¹ The possible link between the Ardens of Park Hall and Shakespeare’s maternal family means that brief considerations of the affair can be found in works including Stopes, Charlotte Carmichael, Shakespeare’s Warwickshire Contemporaries (Stratford-upon-Avon: Stratford-upon-Avon Press, 1897), 68–110 Google Scholar; Greenblatt, Stephen, Will in the World (London: Jonathan Cape, 2004), 157–158 Google Scholar; Shapiro, James, 1599: a Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (London: Faber, 2005), 160–161 Google Scholar; Wilson, Richard, Secret Shakespeare: Studies in Theatre, Religion and Resistance (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), 104–125 Google Scholar; Wood, Michael, In Search of Shakespeare (London: BBC, 2005), 102–103 Google Scholar.

² Williams, Ann, ‘A Vice-Comital Family in Pre-Conquest Warwickshire’, in R. Allen Brown, ed., Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1988, Anglo Norman Studies, 11 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1989), 279–295 Google Scholar.

³ See below: Appendix I: Descent of earldom of Warwick from Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, d. 1439.

⁴ Adams, Simon, ‘“Because I am of that countrye and mynde to plant myself there”: Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and the Midlands,’ in Leicester and the Court: Essays in Elizabethan Politics (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 320 Google Scholar; all further page references for Adams are to this volume unless otherwise stated. See also Adams, ‘Dudley, Ambrose (c. 1530–1590)’ and ‘Dudley, Robert (1532/3–1588)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. 60 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); http://www.oxforddnb.com (hereafter ODNB).

⁵ Adams, ‘Of that countrye’, 321.

⁶ Goldring, Elizabeth, ‘The Earl of Leicester’s household inventory of Kenilworth Castle, c. 1578’, English Heritage Historical Review, 2 (2007): 36–58 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷ Adams, ‘Of that countrye’, 321.

⁸ See below: Appendix II: Map of north Warwickshire and part of Staffordshire. This map shows places relevant to the text and the main road routes in the region.

⁹ Other aspects of Arden’s life and political career, including the legal cases in which he was involved and the events surrounding his execution, will be explored in more detail in work in preparation.

¹⁰ Peck, Dwight, ed., ‘Appendix C: Sidney’s Defense of Leicester’, in Leicester’s Commonwealth (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1985), 168–177 Google Scholar; electronic copy free to access at www.dpeck.info and referred to throughout. Please note that page numbers may not match the printed version.

¹¹ Lake, Peter, ‘The Politics of ‘Popularity’ and the Public Sphere: the ‘Monarchical Republic’ of Elizabeth I Defends Itself’, in Peter Lake and Stephen Pincus, eds., The Politics of the Public Sphere in Early Modern England (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), 73 Google Scholar.

¹² Adams, Simon, ‘The Heralds and the Elizabethan Court: Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, as Deputy Earl Marshal’, in Nigel Ramsay, ed., Heralds and Heraldry in Shakespeare’s England (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2014), 1–2 Google Scholar, 5–6; Adams, ‘Of that countrye’, 317.

¹³ Lucy, Alice Fairfax, Charlecote and the Lucys: the Chronicle of an English Family (London: Oxford University Press, 1958), 79 Google Scholar; for the local position of the Throckmortons, see Marshall, Peter, ‘Crisis of Allegiance: George Throckmorton and Henry Tudor’, in Peter Marshall and Geoffrey Scott, eds., Catholic Gentry in English Society, The Throckmortons of Coughton from Reformation to Emancipation (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 31–68 Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Mary had granted Sir Robert a number of offices connected with the earldom that were claimed by the Dudleys soon after Elizabeth’s accession. Adams, ‘Of that countrye’, 321.

¹⁵ John Brooks, Eric St., Sir Christopher Hatton: Queen Elizabeth’s Favourite (London: Jonathan Cape, 1946), 150 Google Scholar, 301, 359, 389.

¹⁶ ‘Edward Devereux’, in House of Commons 1558–1603, ed. Philip Hasler, 3 vols (London: HMSO for the History of Parliament Trust, 1981) II, 34.

¹⁷ Hammer, Paul, The Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics: The Political Career of Robert Devereux, Second Earl of Essex, 1585–1597 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 33 Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Shakespeare Centre Library and Archive (hereafter SCLA), DR5/964. Plowden was Sheldon’s brother-in-law.

¹⁹ Sir Francis Willoughby and Ralph Sheldon were on Sir John Harington’s jury in ‘The Apologie’ that followed ‘The Metamorphosis of Ajax’ and Harington also derided Thomas Norton’s treatment of Goodere. Donno, Elizabeth Story, ed., Sir John Harington’s A new discourse on a stale subject or The Metamorphosis of Ajax (London: Routledge, 1962), 240–242 Google Scholar. For an insight into Harington’s selection, see Kilroy, Gerard, Edmund Campion: Memory and Transcription (Ashgate: Farnham, 2005), 90–96 Google Scholar.

²⁰ ‘Sir Henry Goodere’, in House of Commons, ed. Hasler, II, 203.

²¹ Adams, ‘Of that countrye’, 334.

²² Heal, Felicity and Holmes, Clive, The Gentry in England and Wales, 1500–1700 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1994), 20–47 Google Scholar; Woolf, Daniel, The Social Circulation of the Past: English Historical Culture, 1500–1730 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 99–114 Google Scholar.

²³ Baker, John H., ‘Tudor Pedigree Rolls and their Uses’, in Heralds and Heraldry, 125 Google Scholar; Woolf, Social Circulation of the Past, 130.

²⁴ Nigel Ramsay, ‘Glover, Robert, (1543/4–1588)’, ODNB.

²⁵ Davies, R. Rees, author, & Brendan Smith, ed., Lords and Lordship in the British Isles in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 5 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁶ Dewar, Mary, ed., De Republica Anglorum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 70–71 Google Scholar.

²⁷ Heal and Holmes, Gentry in England and Wales, 22.

²⁸ Enis, Cathryn, ‘The Dudleys, Sir Christopher Hatton and the Justices of Elizabethan Warwickshire’, Midland History, 39, 1 (April 2014): 1–35 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁹ Jones, Norman, ‘Of Poetry and Politics: The Managerial Culture of Sixteenth-Century England’, in Peter Iver Kaufman, ed., Leadership and Elizabethan Culture (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 22 Google Scholar.

³⁰ British Library (hereafter BL) MS Stowe 570, fols. 15–16.

³¹ Younger, Neil, ‘Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke’, in Leadership and Elizabethan Culture, 134–135 Google Scholar.

³² Coss, Peter, Lordship, Locality and Knighthood, a Study in English Society, c. 1180–1280 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 186–189 Google Scholar; Carpenter, Christine, Locality and Polity: a Study of Warwickshire Landed Society 1401–1499 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 432 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 459.

³³ Adams, ‘Favourites and Factions’, 50.

³⁴ Alford, Stephen, The Early Elizabethan Polity: William Cecil and the British Succession Crisis, 1558–1568 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 207 Google Scholar; Adams, ‘Heralds and the Elizabethan Court’, in Heralds and Heraldry, 2. Warwick and Leicester were the only men Elizabeth raised directly to earldoms and in 1569 Burghley was still Sir William Cecil.

³⁵ Questier, Michael, ‘Elizabeth and the Catholics’, in Ethan Shagan, ed., Catholics and the ‘Protestant nation’, Religious Politics and Identity in Early Modern England (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), 77–84 Google Scholar; Adams, ‘Favourites and Factions at the Elizabethan court’, 49; Lake, ‘The Politics of “Popularity”’, 61.

³⁶ Adams, ‘Of that countrye’, 314.

³⁷ Adams, ‘Of that countrye’, 314; BL, MS Egerton 3789, fol. 34r.

³⁸ Camden, William, ‘1565’, ‘1583’, Annales (1625); http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/camden Google Scholar.

³⁹ Talbot, Claire, ed., Miscellanea LIII, Catholic Record Society (hereafter CRS), (London: 1961), 185–186 Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Appendix III illustrates a simplified descent of the Arden family.

⁴¹ Williams, ‘A Vice-Comital Family’, 286–7.

⁴² Williams, ‘A Vice-Comital Family’, 291; Crouch, David, ‘The Local Influence of the Earls of Warwick, 1088–1242: a Study in Decline and Resourcefulness’, Midland History, 21 (1996): 3–4 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴³ Coss, Lordship, Locality and Knighthood, 186–200; Carpenter, Locality and Polity, 116, 118, 138.

⁴⁴ Williams, Ann and Martin, Geoffrey, eds., Domesday: a Complete Translation (London: Penguin, 2003), 659 Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ Liu, Yin, ‘Romances of Continuity in the English Rous Roll’, in Rhiannon Puck & Michael Cichon, eds., Medieval Romance, Medieval Contexts (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2011), 157 Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ Nicholas Orme, ‘Rous, John’, (c. 1420–1492), ODNB. Aston, Trevor H., ‘The Date of John Rous’s List of the Colleges and Academical Halls of Oxford’, Oxoniensia, 42 (Oxford: 1977), 226–236 Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ Martha Driver, ‘Inventing Visual History: Re-Presenting the Legends of Warwickshire’, and Griffith, David, ‘Owners and Copyists of John Rous’s Armorial Rolls’, in Wendy Scase, ed., Essays in Manuscript Geography: Vernacular Manuscripts of the English West Midlands from the Conquest to the Sixteenth Century (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2007), 161–202 Google Scholar, 203–30. Both Rous rolls survive: College of Arms (hereafter CA) MS Warwick Roll, known as the Latin roll. BL, MS Additional 48976, known as the English roll.

⁴⁸ Yin Liu, ‘Romances of Continuity’, 157.

⁴⁹ Wiggins, Alison and Field, Rosalind, eds., Guy of Warwick: Icon and Ancestor (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2007), xv Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Wiggins and Field, eds., Guy of Warwick: Icon and Ancestor, 201–2

⁵¹ Weiss, Judith, ‘Gui de Warewic at Home and Abroad, A Hero for Europe’, in Wiggins and Field, eds., Guy of Warwick, Icon and Ancestor, 9 Google Scholar.

⁵² Driver, Martha, ‘In her owne persone semely and bewteus: Representing Women in Stories of Guy of Warwick’, in Wiggins and Field, eds., Guy of Warwick: Icon and Ancestor, 136 Google Scholar, n. 8.

⁵³ Wiggins and Field, eds., Guy of Warwick: Icon and Ancestor, xviii.

⁵⁴ King, Andrew, ‘Guy of Warwick and the Faerie Queene, Book II: Chivalry Through the Ages’, in Wiggins and Field, eds., Guy of Warwick: Icon and Ancestor, 169–184 Google Scholar; Duncan-Jones, Katherine, Shakespeare: Upstart Crow to Sweet Swan, 1592–1623 (London: Arden Shakespeare, 2011), 11–19 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁵ Walsham, Alexandra, The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity, & Memory in Early Modern Britain & Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 136 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁶ The National Archives (hereafter TNA), SP12/176/1, fol. 208v.; Birmingham City Archives (hereafter BCA), MS917/1094 (Norton 211).

⁵⁷ BCA, MS917/496 (Norton 184); Adams, ‘Of that countrye’, 333–4, 340–1.

⁵⁸ Dugdale, William, The Antiquities of Warwickshire (London: 1656), 681 Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ BCA, MS917/496 (Norton 184). George Digby was one of the Dudleys’ officers; Adams, ‘Of that countrye’, 340–1. Holte was executor of Digby’s will; TNA, PROB11/70, fols. 245v-246v, Will of George Digby.

⁶⁰ Raphael Massey was one of Ambrose Dudley’s yeomen and participated in his funeral. CA MS, Dethick’s Book of Funerals, II, fol. 212. Massey and Rugeley were also cousins; TNA, PROB11/39/232; will of John Rugeley.

⁶¹ SCLA, DR18/3/19/2; TNA, STAC5/A17/34, STAC5/A34/7, STAC5/A55/39.

⁶² Adams, ‘Of that countrye’, 329.

⁶³ Peck, Dwight, ‘The Earl of Leicester and the riot at Drayton Bassett, 1578’, Notes and Queries, n.s. 27 (April 1980): 131–135 Google Scholar; Adams, ‘Of that countrye’, 339–41, ‘Baronial contexts?’, 388–9.

⁶⁴ TNA, STAC5/A24/25, STAC5/A4/26.

⁶⁵ University of Nottingham Manuscript Collection, Middleton MSS, MiDa 80/7.

⁶⁶ ‘Simon Harcourt’, in House of Commons, ed. Hasler, II, 249–50; ‘William Stanford’, in House of Commons, 1509–1588, ed. Stephen Bindoff, 3 vols (London: HMSO for the History of Parliament Trust, 1982) III, 366–8.

⁶⁷ VCH Warks., 4: 235–6.

⁶⁸ TNA, C54/1286; many thanks to Professor Glyn Parry for passing on this reference.

⁶⁹ BCA, MS3375/434072, February 1574/5.

⁷⁰ List of Sheriffs for England and Wales … to A.D. 1831, PRO Lists and Indexes IX (London, 1898; reprinted New York, 1963).

⁷¹ Collinson, Patrick, ‘Letters of Thomas Wood, Puritan, 1566–1577’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, Special Supplement, 5 (November 1960): xviii-xix, 9–11 Google Scholar.

⁷² Enis, ‘Justices of Elizabethan Warwickshire’, 14.

⁷³ BCA, MS917/498 (Norton 210).

⁷⁴ Thrush, Andrew and Ferris, John P., eds., ‘Sir Robert Stanford’, in House of Commons, 1604–1629, 6 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), VI, 413–414 Google Scholar.

⁷⁵ TNA, STAC5/A24/25. Depositions were still being taken in early 1580. Some of the ring-leaders were fined but the sources do not provide a final conclusion to the case.

⁷⁶ Henry E. Huntington Library (hereafter HEHL), Hastings MS10328.

⁷⁷ Peck, Leicester’s Commonwealth, 29–30, 66, 73, 86, 88–90. Huntingdon remains something of an unknown quantity and Peck has noted that ‘we are left unable fully to explain the vehemence of the Commonwealth’s professed fears about him’.

⁷⁸ Crouch, David, The Birth of the Nobility: Constructing Aristocracy in England and France, 900–1300 (London: Routledge, 2005), 157 Google Scholar. The earldom of Warenne was held by the Howards in the sixteenth century as the courtesy title of earl of Surrey.

⁷⁹ Carpenter, Christine, ‘Beauchamp, Joan, (1375–1435)’ in ‘Beauchamp, William (V) (c. 1343–1411)’, ODNB Google Scholar.

⁸⁰ Ibid.

⁸¹ Adams, ‘Of that countrye’, 339–40. The complexity of the Warwick estate is discussed in Carpenter, Locality and polity, 439–447. Carpenter makes two particularly important points – firstly, that the division of the Warwick estate in the 1440s resulted in ‘a rough and ready division that paid relatively little regard to absolute legal rights’ and secondly, that ‘the really serious conflicts over the inheritance were between Richard Neville and his wife’s three half-sisters and their husbands.’

⁸² Adams, ‘Of that countrye’, 321.

⁸³ Peck, Leicester’s Commonwealth, 115.

⁸⁴ Driver, ‘Representing Women in Stories of Guy of Warwick’, 150–51; Griffith, ‘The Visual History of Guy of Warwick’, 127.

⁸⁵ BL, MS Harley 807, fols. 54v-58r. Adams has identified Shrewsbury and Leicester as friends but formal professions of friendship amongst the nobility does not exclude the possibility of political rivalry; Adams, ‘Heralds and the Elizabethan court’, in Heralds and heraldry, 12, 15–6. Dudley’s request to Shrewsbury for documents connected with the Berkeley inheritance does not necessarily indicate friendly co-operation between the two men. Given that the case was being pursed in the name of the queen, it is not clear how Shrewsbury could have refused.

⁸⁶ The Visitation of the County of Warwick in the Year 1619, ed. John Fetherston, Harleian Society, 12 (London, 1877), 176.

⁸⁷ Appendix IV: MS sources connected to the descent of the earls of Warwick, the Dudley family and the Arden family made or used by the heralds, 1572–1582.

⁸⁸ Berry, Elizabeth, Henry Ferrers, an Early Warwickshire Local Antiquary, 1550–1633, Dugdale Society Occasional Papers, 16 (Oxford: Dugdale Society, 1965): 27 Google Scholar, 33–4. Ferrers’ list can be viewed at https://archive.org/details/collectaneatopog08londuoft.

⁸⁹ Griffith, ‘Owners and Copyists’, 209.

⁹⁰ Fox, John, ‘The Bromes of Holton Hall, A Forgotten Recusant Family’, Oxoniensia, 68 (Oxford: 2003): 69–88 Google Scholar. Fox provides an excellent overview of the Brome, Ferrers and Windsor families. He also notes that the Windsors deserve more attention as a recusant family and that Henry Ferrers was probably a more committed recusant than his current reputation suggests.

⁹¹ Brennan, Michael, ‘A Sidney Chronology’, in Margaret P. Hannay, Michael G. Brennan and Mary Ellen Lamb, eds., The Ashgate Research Companion to the Sidneys, 1500–1700 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), 80 Google Scholar.

⁹² Stewart, Alan, ‘Philip Sidney’, in Ashgate Research Companion to the Sidneys, 46. Google Scholar

⁹³ Camden later praised Ferrers as a friend and his surviving manuscripts were used by both Camden and Dugdale. Berry, Henry Ferrers, 33–7.

⁹⁴ For example, BL, MS King’s 396 and Pierpont Morgan, MS M.956 have been attributed to Robert Cooke on the basis of strong similarities between the scripts. However, a comparison of the portraits reveals substantial differences. MS King’s 396 has been dated to 1567 on the basis of the list of Elizabeth’s New Year’s gifts and further used to attribute Penn. State MS Codex 1070 to Cooke, even though there are several differences in script and style, for example, the formation of the letter ‘r’ in ‘Erle’. The pedigree that we know was by Cooke, Longleat MS 249, has similarities to MS Codex 1070 but clear differences to both MS King’s 396 and MS M. 956. A more detailed and coherent study of these and related documents is needed before definite attributions can be made.

⁹⁵ Adams, ‘The Heralds and the Elizabethan Court’, in Heralds and Heraldry, 10–13, 18–20.

⁹⁶ Thomas Lant (1554–1601), who made the drawings of Philip Sidney’s funeral, was employed as a painter and draughtsman for several years before he secured a post as a herald.

⁹⁷ Adams, ‘The Heralds and the Elizabethan Court’, in Heralds and Heraldry, 16; CA, MS Num. Sch. 13/1.

⁹⁸ University of Pennsylvania State (hereafter Univ. Penn. State), MS Codex 1070, Descent of the earls of Leicester and Chester. Appendix V: Univ. Penn. State, MS Codex 1070, fol. 1v, opening inscription. Document online at http://openn.library.upenn.edu/Data/PennManuscripts/html/mscodex1070.html. The commentary on this website, also repeated elsewhere, concerning Robert Dudley’s absence among his siblings at the end of the pedigree is incorrect. He is represented by the coat of arms.

⁹⁹ CA, MS Num. Sch. L15 fols. 91–105.

¹⁰⁰ CA, MS Num. Sch. 3/44; Appendix VI: Final inscription on pedigree of Edward Arden attributed to Robert Cooke and Robert Glover, c. 1581–3, written by Robert Glover.

¹⁰¹ Adams, ‘Of that countrye’, 317.

¹⁰² BL, MS Harley, 6182; CA, MS Vincent 76.

¹⁰³ Selwyn, Pamela, ‘Such special bookes of Mr Somersettes as were sould to Mr Secretary’: the fate of Robert Glover’s collections’, in James P. Carley and Colin G. C. Tite, eds., Books and Collectors 1200–1700: Essays Presented to Andrew Watson (London: British Library, 1997), 389 Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁴ Ibid.

¹⁰⁵ BL, Cotton MS Titus B, vii. fol. 14, 24 Jan 1584.

¹⁰⁶ Griffith, ‘Owners and Copyists’, 219; Glover’s copy is now Bodleian Library (hereafter Bod. Lib.), MS Ashmole 967.

¹⁰⁷ Griffith, ‘Owners and Copyists’, 219.

¹⁰⁸ Ibid., 212–4.

¹⁰⁹ Visitation, 1619, 176; Griffith, ‘Owners and Copyists’, 214–5.

¹¹⁰ Univ. Penn. State, MS Codex 1070, fol. 2v; CA, MS Num. Sch. 13/1.

¹¹¹ CA, MS Num. Sch. M 1bis, fol. 18. Notes in the same notebook but in a different hand also refer to ‘Turquinus erle of Warwyke’, CA MS Num. Sch. M 1bis, fol. 98v.

¹¹² BL, MS Harley 807.

¹¹³ Ibid., fols. 17–20.

¹¹⁴ BL, MS Harley 807, fols. 22–24. Andrew Lyall, ‘Waterhouse, Sir Edward, (1535–1591)’, ODNB.

¹¹⁵ BL, MS Harley 807, fols. 54v-58r.

¹¹⁶ Griffith, ‘The Visual History of Guy of Warwick’, 120–1.

¹¹⁷ Echard, Siân, ‘Guy and Bevis in Early Print Illustration’ and Andrew King, ‘Guy of Warwick and the Faerie Queene’, in Wiggins and Field, eds., Icon and Ancestor, 156–7, 174 Google Scholar.

¹¹⁸ Goldring, Elizabeth, ‘The Queen’s Entertainment at Warwick, 12–19 August 1572’, in Elizabeth Goldring, Jacqueline Eales, Elizabeth Clarke and Jayne Archer, eds., John Nichol’s The Progresses and Public Processions of Elizabeth I: a New Edition of Early Modern Sources, 3 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), II, 27–34 Google Scholar.

¹¹⁹ TNA, E101/632/6; many thanks to Professor Glyn Parry for passing on this reference.

¹²⁰ Adams, ‘Of that countrye’, 316–7.

¹²¹ Ibid., 316.

¹²² Univ. Penn. State, MS Codex 1070, fol. 8r; Levi Fox, ‘The Honor and Earldom of Leicester, Origin and Descent 1066–1399’, English Historical Review, 54, 216 (July 1939): 397.

¹²³ Univ. Penn. State, MS Codex 1070, fol. 2v.

¹²⁴ CA, MS Num. Sch. 13/1; Adams, ‘Of that countrye’, 322.

¹²⁵ Fox, ‘Honor and Earldom of Leicester’, 391.

¹²⁶ Adams, ‘Of that countrye’, 313–315.

¹²⁷ Goldring, Elizabeth, ‘Langham’s Letter’, in Goldring, Eales, Clarke & Archer, eds., Progresses and Public Progressions of Queen Elizabeth I, 253 Google Scholar. Either Langham’s Saxon history was better than his spelling or he had a good editor, as the name and dates given for Kenulph are essentially correct; see Williams, Ann, Smyth, Alfred P. and Kirby, David P., eds., A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain, England, Scotland and Wales c. 500-c. 1050 (London: Seaby, 1991), xxvi Google Scholar.

¹²⁸ ‘Langham’s Letter’, in Goldring, Eales, Clarke & Archer, eds., Progresses and Public Progressions of Queen Elizabeth I, 242–3.

¹²⁹ Goldring, Elizabeth, ‘“A mercer ye wot as we be”, the Authorship of the Kenilworth Letter Reconsidered’, English Literary Renaissance (2008): 245–269 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹³⁰ Baxter, Stephen, The Earls of Mercia, Lordship and Power in Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 295 Google Scholar; Williams, ‘A Vice-Comital Family’, 287.

¹³¹ English, Barbara, The Lords of Holderness, 1086–1260: a Study in Feudal Society (Oxford: Oxford University of Press for the University of Hull, 1979), 7 Google Scholar.

¹³² Baxter, Earls of Mercia, 297.

¹³³ Bod. Lib., MS Ashmole 967, fol. 36v.

¹³⁴ Victoria County History of Warwickshire (hereafter VCH Warks), ed. L. Salzman, 8 vols, (London: Oxford University Press, 1947), 7:58–72. BL, MS Egerton 3789, fol. 10v for Fitzansculf in the Sutton descent.

¹³⁵ TNA, E178/2338; BCA, MS917/383 (Norton 155).

¹³⁶ Arden, Douglas, ‘A gift from Robert Glover, BL MS Egerton 3789, fols. 25r-32r’, The Coat of Arms, Series 3, I, pt. 2 (2005): 107 Google Scholar.

¹³⁷ Ibid.

¹³⁸ BL, MS Egerton 3789, fol. 31r.

¹³⁹ BL, MS Egerton 3789, fols. 40r-42r, fols. 60r-63v.

¹⁴⁰ BL, MS Egerton 3789, fol. 116v.

¹⁴¹ BL, MS Harley 6182.

¹⁴² BL MS Harley 6182, fol. 12v.

¹⁴³ BL, MS Harley 6182, fols. 34r-35r. See A Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain, 170, for further information.

¹⁴⁴ Fox, ‘The Honor and Earldom of Leicester’, 390–3, for Petronella and the English Grandemesnil inheritance. Blanchmains and Petronella’s son, Robert de Breteuil (d. 1204), was the first use the cinquefoil that became the symbol of the earldom of Leicester. Crouch, Birth of the Nobility, 159.

¹⁴⁵ BL, MS Harley 6182, fol. 28r.

¹⁴⁶ Fox, ‘The Honor and Earldom of Leicester’, 393–6.

¹⁴⁷ BL, MS Harley 6182, fols. 32r, 35r. Katherine Keats-Rohan has shown that Lucy was not Edwin’s sister, although she was probably his cousin. The confusion appears to have been widespread and was not necessarily a fiction created by Glover; http://users.ox.ac.uk/~prosop/prosopon/issue2-2.pdf.

¹⁴⁸ BL, MS Harley 6182, fol. 26v.

¹⁴⁹ Longleat MS 249. See Ramsay, ed., Heralds and Heraldry, plate 1, for the opening image of Felicia and Guy.

¹⁵⁰ It is still unclear to what extent Turchil owed allegiance to the earls of Mercia. Williams, ‘A Vice-Comital Family’, 291; Baxter, Earls of Mercia, 246–7, 287–8.

¹⁵¹ CA, MS Num. Sch. 3/44.

¹⁵² Appendix VI.

¹⁵³ Davies, Lords and Lordship, 32.

¹⁵⁴ The Arden family continued using ermine fess chequy or et azure. See Visitation, 1619, 72.

¹⁵⁵ Adams, ‘Of that countrye’, 314.

¹⁵⁶ Woudhuysen, Henry R., Sir Philip Sidney and the Circulation of Manuscripts, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 210 Google Scholar.

¹⁵⁷ Duncan-Jones, Katherine and van Dorsten, Jan, eds., Miscellaneous Prose of Sir Philip Sidney (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), 127–128 Google Scholar.

¹⁵⁸ Duncan-Jones and van Dorsten, Miscellaneous Prose, 123–4.

¹⁵⁹ Peck, ‘Defense of Leicester’, 169.

¹⁶⁰ Ibid.

¹⁶¹ Peck, ‘Defense of Leicester’, 176, n. 14, 15.

¹⁶² Peck, Dwight, ‘An Alleged Early Draft of Leicester’s Commonwealth’, Notes and Queries (July 1975): 295–296 Google Scholar; ‘The Letter of Estate: an Elizabethan Libel’, Notes and Queries, 28, 1 (Feb 1981): 21–35.

¹⁶³ Peck, Leicester’s Commonwealth, 7.

¹⁶⁴ TNA, SP12/164/77.

¹⁶⁵ BL MS Cotton Caligula CVIII fols. 204r-206v, transcript available at www.livesandletters.ac.uk/herle/letters/046.html. Many thanks to Professor Glyn Parry for passing on this reference.

¹⁶⁶ ‘Hyde’ is possibly Thomas Hide, author of A Consolatorie Epistle, see Lucy Wooding, ‘Hide, Thomas (1524–1597)’, ODNB. However, a more intriguing possibility is that the reference is to the antiquarian and scholar, David Hyde, about whom we know very little; Southern, Alfred C., Elizabethan Recusant Prose, 1559–1582 (London: Sands & Co., 1950), 24 Google Scholar.

¹⁶⁷ Holmes, Peter, ‘The Authorship of Leicester’s Commonwealth’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 33, 3 (July 1982): 424–430 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nelson, Alan H., ‘Who Didn’t Write Leicester’s Commonwealth? (Who Did?)’, in Peter Beal, ed., Discovering, Identifying and Editing Early Modern English Manuscripts, English Manuscript Studies, 1100–1700, 18 (London: British Library, 2013), 11–18 Google Scholar. Nelson summarises the main arguments so far.

¹⁶⁸ TNA, SP12/164/77; Miscellanea IV, CRS (London: 1907), 114–5.

¹⁶⁹ TNA, SP12/163/55. Tresham’s nephews, Edward and Ambrose Vaux, were also in Rome in spring 1582.

¹⁷⁰ Stewart, ‘Philip Sidney’, Ashgate Research Companion to the Sidneys, 47; Southern, Recusant Prose, 338, 347.

¹⁷¹ The British Armorial Bindings Database, a joint collaboration between the Bibliographical Society of London and the University of Toronto Library, uses the earl of Leicester’s arms as an example of an early modern coat and includes a useful guide to heraldry; https://armorial.library.utoronto.ca/.

¹⁷² The portrait, Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester with a Dog, c. 1564, now in the Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon, shows the Somery two lions passant at dexter chief, a coat also linked to the Sutton descent. The Dudley arms generally showed the Sutton lion rampant. The portrait is reproduced in colour in Ramsay, ed., Heralds & Heraldry, plate 51.

¹⁷³ Peck, ‘Defense of Leicester’, 174.

¹⁷⁴ Peck, ‘Defense of Leicester’, 175.

¹⁷⁵ Orwen, W.R., ‘Spenser’s Stemmata Dudleiana ’, Notes and Queries, 1 (January 1946): 9–11 Google Scholar.

¹⁷⁶ Allen, William, A True, Sincere and Modest Defense of English Catholics that suffer for their faith both at home and abroad, against a false, seditious and slanderous libel entitled ‘The Execution of Justice’ (Rouen: 1584)Google Scholar; modern edition, Kingdon, Robert, ed., The Execution of Justice and A Defense of English Catholics (Ithaca: NY, Cornell University Press, 1965), 109 Google Scholar.

¹⁷⁷ Peck, Leicester’s Commonwealth, 114.

¹⁷⁸ Renold, P., ed., Letters of William Allen and Richard Barret, 1572–1598, CRS, 58 (London: 1967), 60 Google Scholar; Hicks, Leo, ed., Letters and Memorials of Father Persons, CRS, 39, 2 vols (London: 1942), 1 Google Scholar, 193; Pollen, J. H., ed., The English Martyrs 1584–1603, CRS, 5 (London: 1908), 305 Google Scholar; Calendar of Letters and State Papers, Spain, Simancas, ed. M. Hume, 4 vols (London: HMSO, 1892–99) 3, 511–512; Calendar State Papers Foreign, Elizabeth, 1583–1584, ed. Sophie C. Lomas, 23 vols (London: HMSO, 1914) 18, 651–2.

¹⁷⁹ Dugdale, Warwickshire, 302.

¹⁸⁰ Kemp, Henry, ed., The Black Book of Warwick (Warwick: 1898), 248–249 Google Scholar.

¹⁸¹ Peck, Leicester’s Commonwealth, 127.

¹⁸² Bristow, Richard, A briefe treatise of diverse plaine and sure waies to finde out the truthe in this doubtful and dangerous time of Heresie (Antwerp: 1574)Google Scholar.

¹⁸³ Miscellanea IV, CRS, 27–8, 178–81. Sheldon’s apparent conformity was seen as a notable public relations victory by some of the Elizabethan regime. The authorship and motivation behind A persuasion delivered to Mr Sheldon, (att. Langdale, 1580) is unclear; Walsham, Alexandra, Church Papists: Catholicism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1993), 51 Google Scholar.

¹⁸⁴ The trial and execution of Campion has provoked widespread debate and generated a huge literature. An account of Tresham’s and Catesby’s examination is in Anthony Petti, G., ed., Recusant Documents from the Ellesmere Manuscripts, CRS, 60 (London: 1968), 6–13 Google Scholar. Kilroy, Edmund Campion: Memory and Transcription, 121–145, focuses on Sir Thomas Tresham in the light of the Tresham papers and buildings. See also , Kilroy, Edmund Campion: A Scholarly Life (Ashgate: Farnham, 2015)Google Scholar. Lake, Peter and Questier, Michael, ‘Puritans, Papists and the “Public Sphere” in Early Modern England: the Edmund Campion Affair in Context’, The Journal of Modern History, 72, 3 (Sept. 2000): 587–627 CrossRefGoogle Scholar considers the connection between the pursuit of Campion and public discourse.

¹⁸⁵ Lake, ‘The Politics of “Popularity”’, 73.

¹⁸⁶ Sheils, William, ‘“Getting on” and “getting along” in Parish and Town: Catholics and Their Neighbours in England’, in Benjamin Kaplan, Bob Moore, Henk van Nierop and Judith Pollmann, eds., Catholic Communities in Protestant States: Britain and the Netherlands, c. 1570–1720 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), 68–83 Google Scholar; Lewycky, Nadine and Morton, Adam, eds., Getting along? Religious Identities and Confessional Relations in Early Modern England; Essays in Honour of Professor W. J. Sheils (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012)Google Scholar.

¹⁸⁷ Collinson, Patrick, Godly People: Essays on English Protestantism and Puritanism (London: Hambledon Press, 1983), 381 Google Scholar.

¹⁸⁸ Ibid.

¹⁸⁹ Younger, Neil, ‘Drama, Politics and News in the Earl of Sussex’s Entertainment of Elizabeth I at New Hall in 1579’, The Historical Journal, 58, 2 (June 2015): 343–366 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁹⁰ Enis, ‘Justices of Elizabethan Warwickshire’, 3; the enduring connections between the Newport, Hatton and Ferrers families can be seen in Richard Newport’s appointment of his brother-in-law, Edward Ferrers of Cock Bevington, as one of his executors in 1565; will of Richard Newport, TNA, PROB11/48, fols. 249r-250v.

¹⁹¹ Adams, ‘The Dudley Clientele’, 200.

¹⁹² Axton, Marie, ‘The Influence of Edmund Plowden’s Succession Treatise’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 37, 3 (May 1974): 209–226 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁹³ Reprinted in Adams, ‘Queen Elizabeth’s Eyes at Court’, 146.

¹⁹⁴ Adams, ‘Heralds and the Elizabethan Court’, in Heralds and Heraldry, 2.