Gossip as History: The Letters of John Chamberlain.

In This Series:

• Gossip as History: Anne Boleyn,      Part 1
• Gossip as History: The Murder of Amy Robsart.
• Gossip as History: Figure Flingers, Poisoners and Shrovetide Plays.
• Gossip as History: The Letters of John Chamberlain.

John Chamberlain is famous largely for his letters to Dudley Carleton filled with the gossip of London and  the Royal Court. Both also wrote to their mutual friend, Ralph Winwood, who, at the time of the following letters, was traveling on the continent and would the next year become secretary to Henry Neville, the English ambassador to France. Nothing argues so well the use of gossip for advancement in the middle ranks of the diplomatic corps than these letters.

In respect of his considerable talents, Carleton would go on to become ambassador to Venice and next to the Netherlands. At the time of these letters. however, he was an attendant in the office of the Lord Governor of Ostend. in Belgium, diligently working his way up the ladder.

Not that these letters were about international affairs. Chamberlain was his correspondent’s eyes and ears in London. Only the Earl of Essex’s preparations for his disastrous expedition to Ireland — being made, as they were, in the city and Court — merited mention on that front.

Here I’ve selected some interesting bits highlighting the daily news  around town. There are so many that I am forced to choose from persons and affairs with which I am familiar.

First, we set the stage with Chamberlain’s news from Carleton’s family:

here is nothing but solitude ante ostium [around town], no body at home, neither at your brother Williams, nor my Lady Northes. Your sister Alice, they say, is in the country; belike there is somewhat a brewing, and this is all I can tell you of houshold matters. Now touching your owne commonwealth, I do not greatly like the course you are in, and yet hard beginnings commonly prove best, but still methinckes you are out of your way as longe as you carry but the title of a souldler, and therfore unles your stomacke serve you the better, or that you see great probabilitie of well doing, cedant arma togae [ceding arms for office], retire in time, and if nothing els will take, reserve that course for ultimum refugium [the last resort] at a dead lift.

From London, this 4th of May, 1598.[1]

The news, we see, comes with friendly advice. Both men were still quite young thus prone to offer, to need and to ignore such counsel with a good nature.

We hear the first news of the preparations for the Essex expedition around June 11, 1597. 

The Erle of Southampton, the Lord Mountjoy and the Lord Rich go as adventurers, though some say the Lord Mountjoy is to be Lieutenant-generall at land

From London, this longest day of 1597.[2]

The Earl of Southampton was much in the news as we shall see. The least sensational news about him relates to his mother.

Other newes here goes very lowe, only Sir William Harvy is saide to have married the Countesse of Southamton.

From London, this 20th of May, 1598.[3]

The letters are filled with news of births, deaths and marriages. Not only were they fascinating gossip but important information for the ambitious diplomatic official.

We take one of our births from the household of the Earl of Southampton, as well. He and his fiancée, Elizabeth Vernon, are even more than usual in the public eye.  

Mrs. Vernon is from the Court, and lies in Essex house; some say she hath taken a venew under the girdle and swells upon it, yet she complaines not of fowle play, but says the Erle of Southampton will justifie it; and it is bruted, under hand, that he was latelie here fowre dayes in great secret of purpos to marry her, and effected it accordingly.

From London, this 30th of August, 1598.[4]

She has received a visit from her beloved presumably to set matters as straight as they can be set under the circumstances.

After the secret wedding the Earl seems to have honeymooned solo with a trip to Paris in order to play tennis. This, perhaps, to give his friend, the Earl of Essex, time to placate the Queen regarding an illegal marriage between an Earl and one of her Ladies-in-Waiting without her permission.

The new Countesse of Southampton is brought a bed of a daughter; and, to mend her portion, the Erle, her father, hath lately lost 1,800 crownes at tennis in Paris.

From London, this 8th of November, 1598.[5]

Essex’s intervention seems not to have succeeded.

The Erle of Southampton is come home, and for his welcome committed to the Fleet, but I heare he is alredy upon his delivery.

London, this 22th of November, 1598.[6]

Or, perhaps, it did half succeed as Southampton’s stay in the Fleet was brief.

As for weddings, we learn, a few months later, that

The match is made up twixt younge Norris and the Lady Briget, second daughter to the Erle of Oxford.

From London, this first of March, 1599.

Negotiations had been underway for Lady Bridget to marry William Herbert, the heir to the Earldom of Pembroke, and a great lover of the theater, but they fell through when the Baron Burghley, her grandfather, offered her bequest in his will as her marriage portion. Norris was heir to the Barony of Rycote.

In the same letter we learn that Chamberlain has also sent along a few of the popular books recently published.

For lacke of better matter, I send you three or foure toyes to passe away the time. The letter of Squires conspiracie is well written, but the other of Dr. Dee is a ridiculous bable of an old imposturing jugler.

Not that he seems to have thought much of them. Or, for that matter, of John Dee.

In August Chamberlain writes of a birth that pleased the Queen much better, conception having occurred after nuptials and the Lady being related to her old Court favorites the Baron Burghley and Sir Christopher Hatton.

The Lady Hatton is brought a-bed of a daughter, which stoppes the mouth of the old slaunder, and about ten dayes since it was christened with great solemnitie, the Quene (by her deputie the Lady of Oxford) and the Countesse Dowager of Darbie being god mothers, and the Lord Treasurer godfather.

From London this 23th of August, 1599.[7]

Elizabeth Cecil had married the nephew and heir of Christopher Hatton, who took the name “Hatton” in honor of the bequest. In this way she became Lady Hatton. After her first husband’s death, in 1597, she married the great jurist Sir Edward Coke, the father of the child. The marriage was decidedly unhappy and they soon came to live apart.

We see that the Lady’s in-laws, Elizabeth Trentham (the wife of Edward de Vere, the 17^th Earl of Oxford) and the Dowager Countess Derby, Lady Anne Spencer (sister-in-law to Elizabeth de Vere, reigning Countess of Derby and daughter of the same Earl) have come together for the event. Trentham was considered a suitable proxy for the Queen.

 

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[1] Chamberlain, John. Letters Written by John Chamberlain during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (1861).  6.

[2] Ibid.  3.

[3] Ibid. 12-13.

[4] Ibid. 18.

[5] Ibid. 27.

[6] Ibid. 29.

[7] Ibid. 63-64. 

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

Anne Boleyn’s Coming Out at the English Court. February 13, 2022. “The Knight in the beginninge cominge to beholde the sudden apearance of this new bewtie came to beholden and surprized somewhat with the sight therof, after much more with her wittie and graceful speech…”

King Henry VII’s Thank You Note to  Pope Innocent VIII. January 9, 2021. “In the etiquette of power even kings were wise to send thank you notes.”

Making Mincemeat Out of It: Medieval and Tudor Mincemeat Pies. November 1, 2021. “I think it’s fair to say that anyone attempting to find medieval or Tudor recipes for mincemeat has failed.”

To Where Did Queen Elizabeth I Disappear in August 1564? July 18, 2021. “Leicestershire was in the opposite direction from London. Nichols could discover no more.”

Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.

Check out the Queen Elizabeth I Biography Page for many other articles.