Charles Blount (1563-1606)
As a young courtier, he wounded the Earl of Essex in a duel over an insult-and won his respect. Later, he won the love of Essex’s sister, the beautiful Lady Penelope Rich, even though she was married. They eventually wed in 1605 after she scandalized society by being divorced. Like all good romantic heroes, Blount was handsome, dark-haired, strong, silent, and happiest on the battlefield. He became Lord Mountjoy on the death of his brother in 1594, and was acclaimed for his decisive victories in Ireland. King James I honored him with the title Earl of Devonshire. His early death has been attributed to heavy smoking.
Christopher Blount (1555-1601)
A distant relative of Charles Blount (see above), Blount began and ended his life as a Catholic, though in his middle years he seemed to turn against Catholicism and may have worked for the spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham to bring about the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. He served the Earl of Leicester and, on the Earl’s death, married his wealthy and beautiful widow, Lettice Knollys, who was twelve years his senior. One claim is that their affair began before Leicester’s death-and that she poisoned her husband to leave her free to wed Blount. He became stepfather to the Earl of Essex, whom he vowed to serve “until after I be dead.” In 1601 he played a crucial role in Essex’s abortive coup and, like him, was beheaded.
Arthur Gorges (1550s-1625)
A close friend and cousin of Sir Walter Ralegh, he was a poet, courtier, and sea captain. He was bereft when his beloved young wife, Douglas Howard, died, aged eighteen, in 1590. His grief inspired the 1591 elegy Daphnaida by Edmund Spenser. The following year, he visited his kinsman Ralegh in the Tower (he had been imprisoned for marrying Bess Throckmorton without the Queen’s permission) and was injured in an altercation between Sir Walter and the gaoler, causing him to write that he wished both their heads had been broken. Ralegh, in his will, left him his “best rapier and dagger.” Gorges was often short of money and probably died of the plague.
Robert Greene (1558-1592)
Greene was a prolific playwright and writer of courtly romances, as famous in his day as William Shakespeare, whom he sneered at as an “upstart crow” in his notorious tract Greenes Groats-worth of Wit. Born in Norwich, he went to Cambridge and prided himself on being one of the “university wits,” whereas Will Shakespeare did not attend university. Yet Greene was a mass of contradictions, for he was also deeply attracted to the seedy side of life: he left his wife at home in Norfolk and lived in London with the whore Em Ball, sister to the infamous master criminal Cutting Ball. He wrote entertaining pamphlets detailing the language and habits of London’s underworld, and died in poverty, supposedly demanding more wine after eating a dodgy dish of pickled herrings.
Manteo and Wanchese (dates unknown)
Algonquian Indians brought to England-apparently voluntarily-by the initial Ralegh-sponsored foray into the New World, in 1584. They lived with Ralegh at Durham House and were presented to Elizabeth (swapping their loincloths for taffeta). Their extraordinary personalities and speedy learning of English helped persuade the Queen to back Ralegh’s colonization plans. They returned to America with the short-lived colony of 1585. Wanchese rejoined his tribe, but Manteo stayed with the settlers and went back to England with them the following year. He then returned to Roanoke with the “lost colony” expedition of 1587. Manteo, from the friendly Croatoan tribe, was baptized a Christian, but Wanchese, from the more hostile Roanoke tribe, may have been in the raiding party that murdered the settler George Howe. The ultimate fate of both Indians is unknown.
Gelli Meyrick (1556-1601)
A bishop’s son from Wales, his family was closely associated with the Essex clan (Meyrick’s uncle Edmund was chaplain to both the Earl and his father). In 1579, Meyrick joined Essex, who was then a student, and looked after his horses. Soon his role had grown and he was organizing Essex’s estates and finances. Meyrick became increasingly influential. He was unpopular with tenants in Wales for his tough dealings, but Essex always supported him. He, in turn, backed Essex to the hilt and died for it, being accused of treason for his part in the rebellion of 1601. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn. There was said to be much rejoicing in the valleys of South Wales.
Sir John Perrot (1528-1592)
A large, powerful man, he was generally held to be the illegitimate son of Henry VIII. Certainly he was quick to anger like Henry. A gifted linguist and a lifelong Protestant, he went to the royal court at eighteen, but soon became known as a brawler. There was no doubting his courage-he once saved King Henri II of France from a wild boar. His bad habits dogged him and he lost all his money through his passion for the tilt “and other toys I am ashamed to tell.” He spent various terms in prison, fought battles at sea, and served with the English army in Ireland, where he did well. But he made enemies, and with the death of his main protector, Walsingham, he was vulnerable. In 1592 he was brought to trial for treason, having called Elizabeth “a base bastard pissing kitchen woman.” He did not deny saying the words and was condemned to death, but died in the Tower while awaiting execution.
William Segar (1564-1633)
A fine portrait painter, who took himself rather too seriously as an officer of the College of Arms. He was first employed as a scrivener by the courtier Sir Thomas Heneage, and soon became a herald. His expertise in the finer points of noble family trees did not, however, hamper his other career as a portraitist. He was patronized by the Earl of Essex and was also commissioned to do pictures of the Earl of Leicester and Queen Elizabeth. Under King James I, he was the victim of a heraldic hoax by a rival, who tricked him into awarding a coat of arms to the London hangman Gregory Brandon (who enjoyed the joke and ever after styled himself “esquire”). King James was not amused-and briefly jailed both Segar and the hoaxer, saying he hoped to make Segar more wise and the trickster more honest.
John Watts (1550-1616)
A larger-than-life merchant and pirate who typified the go-getting adventurousness of the Elizabethan age. Arriving in London as a teenager, he married the daughter of a rich merchant and never looked back. He sent wave after wave of privateers to the Caribbean to prey on Spanish-and neutral-shipping, and became exceedingly wealthy. He took his own ships to fight the Armada and was involved in some of the fiercest exchanges around Calais. Later he became an alderman, a governor of the East India Company, and Lord Mayor of London, and was knighted by King James I. One Spanish envoy said he was “the greatest pirate that has ever been in this kingdom.”
Roger Williams (1539-1595)
One of the foremost military men of Elizabeth’s reign, he first went to war aged seventeen and made his name in the Low Countries by fighting bravely in single combat against a Spanish champion. Neither man was hurt and they ended up having a drink together. Williams soon became the most trusted lieutenant of Sir John Norris, Elizabeth’s top general, but later the two men became rivals. After fighting all over Europe and writing important military books (including A Brief Discourse of War), Williams was drawn to Essex and called him “my great prince.” His main stumbling block to high office was that Elizabeth did not like him and once dismissed him from her presence, telling him “begone, thy boots stink.” Williams died of a fever.
Lexicon
Language in the sixteenth century was rich, poetic-and coarse. Here are a few of the many words I have gleaned over the years. (For a fuller lexicon, visit www.roryclements.com.)
alderliefest: most dear
all amort: dejected, miserable
apple squire: pimp, a harlot’s servant
argosy: large merchant ship
arquebus, arquebusier, hagbut, hackbut: matchlock weapon, muzzle-loading. The trigger brings the end of a slow-burning match into contact with the gunpowder that discharges the ball.
arras: tapestry or hanging of rich fabric with woven figures and scenes
attaint: to stain, disgrace, condemn; lose standing and property
auto-da-fé: execution of se
ntence of the Spanish Inquisition, often including a parade and sometimes including burnings of heretics
backed: dead
ban-dog: ferocious dog kept tied up
bark: small ship with standard rigging and build
bastardly gullion: bastard’s bastard
baudekin: brocade of gold thread and silk (the richest cloth)
beast: Antichrist (Puritan view of Pope and Roman Catholic priests)
bees, a head full of: full of crazy notions
bellman: watchman, town crier
belly-cheat: slang term for an apron
Bess o’Bedlam: madwoman
black book: prison register
blackjack: leather beer jug sealed with tar on the outside
bluecoat: serving-man
bodies (a pair of): bodice
brabble: quarrel, wrangle, noisy altercation
breechclout: cloth worn by American Indians about their waist
bridale: wedding feast
broadcloth: fine, wide, black plaincloth (such as a Puritan might wear)
bruit: to spread by rumor
buckler: small round shield
buttery: larder, service room for ale and general food stores
caliver: light musket fired without a rest
callet: whore or lewd woman
canary: light, sweet wine from the Canary Islands
careen: to turn a ship on its side to scrape its hull of weed and barnacles, and caulk
carrack: large merchant ship that could be converted into a warship. Three-master, square-rigged with high castles, fore and stern.
catchpole: arresting officer, a sheriff’s sergeant
churl: ill-bred, surly, base fellow; farmworker
coif: a lawn or silk cap
coining: forging money
coney, cony: a dupe
copesmate: comrade
coter: author, person responsible for a work
couch a hogshead: to lie down to sleep
cousin, cozen, cozenage, cozener: to dupe or cheat
cresset: iron basket (usually on top of a pole) in which pitch or oil is burned for light
crossbiter, crossbiting: swindler, swindling
culverin: long-range cannon with bore of about five inches, firing shot of seventeen to twenty pounds
cunning man: a sort of local detective; someone possessing keen intelligence or magical knowledge
daub: mud for building
dell: young vagrant girl, a wench
doddypoll: fool
dogswain: sort of makeshift covers or bedding
doublet: close-fitting jacket, with or without sleeves
doxy: loose woman, a vagrant’s wench
drab: low, sluttish woman, a whore
drink-penny: tip, gratuity
drolleries: comic entertainment of a fantastical kind
ducat: Spanish gold coin, eighth of an ounce. A silver ducat was worth five shillings six pence; a gold ducat, seven shillings.
electuary: medicine, a medicinal conserve or paste mixed with honey or syrup
Essex’s cheap knights: those he knighted after failed sorties such as Azores
factor: collecting agent
fain: to be inclined, compelled
fairy, faerie: spirit, often evil
fall in: to copulate
figure caster: astrologer
Flota: Spanish treasure fleet from the New World
flowers: menstruation, period
foreign officer: parish official charged with seeking out vagrants
foreparts: stomachers, ornamental clothing for women
frantic: insane
freebooter: plunderer
French hood: fashionable hood for women
French marbles, pox, crown, welcome: venereal disease
frenzy: madness
gage of booze: quart of ale
gamekeeper: keeper of whores
garnish: bribe, especially in prison
gentry cove: upper-class man
gentry mort: upper-class woman
gibbet: gallows, especially one where the dead criminal was left to rot
glaziers: eyes
gong: a privy or its contents
gong farmers, night-soil men: sewage collectors
gossip: friend, especially female, perhaps godparent
greased priest: Catholic priest (anointed with oil)
groat: coin worth four pence
guarded: trimmed with lace or braid, as in “guarded coat”
hair o’ the same wolf: hair of the dog-a hangover cure
halberd, halberdier: long-staffed weapon with a point, axe on one side and billhook on the other
halek: astrologer and physician Simon Forman’s secret word for copulation
hand-fasting: betrothal, solemnizing of wedding vows
headborough: parish officer, petty constable
headsman: executioner (with axe)
hedge-priest: itinerant preacher
hewing and punching: slashing the neck followed by a stab in the belly
hogshead: large cask containing 52.5 gallons
hole: worst prison cell
hornbook: board with letters or prayers with thin, transparent horn covering
hospitaller: man in charge of admissions and discharges from hospital and of seeing that funds and supplies were accounted for and that valuables brought in by patients were safeguarded
instrument: male member
intelligencer: spy
intrigant: one who intrigues
jakes, jaques, house of easement: privy, toilet
jerkin: close-fitting jacket, often leather
jet: to strut about, swagger
jetty: protruding story of house
ken: house, especially one where villains lodge or meet
kennel: surface street gutter
kern: Irish warrior, foot soldier, one of the poorer class of the Irish
kersey: worsted cloth, coarse and narrow, woven from long wool and usually ribbed
kine: cattle
king pest: the plague
kirtle: outer petticoat or skirt; the garment under the mantle
knell: bell-tolling to mark a death
languishing sickness: depression or any illness where energy is lost
lawn: a fine linen, resembling cambric
lewd: immoral and worthless
light-heeled: wanton, loose
link: torch made of tow and pitch (or wax and tallow), carried in the street at night
linsey-woolsey: thin flax-wool material, usually of inferior quality, or a dress made of the material
maling cord: rope for tying packs onto horses
malkin: a kitchen slut or an effeminate man
manchet: high-quality wheaten bread flour or a small round loaf of the same
mark: monetary unit-two-thirds of a pound
maund: to beg
maunderer: professional beggar
meet: suitable, appropriate
mercer: dealer in textiles, especially expensive ones
miasma: foul vapors, unwholesome air carrying disease
mistress of the game: prostitute, brothel madam
mittimus: letter from a justice of the peace or other authorized official committing a person into custody (an arrest warrant)
mixen, midden: dunghill
mooncalf: born fool, simpleton
mortbell: funeral bell
motion-man: puppet-master
murrain: plague
murrey: dark, blood red
musket: long-barreled weapon, fired using a stand and capable of penetrating armor. A heavier version of the arquebus, using same matchlock principle.
Mussulman: Muslim
netherstocks: stockings, tights, hose
occupy: euphemism for copulate
ordinary: eating house, pub
ostler: person who attends horses at an inn
pack-saddle: saddle for carrying goods
palfrey: lady’s horse
palliasse: straw mattress
pantoufles: slippers
petronel: heavy pistol carried in the belt, used especially by cavalry
philtrous powder, philter: love potion or charm
pike, pikestaff: long-handled weapon with a sharp point
pikeman: man who carries a pike
pizzle: male member
platter: flat dish of pewter or wood
poniard: small, slim dagger
postern: back door or gate; small private door-distinct from the main entrance
powder: gunpowder
powder corns: grains of gunpowder
prigger of prancers: horse thief
projector: agent provocateur
puckrel: witch’s familiar spirit; imp
pursuivant: state officer with power to enforce warrants
pynner: coif with two long strips on either side for fastening (worn by women of quality)
quean: slut, whore
quent merchant: pimp
reiver: plunderer from across the border. From reave-to rob (archaic Scots).
revenger: one who takes vengeance
rich-guarded: richly embroidered
roarer: one who swears a lot; a loudmouth, bully, roisterer
ruffler: sturdy beggar or rogue claiming to be an ex-soldier
runagate: vagabond, fugitive, renegade
rutter: navigators’ chart showing prominent coastal features; or a swindler
scarlet whore of Babylon: Roman Catholic church (as seen by Protestants)
sconce: (1) small fortress; (2) lantern or candlestick with screen to keep from wind; (3) a bracket candlestick fixed to the wall
scryer: crystal-ball gazer, fortune-teller
scutes: small fishing boats
searcher, Searcher of the Dead: pathologist (person appointed to view dead bodies and to make report upon the cause of death)
seminary: Catholic priest from one of the European seminaries
smock: (1) shift or under-petticoat; (2) wench, derogatory term for a woman
snaphaunce: early flintlock weapon from Germany
snout-fair: handsome
solar: upper room with large window to let in sunlight
sotweed: tobacco-worth its weight in silver, says the seventeenth-century historian John Aubrey
souse: pickled pork, especially ears and trotters
sovereign: gold coin of varying values up to thirty shillings