholic Conference, 125

Cunliffe, John W illiam, 11 n. Cunningham, Peter, 9 n.

Cavendish ("Candish” ) , Henry, 24 Cecil, Sir Robert, first Earl of Salisbury and first Viscount Cranborne, 9, 13 n., 56 n., 68, 93, 95, 102, 1 0 9 -1 4 , 116, 119 f., 122, 126 Cecil, W illiam , Baron Burgh­ ley, 17 n., 42, 47 n., 49, 56, 59 f ., 63

Arch­

Darcy ("D ercy ” ) , Captain, 16 ff., 27 Darcy, Frances Riche, Lady, 27 Darcy ("D ercy ” ) , John, second Baron Darcy of Chiche, Essex, 16, 27 Dekker, Thomas, 6 f. Dennis (clien t), 97 f., 103 n.

130

Farewell. See Riche H is Fare­ well to Militarie Profession

Dennis, Thomas, 103 f., 106 if., Ill f., 115 Dercy. See Darcy Description of Ireland, 11 n. Desmond, Earl of. See Fitzger­ ald (G erald) Desmond, Sir John of, 28, 31 Desmond Rebellion, 28, 31 Devereux, W alter, first Earl of Essex, second Viscount Here­ ford, 27, 37 Dillon, Sir Robert, 44, 46

Faultes, Faults, and N othing Else, 4 n., 15 n., 39 n. Fitzgerald, Gerald, fifteenth Earl of Desmond, 28, 31 Fitzgerald, Gerald, eleventh Earl of Kildare, 30, 48, 70 Fitzgerald, James Fitzmaurice ("F itz Morice” ) , 29 Fitzwilliam, Sir William, 41 ff., 44, 46, 52, 69, 89 Fleetwood, W illiam , 92, 94 Fortescue, Sir John, 72 f., 78 Fortescue, Sir John W illiam, 18 n.

Done, Captain Hugh, 118 Drayton, Michael, 38 Drury, Sir William, 5 n., 29 f., 55 Dudley, Ambrose, Earl of W ar­ wick, 8, 16, 17 n., 18 f. Easton. See Rich, Katheryn Eas­ ton

Froude, James Anthony, 18 n. Fruites of Long Experience, 125 Fuller, Thomas, 54

Eccles, Mark, 100 n. Edwardes, John, 41 n. Elizabeth, Princess, later Queen o f Bohemia, 125

Gardener, Sir Robert, 44 f., 47, 90 Gascoigne, George, 11, 24 f.

Elizabeth, Queen, 4, 6, 8 f., 16 n., 18, 30 f , 37, 39, 45, 49 ff., 54, 56, 58 f., 62, 67 ff., 87, 89 f., 93, 115 f., 121 English Literary History, Jo u r­ nal of, 9 n., 102 n., 125 n.

Glasse, John, 100

"Epitaph vpon the death of syr W illiam Drury,” 29

Gibbs, Vicary, 16 n., 36 n. Goodman, Christopher, 32 f. Googe, Barnaby, 11 Gordon, Sir Robert, 7, 28 Gosnold, Captain Robert, 103— 14 Gosson, Stephen, 10 Grandison, John

Essex, Earl of. See Devereux Essex Rebellion, 93

Viscount.

See

St.

Greene, Robert, 71

Eustace, John, 50 Falkiner, Caesar Litton, 120 n., 122 n.

Greenes Newes, 70, 71, 73 if-, 76 n., 77 f., 89 Grenville, Sir Richard, 36 f.

131

Grey ("G ray” ) , Arthur, four­ teenth Baron Grey de W ilton, 30 if., 47, 50 Groombridge, Margaret J., 79 n., 82 n. Grosart, Alexander Balloch, 6 n. Gynne (plaintiff), 20

Hyegate, Captain, 16 Irish Hubbub, 5 n., 6, 11 n., 28, 125 Irving, David, 8 n. Jacob, Moll Target, Lady, 121 f. Jacob, Sir Robert, 121 f.

Harleian Society, 14 n., 38 n. Harpole, Robert, 47

James I, King, 4, 7 ff., 1 0 4 -1 0 , 113 f., 116, 119 f., 122, 124 if.

Hart, Andrew, 5 n. Harvey, Gabriel, 6

Jenkinson, W ilberforce, 100 n.

Hatton, Sir Christopher, 8 f., 30, 70 Hennessy, George, 100 n. Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, 125 f. Heywood, Thomas, 7 Hinton, Edward Martin, 10 n., 14 n., 38 n., 41 n., 56 n., 60 n., 62 n., 75, 76 n., 102 n., 109, 120 n., 126 n. Historical Manuscripts Com­ mission Reports, 13 n., 47 n., 79 n., 92 f. nn., 102 n., 117 n. Hollis, Jane, 1 0 3 -1 0 5 , 107 Hollis, John, 103 f., l l l f . Honestie of This A ge, 5, 9 n., 78 Hotson, Leslie, 79 n. How a Man May Chuse a Good W ife, 1 Hughe, Owen ap, 127 Humphey, John, 41 n. Hunter, Captain Christopher, 24 Huntington Library Quarterly, 10 n., 33 n.

Jones, D r. John, 6 n. Jones, Thomas, Bishop of Meath, later Archbishop of Dublin and Lord Chancellor of Ireland, 41 f., 44 if., 48 f., 5 1 -5 4 , 60 if., 69, 72, 76, 78,

,

89 121

Journal of English and G er­ manic Philology, 4 n., 6 n. Journal of the Architectural . . . and Historic Society . . . of Chester, 87 n. Kelly (a surgeon), 64 Kennye, Nicholas, 50 Kildare, Earl of. See Fitzgerald (G erald) Lambert (ob ligor), 22 Lea, Daniel, 100 f . Lea, Israel, 100 f. Lea, Richard, 13 n., 22, 93 n., 9 5 -1 0 1 , 103 n. Lea, Mrs. Richard, 96 if. Lee, Sir Sidney, 14

132

Legge, Robert, 44 f., 4 7 -5 4 , 5 8 61 Levens, Captain Christopher, 13 n., 92 ff., 1 0 3 -1 3 , 115 Lloyd, David, 79, 8 1 -8 7 Lloyd, Lodowick, 10 Lodge, Thomas, 10 Lofield, Humfrey, 97 Loftus, Adam, Archbishop of Armagh and Dublin, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, 41 f., 44 f., 4 7 -6 6 , 68 f., 72, 74 ff., 78, 81 n., 85, 89 f., 119, 121 Loftus, Edward, 76 Love (defendant), 13 n., 93 n. Lucy, Sir Thomas, 38 Lupton, Thomas, 10 Lyons, John, 9 6 -9 9 , 103 n. Lyons, Mrs. John, 96 f., 100 McKerrow, Ronald Brunlees, 7 n., 71 n. Malby, Sir Nicholas, 27 ff., 34 n., 35 Marcelline, George, 5 Marlowe, Christopher, 12 Martiall Conference, 13 Masterson, Thomas, 47 Middlesex County Sessions Roll, 100 n. Middleton, Sir Thomas, 9 M odern Language Notes', 8 n. Modern Language Review, 94 n. Morrin, James, 39 n., 76 n. Morris, Rupert Hugh, 87 Motley, John Lathrop, 26 n. Munday, Anthony, 7

My Ladies Looking Glasse, 123 Nashe, Thomas, 6, 11 Newcomen, Sir Robert, 121 N ew Description of Ireland, 5, 7, 35, 123 f., 126 N ew Irish Prognostication, 5 f. North, Sir Thomas, 10, 32, 93 Notes and Queries, 14 n. Nuttall, P. Austin, 54 n. O ’Dogherty, Sir John, 51 O ’Flanagan, James Roderick, 54 n. Orange, Prince of. See W illiam Orton, Elizabeth, 32 f., 41 n. Page, W illiam, 19 n. Paradise of Dainty Devices, 5, 29 n. Parkyns, Henry, 50 Parr, Thomas, 4 Parrot, Sir John. See Perrot Parsons, Sir William, 121 Path-way to Military Practise, 6 n , 15, 16 n., 25 f., 39, 92 Pelham, Sir W illiam, 30 Percy Society, 9 n. Perrot ("P arro t” ) , Sir John, 35 f., 41 n., 44 Persivall, James, 7 9 -8 3 , 86 f. Philotus, 8 Phulford, Captain, 36 Pipno (i.e., Pypho, q .v .), Rob­ ert, 47 Popham, Sir John ("L o rd Chief Justice in London” ) , 84

133

Prouty, Charles Tyler, 25 n. Public Record Office documents, 13 n., 19 n., 30 n., 35 n., 93 n., 95 n., 101 n. Public Records, Ireland, Report, 39 n. Publications of the M odern Language Association, 7 n., 14 n., 120 n., 126 n. Pypho, Robert, 34, 44 f., 47 f., 53, 60 Radcliffe, Frances Sidney, Count­ ess of Sussex, 76 R ale (i)g h , Sir W alter, 36 f. Ratcliffe, John, 13 n. Rich, Alice Bettes (M rs. Thomas R ich), 14 n. Rich, Katheryn Easton (M rs. Barnaby R ich), 38 ff., 1 0 3 107, 109 f., 115 Rich, Sir Richard, first Baron Rich, 14 n. Rich, Thomas, 14 n. Richardson, Thomas, 95 ff. Riche H is Farewell to Militarie Profession, 3 n., 5, 7 f., 10, 11 n., 23, 29, 124 £. Riche of Essex, Baron, 26 f., 37 Ridgeway, Cicely Macwilliam, Countess of Londonderry, 9 Ridgeway, Sir Thomas, first Earl of Londonderry, 9, 120 Right Exelent and Pleasaunt Dialogue, 15 n., 16 n., 17 n., 28 f. Roberts, Jack, 94 Rollins, 29 n.

Hyder

Edward,

5 n.,

Roome for a Gentleman, 14 n., 119 f. Round, John Horace, 19 n. Royal Irish Academy Proceed­ ings, 120 n., 122 n. Rylands, W illiam Harry, 14 n. Sackville, Thomas, first Earl of Dorset and Baron Buckhurst, 79, 82, 84 ff. St. John, Joan Roydon, Vis­ countess Grandison, 8 St. John, Sir Oliver, first V is­ count Grandison and Baron Tregoz, 8, 126 Salisbury, Lord. See Cecil (Rob­ ert) "Sappho Duke of Mantona,” 7 n. Shakespeare Society, 10 n. Shakespeare, W illiam , 3 ff., 7, 12, 38 Shaw, W illiam Arthur, 73 n. Shirely, James, 7, 8 n., 12 Short Survey of Ireland, 123 Sidney, Sir Henry, 27 f., 47 Souldiers W ishe for Britons W elfare, 125 Southampton, Earl of. See Wriothesley Spenser, Edmund, 10, 12 Stanyhurst, Richard, 11 Starnes, D eW itt Talmage, 7 n. Steele, Robert, 68 n., 116 n. Straunge and W onderfull A d ­ ventures of D on Simonides, 10 Strype, John, 47 n., 61 n.

134

Studies in Philology, 3 n., 7 n., 26 n. Sussex, Countess of. See Radcliffe (Frances)

Vaughan, Captain Cuthbert, 17

Swift, Jonathan, 54

W algrave, W illiam, 22

Virgil, 11 V o x Militis, 5

W allop, Sir Henry, 30 n., 35, 55 Texas, University of, Studies in English, 7 n. Thornton (a merchant), 65 Toledo, Frederico de, Don, 24 f. Trollope, Andrew, 54, 57 n. T rue and a Kinde Excuse of . . . a Netve Description of Irelande, 123 n., 126 n. T rue Discourse Historicall of the Succeeding Gouernours, 11 n., 24 T ru e Report of a Late Practise, 32 ff., 41 n. Tuchet, George, eleventh Baron Audley, first Earl of Castlehaven, 36 Tugend-und U ebesstreit, 8

W alshe, Nicholas, 62 ff. Walshe, Piers, 62

Tukes, Thomas, 6 n.

Williams, Sir Roger, 94

Turner, Captain, 24 f.

Wilson, Frank Perry, 94 n.

"Tw o Brethern and Their W ives,” 3 n. Ur-Hamlet, 3 Ussher (son-in-law of Arch­ bishop Loftu s), 55

Wingfield, Captain Thomas Ma­ ria, 32 Worseley, Bowyer, 103 ff., 110— 13 Wriothesley, Henry, third Earl of Southampton, 112

Vaughan, Charles Edwyn, 7 n.

Zouche, Colonel John, 31

Walsingham, Sir Francis, 9, 30, 34 f., 42, 4 4 -4 8 , 54 f., 69 f. Warburton, Peter, 83, 87 f. n. W arren (son-in-law of Arch­ bishop L oftus), 55 Warwick, Earl of. See Dudley Weakest Goeth to the Wall, 7 Webb, Henry J., 4 n., 6 n. Webster, John, 7, 12 Welply, W . H., 14 n. W estarrey (plaintiff), 101 n. W hite, Sir Nicholas, 44 W illiam of Orange-Nassau (W illiam the Silent), 24 f. Williams, Franklin B., Jr., 30 n.

135