me worthy to serve her, as Sir John Stanhope can witnesse, Sir Roberte Cecill also was present when her Maiestie of her selfe named me for secretary for the French tonge. Besides my life hath been honest and my behavior respective, and I thank God I am noe begger (though the worse by a 1000l by means of your L. crossinge of me). These thinges I speak not in vayne glory for alas they are but meane thinges and agreable to the poore countenance I carry, but to lett your L. knowe that I deserve not so much your displeasure or skorne. ‘Therefore I beseech your L. cancel your ill opinyon of me and forbeare to despise me or to disgrace me til your L. shall see me doe any thinge indiscretely or unworthy a gentleman. I could have procuredd many either of the counsell or the nobility to deal with your L. herein and to be mediators for your favor but it shall be needles if your L. will be pleased to take this in good parte at my handes which I protest is meant only to remove your L. ill opinyon from me and to prevent further disgrace, this beinge the gratest that ever I received in my life and most unworthily. And so I pray God to prosper your honor. Your L. in all humbleness.
The only winter play season during which William Lord Cobham was Lord Chamberlain is that of 1596–7, and in this two plays, both by Lord Hunsdon’s men, were given on Sundays, being Dec. 27, 1596, and Feb. 6, 1597. To one of these the episode described must relate. The functions of the Lord Chamberlain and his staff at plays are noted in E.S. i. 39. Edward Jones, who had previously served Sir Thomas Heneage, the Vice-Chamberlain, and Sir John Puckering, the Lord Keeper, became a secretary to the Earl of Essex in August, 1596. His colleague, Edward Reynolds, who was aggrieved at the appointment, describes him as “a great translator of books” and “a special man of language” (T. Birch, Memoirs of Elizabeth, i. 87, 90, 91, 118; ii. 107, 243). Lord Cobham was father-in-law of Robert Cecil, and doubtless, like his son and successor, no friend to Essex and his followers.
iv. The Roaring Girl.
Mr. F. W. X. Fincham, in his interesting Notes from the Ecclesiastical Court Records at Somerset House (1921, 4 R. Hist. Soc. Trans. iv. 103), gives the following from the Consistory of London Correction Book (1605–6) under the date of 1605:—
