To the Queen herself Lyly wrote:
'I was entertayned your Maiesties servant by your owne gratious ffavour, stranghthened with condicions, that I should ayme all my courses att the Revells (I dare not saye, with a promise, butt a hopeffull Item, of the Reversion); ffor the which, theis tenn yeares, I haue attended, with an vnwearyed patience, and I knowe not whatt crabb tooke mee ffor an oyster, that, in the middest of the svnnshine of your gratious aspect, hath thrust a stone betwene the shelles, to eate mee alyve, that onely lyve on dead hopes.'
The date of this petition is probably 1598, since a second letter to Cecil, dated 9 September 1598, specifies the same period of 'ten yeres', during which Lyly had had 'nothing applied to my wantes but promises'. On 27 February 1601, a third letter to Cecil, asking for his aid in obtaining a grant out of property forfeited after the Essex conspiracy, suggests that 'after 13 yeres servic and suit for the Revells, I may turne all my forces & frends to feed on the Rebells'. This was written in connexion with a second petition to the Queen, in which occurs the following passage:
'It pleased your Maiestie to except against Tentes and Toyles. I wishe, that ffor Tentes I might putt in Tenementes: soe should I bee eased with some Toyles; some landes, some goodes, ffynes, or fforffeytures, that should ffall, by the just ffall of these most ffalce Traytours, that seeinge nothinge will come by the Revells, I may praye vppon Rebells. Thirteen yeares, your Highnes Servant, butt yett nothinge. . . .'[1]
The general drift of these documents is fairly clear. It would seem that Lyly received promises of advancement from Elizabeth about 1585, probably as a result of the success of his plays; that in 1588 he was 'entertained the queen's servant', with a more or less authorized expectation of place in the Revels; that in 1597 his claims were set aside in favour of Buck; and that, after unavailing protests, he made the best of the situation and attempted to obtain what compensation he could for his disappointment. I find some confirmation of the view that about 1588 Lyly came to be regarded, possibly on account of the aid rendered by his pen to the bishops against Martin Marprelate, as having some right of succession to a place at Court, in an allusion of Gabriel Harvey, who in his Advertisement for Papp-Hatchett, dated 5 November 1589, but not published until it was included in his Pierce's
- ↑ The letters are printed in full in Bond, Lyly, i. 64, 68, 70, 378, 392, 395. A contemporary note by Sir Stephen Powle to a copy of the 1601 appeal says, 'He was a suter to be Mr. of the Reuelles and tentes and Toyles, but eauer crossed'.
