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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 April 2011
In the summer of 1602 at Harefield Elizabeth I was presented with the last great country-house Entertainment of her reign. Although it survives in fragments, it is possible to see that the Entertainment both adheres to the traditions of the court cult of the Queen and develops and adds variety to them. Pastoral is tamed into the world of Home Counties farming. The identification of the Queen with the Queen of the Fairies, instead of being that of a romantic heroine, is domesticated into the folk tradition of the fairies who reward good housewives. Other personifications of the Queen as good housewife are remarked. The entertainment has an elegiac tone, appropriate to the sense that the Queen's age must make her death increasingly possible.
1 For the text of the Entertainment see Nichols, J., The Progresses, and Public Processions, of Queen Elizabeth, new edn., 3 vols. (London, 1823), iii, 570–96Google Scholar.
2 He married the Countess of Derby in October 1600, and bought Harefield in 1601, the conveyance being to Sir Thomas, to his wife, and to her three daughters by the late Earl. See Nichols, , op. cit., iii, 570, 581Google Scholar.
3 Spenser, Edmund, Minor Poems, ed. Sélincourt, E. de (Oxford, 1910Google Scholar; repr. 1970): The Tearesof the Muses (1591), 151-71; Colin Clout's Come Home Again (1595), 307–334Google Scholar. The passage on Amaryllis is lines 536-71.
4 She continued to use this title after her marriage to Egerton.
5 George Carey, second Lord Hunsdon, was the son of Henry, first Baron, who was the son of Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne, born after her marriage to William Carey, but while she was still Henry VIII's mistress. Henry Carey was thus Elizabeth's first cousin and may have been her half-brother. Elizabeth was close to all the Careys.
6 Williams, N., All the Queen's Men, 2nd edn. (London, 1974), 258Google Scholar.
7 For the cult of Elizabeth, see Yates, F., Astraea (London, 1975)Google Scholar; Strong, R., The Cult of Elizabeth (London, 1977)Google Scholar; Wilson, J., Entertainments for Elizabeth I (Woodbridge, 1980)Google Scholar, and Wells, R. H., Spenser's Faerie Queene and the Cult of Elizabeth (London, 1983)Google Scholar.
8 For Lee, see Chambers, E. K., Sir Henry Lee; an Elizabethan Portrait (Oxford, 1936)Google Scholar.
9 Henri II of France was killed jousting in 1559.
10 For Elvetham, see Wilson, , op. cit. (note 7), 96–118Google Scholar.
11 The two accounts of Kenilworth are Furnivall, F. J. (ed.), Robert Laneham's Letter (London, 1907)Google Scholar, and Gascoigne, G., Complete Works, ed. Cunliffe, J. W., 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1907-1910), ii, 91–131Google Scholar.
12 See Wilson, , op. cit. (note 7), 119–25Google Scholar.
13 Strong, , op. cit. (note 7), 56–83Google Scholar.
14 Edward, , Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Autobiography, ed. Sir Lee, S. (1886; rev. 1906)Google Scholar.
15 Wilson, , op. cit. (note 7), 99Google Scholar.
16 See, for instance, Bisham, , in Wilson, , op. cit. (note 7), 43 ff.Google Scholar, and Elvetham, Ibid., 99 ff.
17 This shape, of course, gives ease for dancing.
18 Sir Sidney, Philip, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, ed. Evans, Maurice (Harmondsworth, 1977), 130–1Google Scholar.
19 Se Yates, F., The Valois Tapestries (London, 1959Google Scholar; repr. 1975), passim.
20 See Axton, M., The Queen's Two Bodies (London, 1978), passimGoogle Scholar.
21 See Strong, R., Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I (Oxford 1963), 94–5Google Scholar.
22 Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama, xxiv (University of Kansas, 1981), 147–51Google Scholar. This list is incomplete. I am grateful to Miss Marion Colthorpe for pointing out to me that the Savile manuscript listed in R.O.R.D. as untraced is now at the Nottinghamshire Record Office.
23 The numbers given to the items do not relate to the probable order of their performance, but reflect Chamber's categorization (Chambers, E. K., The Elizabethan Stage, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1923), iv, 67–8)Google Scholar.
24 This appalling tale may be found in Nichols, , op. cit. (note i), iii, 583–5Google Scholar.
25 I have checked a photocopy of the original against Nichols. In common with most of his texts which have been checked against his originals, it contains a number of errors, mostly omissions of words or silent insertions of words omitte d in the manuscript. A section of the dialogue between Time an d Place has been rearranged so that it makes greater logica l sense, but loses some dramatic quality. I am grateful to Miss Mario n Colthorpe for letting me have a photocopy of the manuscript.
26 Lyly, John, Works, ed. Bond, R. W., 4 vols. (Oxford, 1902), i, 491 ffGoogle Scholar.
27 The Works in Verse and Prose of Sir John Davies, ed. Grosart, A. B., 3 vols. (1869-1876), ii, clxxii ffGoogle Scholar.
28 See Strong, , op. cit. (note 7), 46 ffGoogle Scholar.
29 Collier's edition of the accounts is in Egerton Papers, ed. Collier, J. P., Camden Society Original Series, xii (1840)Google Scholar. For the forgeries, see Chambers, , op. cit. (note 23), iv, 67, 68Google Scholar.
30 Nichols, , op. cit. (note 1), iii, 586–7Google Scholar.
31 Wilson, , op. cit. (note 7), 86–95Google Scholar.
32 Ibid., 119-42.
33 ‘Bucolics’ would perhaps be a better word.
34 Tusser, Thomas, A Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie (1557, expanded 1570, 1573)Google Scholar.
35 Jonson, Ben, To Penshurst, 76–88Google Scholar.
36 ‘Stroakings’: the last milk drawn from a cow.
37 Very new cheese, probably like French ‘créme fraiche’.
38 Nichols's conjecture.
39 Warm milk and wine drink.
40 All types of apple.
41 ‘The name of several varieties of plum’ (O.E.D.).
42 Nichols, , op. cit. (note 1), iii, 587Google Scholar.
43 Ibid., 587.
44 Ibid., 588.
45 The Merry Wives of Windsor, v.v.40-4, 54-8.
46 Sir Harington, John, referring to the Queen, calls her, ‘the best housekeeper in England’: The Metamorphosis of Ajax, ed. Donno, E. S. (London, 1962), 230Google Scholar. I am grateful to Miss Marion Colthorpe for drawing this to my attention.
47 For Elizabethan fairy-beliefs see Briggs, K., The Anatomy of Puck (London, 1959)Google Scholar.
48 A Midsummer Night's Dream, v.i. 378-9.
49 Nichols, , op. cit. (note 1), iii, 588Google Scholar.
50 Ibid., 588.
51 Ibid., 590.
52 Ibid., 589.
53 Ibid., 589-90.
54 Old Fortunatus, Prologue at Court, in Dekker, Thomas, Works, ed. Bowers, F., 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1953), i, 114Google Scholar.
55 She died on 24th Marc h 1603.
56 Wilson, , op. cit. (note 7), 106Google Scholar.
57 Personal communication by Professor Anne Barton.
58 A Midsummer Night's Dream, III.i.40-61.
59 A Midsummer Night's Dream, v.i. 154-5,160-1.
60 A Midsummer Night's Dream, V.i.237-8.
61 See the account of the rustic spectators at Elvetham in Wilson, , op. cit. (note 7), 112Google Scholar.
62 The other half—the Amerindians and the peoples of the Far East—see a rabbit.
63 Nichols, , op. cit. (note 1), iii, 591–2Google Scholar.
64 Ibid., 593.
65 Yates, , op. cit. (note 7), 215–19Google Scholar.
66 Wilson, , op. cit. (note 7), 111 ffGoogle Scholar.
67 Lyly, , op. cit. (note 26), 491 ffGoogle Scholar.
68 Nichols, , op. cit. (note 1), iii, 571Google Scholar.
69 Ibid., 594.
70 Ibid., 136-213.
71 Ibid., 593.
72 Ibid., 586.
73 Ibid., 594-5.
74 The bucolic note was maintained in the incidental amusements offered to the Queen at Harefield. A letter from Sir George Savile to the Earl of Shrewsbury of 14th August 1602, now in the Nottinghamshire Record Office, mentions playing ‘Barley Breaks’, country dancing by the Boys of the Chapel, and tumblers. I am grateful to Miss Marion Colthorpe for making her transcript of this letter available to me. Savile MSS, Nottinghamshire Record Office. Volume of letters 1545-1611. 1D/14.
75 In Pinto, V. de Sola and Rodway, A. E. (eds.) The Common Muse (Harmondsworth, 1969Google Scholar; first published 1957), 60.