the pageants.[1] George Ferebe's shepherd's song, as the Queen had crossed the Wansdyke at Bishop's Cannings, two months before, had struck a more up-to-date note.
In the university cities, municipal eloquence was redoubled by that of public orators and professors. The sovereign was expected to attend sermons and the academic exercise of disputations, and perhaps to wind up the latter with a Latin speech. The spectacles generally took the form of regular plays in Latin and occasionally in English. As the academic drama lies rather aside from the main purpose of this book, I confine myself to a brief chronicle. Elizabeth's first and only visit to Cambridge was from 5 to 10 August 1564.[2] The plays took place in the chapel of King's College, since the hall had been found unsuitable, and the two provided by the University were directed by Dr. Roger Kelke, the Master of Magdalene, with the aid of five others, one of whom was Thomas Legge of Trinity, himself a dramatist. On Sunday, 6 August, the Aulularia of Plautus was given by actors selected from colleges other than King's. Courtiers ignorant of Latin were wearied, but Elizabeth sat through the three hours' performance without sign of fatigue. On 7 August came Dido, a Latin tragedy by Edward Halliwell, formerly Fellow of King's, and on 8 August Ezechias, an English comedy by Nicholas Udall, who was an Oxford man. Both these plays were performed by King's men and both are lost. Elizabeth's patience was now exhausted, and she gave some disappointment by declining to hear a Latin translation of the Ajax Flagellifer of Sophocles, which men of various colleges had been appointed to give on 9 August. A contemporary letter from the Spanish ambassador gives an account of a singular epilogue to the royal visit. On 10 August Elizabeth had made her farewells, picking out Thomas Preston of King's for special favour on account of his performances both in the disputation and as an actor in Dido, and had reached the next stage in her progress, Sir Henry Cromwell's at Hinchinbrook.
- ↑ Nichols, ii. 673; V. P. xiii. 36; Hist. MSS. i. 107.
- ↑ There are four narratives: (a) MS. by Matthew Stokys, the University Registrary, printed by Nichols, Eliz. i. 151, and from a transcript in Harl. MS. 7037 (Baker MS. 10) and with a wrong ascription to N. Robinson, by Peck, Desiderata Curiosa, ii. 259; (b) Anon. in Camb. Univ. Library MS., Ff. v. 14, f. 87, printed by Nichols, i. 183; (c) Abraham Hartwell (of King's), Regina Literata (1565), reprinted by Nichols, Eliz.1 (1788), i; (d) Nicholas Robinson (of Queen's), Commentarii Hexaemeri Rerum Cantabrigiae actarum, printed by Nichols, Eliz.1 iii. 27. The ascription of Dido to Halliwell is due to Hatcher's biographies of King's men in Bodl. Rawl. MS. B. 274. Hartwell gives some analysis both of Dido and of Ezechias.
