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 TRADITIONARY ANECDOTES 
 
 OF 
 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 COLLECTED IN WARWICKSHIRE, 
 
 IN THE YEAR MDCXCIII. 
 
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 NOW FIRST PUBLISHED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT. 
 
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 LONDON : 
 THOMAS RODD, GREAT NEWPORT STREET, 
 
 MDCCCXXXVIII. 
 
STEVENS AND PARDON, PRINTERS, BELL YARD, TEMPLE BAR. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 THE following Letter, which is now for the first time 
 printed, came into the hands of the publisher upon the 
 dispersion of the papers of the family of Lord De Clifford, 
 which were sold by auction in the year 1834. 
 
 It is addressed to Mr. Edward Southwell, and is en- 
 dorsed by him " From Mr. Dowdall, Description of 
 several places in Warwickshire. >T " From the signature at 
 the end, and several legal phrases that occur in the letter, 
 there can be no doubt that the writer was an Inn's-of- 
 Court man ; and a search into the registers of those 
 societies will probably determine to which of them he 
 belonged. 
 
 The mention that is made of Shakespeare in the letter, 
 has led to its being printed for brief as the notice of the 
 poet is, it is nevertheless of great curiosity and impor- 
 tance, since it appears to indicate the source of much of 
 the information which has been handed down to us by 
 Aubrey ; and to point out one of the persons who have 
 invented, or perpetuated, the few anecdotes of his early 
 life that have reached us. 
 
 Aubrey, according to Malone, collected his memorials 
 of Shakespeare about the year 1680 ; and from the coinci- 
 dence of the anecdotes he has given of him, with those 
 recorded by Mr. Dowdall, there can be no doubt that 
 both received them from the same individual, viz. the old 
 clerk who is mentioned in the following letter. To 
 him, therefore, we are indebted for the story of Shakes- 
 peare's being apprenticed to a butcher, and of his running 
 away to London ; and, whatever value may be attached 
 to such evidence by others, the publisher is unwilling to 
 let the present opportunity pass without expressing his 
 conviction that the reports of the vagrant tenor of the 
 early part of the poet's life are no more entitled to credit 
 than the later fables which, in the absence of facts, have 
 been thrust into the biographical accounts of Shakespeare. 
 Indeed it would appear from the practice of some recent 
 writers, that where the great dramatist is the subject, 
 each conceives himself at liberty to add whatever his 
 
 M101840 
 
4 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 fancy may dictate to those already apocryphal accounts 
 of him. Every real or supposed allusion to him by his 
 contemporaries, every line in his own works that could 
 by ingenuity be applied to himself, his history, and his 
 creed, have been eagerly caught at, adduced as evidence, 
 and commented on ; and the most monstrous conjectures 
 respecting him have been boldly advanced, many of them 
 at total variance with each other. 
 
 Thus, in addition to the old story of his stealing deer 
 from a park, 1 * which did not exist as such at the time, we 
 
 * Malone has successfully proved that Charlecote, the park of Sir 
 Thomas Lucy, whence Shakespeare is said to have stolen deer, did not 
 exist as a park in the poet's time. The Lucys, determined not to lose 
 the honour of being robbed by the poet, have since shifted the 
 locality. The story is one which has grown upon belief, from having 
 a locality attached to it, as the visiting the scene of an event, whether 
 real or imaginary, by impressing the reality of it on the mind, hallows 
 the deception, till even the most incredulous yield to the delusion. 
 A striking and most amusing illustration of this is afforded in the Life 
 of Sir Walter Scott, recently published. Sir Walter, on his last jour- 
 ney to London, made a detour to Charlecote. On his return to Scot- 
 land, he visited Carlisle Castle, where he was shown the very dungeon 
 where his own imaginary hero, Fergus Mac Ivor, had been confined; 
 We subjoin the extracts for the amusement of the reader : 
 
 "April 8, [1828]. Learning from Washington Irving's descrip- 
 tion of Stratford, that the hall of Sir Thomas Lucy, the justice who 
 rendered Warwickshire too hot for Shakespeare, was still extant, we 
 went in quest of it. 
 
 " Charlecote is in high preservation, and inhabited by Mr. Lucy, 
 descendant of the worshipful Sir Thomas. The hall is about 300 
 years old, a brick mansion with a gate-house in advance. It is sur- 
 rounded by venerable oaks, realizing the imagery which Shakespeare 
 loved to dwell upon ; rich verdant pastures extend on every side, and 
 numerous herds of deer were reposing in the shade. All showed that 
 the Lucy family had retained their * land and beeves.' While we were 
 surveying the antlered old hall, with its painted glass and family pic- 
 tures, Mr. Lucy came to welcome us in person, and to show the 
 house, with the collection of paintings, which seems valuable. 
 
 " He told me the park from which Shakespeare stole the buck, was 
 not that which surrounds Charlecote, but belonged to a mansion at 
 some distance, where Sir Thomas Lucy resided at the time of the 
 trespass. The tradition went that they hid the buck in a barn, part of 
 which was standing a few years ago, but now totally decayed. This 
 park no longer belongs to the Lucys. The house bears no marks of 
 decay, but seems the abode of ease and opulence. There were some 
 fine old books, and I was told of many more which were not in order. 
 How odd if a folio Shakespeare should be found amongst them ! Our 
 early breakfast did not permit taking advantage of an excellent repast 
 offered by the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Lucy, the last a lively Welsh- 
 woman. This visit gave me great pleasure ; it really brought Justice 
 Shallow freshly before my eyes ; the luces ' which do become an old 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 5 
 
 are called on to believe that he who laid the foundation of 
 his fortune by (if he did not owe it entirely to) acting, 
 was an indifferent actor; and from a line in his sonnets it 
 has been surmised that he was lame, which would have 
 incapacitated him from acting at all,* and is contrary to 
 the evidence of Aubrey, who has described him as a well- 
 made and graceful man. In his Macbeth, and Henry the 
 Eighth, he has left us complete evidence of his being 
 a Protestant ; yet, because there are in his Hamlet some 
 allusions to the rites of the Roman church, he has been 
 set down as a Catholic, and this latter surmise has so far 
 gained credit as to lead some writers of that communion 
 to triumph on the subject, and to urge it as a conclusive 
 argument that genius is incompatible with Protestantism. 
 
 coat well/ were not more plainly pourtrayed in his own armorials in the 
 hall window, than was his person in my mind's eye. There is a pic- 
 ture shown as that of the old Sir Thomas, but Mr. Lucy conjectures it 
 represents his son. There were three descents of the same name of 
 Thomas. The portrait hath * the eye severe and beard of formal cut,' 
 which fill up with judicial austerity the otherwise social physiognomy 
 of the worshipful presence, with his e fair round belly, with good 
 capon lined.'" Scott's Diary Life, vol. vii., p. 123. 
 
 " After that we went to the Castle [of Carlisle], where a new show- 
 man went through the old trick of pointing out Fergus Mac Ivor's very 
 dungeon. Peveril said, * Indeed ? Are you quite sure, Sir ?' And on 
 being told there could be no doubt, was troubled with a fit of coughing, 
 which ended in a laugh. The man seemed exceeding indignant : so 
 when papa moved on, I whispered who it was. I wish you had seen 
 the man's start, and how he stared and bowed as he parted from us ; 
 and then rammed his keys into his pocket, and went off at a hand- 
 gallop to warn the rest of the garrison. But the carriage was ready, 
 and we escaped a row." Letter from Miss Scott to Mrs. Lockhart, 
 n. d. except 1828 Life, vol. vii., p. 144. 
 
 * Mr. Collier's researches prove that Shakespeare was in London, 
 possessed of property in the theatre in 1589, when he was aged twenty- 
 rive. As he is not mentioned or alluded to as a writer till 1 592, it is 
 evident that he must have derived his living from his acting only. The 
 belief of his being an indifferent actor has been propagated from mis- 
 taking what Aubrey has said on the subject, of the top of his perform- 
 ance being the ghost in his own Hamlet. Aubrey, however, by no 
 means states this as disparaging his acting, in which sense it has been 
 taken. The character of the ghost as intended by the poet, is one 
 that requires more particularly an actor of a commanding and noble 
 presence. He is represented as being " majestical" and "like a 
 king," and is also in complete armour. How does this accord with 
 the supposed lameness of his histrionic representative ? The spectators 
 of the play had been used to the sight of Essex, of Raleigh, of Cum- 
 berland, and other of the prime gentlemen soldiers of the age in 
 panoply, and to have introduced to them a lame man as the represen- 
 tive of a king " in fair and warlike form," and with " martial stalk,'* 
 would have been the height of burlesque. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 Perhaps it was in ridicule of his predecessors that another 
 gentleman, determined to outdo all who had gone before 
 him, had the hardihood to question the poet's identity ; 
 having laboured to prove that he was one and the same 
 person with Christopher Marlowe ! 
 
 But of all those who have thus speculated on the per- 
 son, talents, and creed of the poet, there are none who 
 have injured his memory so much as those who, arguing 
 from his seeming neglect of his wife in his will, have con- 
 cluded that he had quarrelled with her, and that he took 
 this method of showing, even in his last moments, his 
 unforgiving spirit. It appears from the will, that the 
 name of his wife had been altogether left out or forgotten 
 in the first instance, and that when she was afterwards 
 mentioned, it was only in compliance with legal forms, 
 which required that she should be in some way noticed ; 
 and it is then (according to the above writers) that he is 
 made to add insult to injustice by bequeathing to her no 
 other provision than his " second best bed," an act of 
 unkindness so contrary to the opinion we form of the poet 
 from his writings, and so totally at variance with the 
 evidence of his contemporaries, which, though slight, is 
 expressly positive as to the amiability of his disposition, 
 that the mind at once revolts from it. In his will, after 
 making provision for his daughters and his nephews, we 
 have bequests to his fellows, the players, to his godson, 
 and to several other persons is it likely that while he 
 was thus careful to preserve his memory green in the 
 hearts of those whom he loved, he should be negligent of 
 her who had the nearest and the tenderest claims upon 
 him ? Is it not more consonant with his character, more 
 charitable to him to believe, that other and ample provi- 
 sion had been made for her ? 
 
 In belief and proof of such being the case, we publish 
 the following Letter ; for we have here the testimony of 
 one who was likely to know better than any other person 
 what he asserts, that " his (the poet's) wife and daughter 
 did earnestly desire to be buried with him." Is such the 
 feeling of a woman towards a husband who had neglected 
 her and left her to linger out the last moments of her 
 life in poverty and distress! The deep feeling of reli- 
 gion apparent throughout his works, his love of his spe- 
 cies, under all its follies and weaknesses, the truest mark 
 of a good and well-regulated mind, forbid us to believe 
 that such was the conduct of the GENTLE SHAKESPEARE. 
 
LETTER, 
 
 &c. &c. 
 
 Butler s Merston, in Warwickshire, 
 April the 10M, 1693. 
 
 DEAR COUSIN, 
 
 THE letter I sent you last post was but short in 
 comparison with my former ; and indeed, if I should 
 follow your example, it ought to be much shorter : 
 but 'tis folly to expect a fee-farm of joys in this 
 world; we must down on our marrow-bones, and 
 thank heaven for affording us one single glance. 
 This epistle (I suppose) you may justly call Mr. 
 
 D ll's travels into Warwickshire, for herein you 
 
 shall have such particulars as I can at present call 
 to mind, and by this prolix relation I shall partly 
 (tho' not designedly) revenge the brevity of yours. 
 
 On Friday, the 10th of March last, I set out from 
 London, and lay that night at Aylesbury. The next 
 day I came hither to Butler's-Merston, which is 
 eight miles from Warwick, six miles from Stratford- 
 super-Avon, and one mile from Kineton. My 
 friend's mansion house is very pleasantly situated, 
 being on the brow of an hill, and from it down 
 
8 LETTER FROM WARAVICKSHIRE, 1693. 
 
 the valley, are regular walks of lime, chesnut, and 
 walntit trees!' : ,.Iri the extreme parts of this are two 
 noble fish-ponds., and a very large dove-house, from 
 w{inee ive are, ok ,qlten"as we please, plentifully fur- 
 nished with creatures of both elements, of water and 
 air. The gardens, orchards, meadows, and pasture 
 are suitable : apples and pears are here still as 
 delicious as in the month of August, of which we 
 have (since the last year) good store remaining. 
 The house is large enough for its demesnes, being 
 an ancient, strong-built piece of architecture, with 
 all the convenience of our modern buildings. To 
 comfort and solace ourselves, we have all those 
 necessaries that beautify and adorn the kitchen and 
 cellar ; and in the stables there be as stately a 
 number of horses as a man can wish or desire to 
 ride on. 
 
 Having come so far, I may now venture to in- 
 form you of our advances abroad ; and in order 
 to that, I must acquaint you first that there is a 
 knott in these parts that meet at Kineton every 
 Saturday in the afternoon, who are one and all, of 
 which number my friend is one ; and they are as 
 true and sincere as they are generous and hospi- 
 table. 
 
 The first I shall name shall be Charles New- 
 sham of Chad shunt, an ancient justice of the 
 peace (tho' but fifty-eight years old), one that is 
 every way a complete gentleman. He is an excel- 
 lent scholar, and as good an historian ; he is a 
 
LETTER FROM WARWICKSHIRE, 1693. 9 
 
 great admirer of your Royal-Society-learning, but 
 not to be infatuated with the itch of experimen- 
 tal discoveries, &c. ; but above all, he has made 
 the reasons of our municipal laws his own, espe- 
 cially that part which relates and appertains to the 
 erown-side ; with whose conversation you may ima- 
 gine I take no small delight. In short he has so 
 clear an insight, so quick an apprehension, and so 
 solid a judgment, that one would have thought he 
 practised never any other thing but law, and [had] 
 been all his life employed in antiquities, &c. This 
 gentleman lives within two miles of us, having a 
 paternal estate of 1,000/. per annum, besides a large 
 addition by his own industry, &c. 
 
 The next is one Mr. Peeres, of an ancient family 
 in this county, whose estate is 800/. per annum. 
 He lives at his manor of Alveston, lying on the banks 
 of the river Avon, within five miles of this place ; 
 he married one of the above Mr. Newsham's daugh- 
 ters. He has a very fine house built lately, &c. 
 
 Another of the fraternity is Justice Bentley, an 
 honest true-hearted gentleman. He is very fat and 
 very rich, having an inheritance of 1,300/. per an- 
 num, besides a vast personal estate, especially in 
 money. He has one wife, one only son, and one 
 maiden daughter of the age of twenty-four. He 
 lives at Kineton, within one mile of us. This is 
 he that told me the story of the Buff Gloves. 
 
 A fourth is Mr. Loggins, a near neighbour of ours. 
 He has a pretty estate of 700/. per annum, all con- 
 
10 LETTER FROM WARWICKSHIRE, 1693. 
 
 tiguous about his house ; he is excellent company, 
 and keeps as excellent cyder. 
 
 To these I may add my friend and his father, 
 whose characters I dare not take upon me to de- 
 scribe, fearing lest I should come short of their 
 merit : but thus much I may say of them, that that 
 which makes even poverty comfortable they enjoy 
 with plenty, and that is, unity and concord at home ; 
 and to add to their happiness, they have two hand- 
 some prattling boys, each as pretty as Phillis, but 
 not quite so old. They are in coats, and yet are in 
 their grammars. And now I think of these children, 
 pray speak to my cousin Betty (who knows the art 
 of pleasing) to do rne the favour to buy some little 
 odd thing or other to present them with. She shall 
 be paid as soon as I come to London, with a mil- 
 lion of thanks. 
 
 From all these gentlemen I have had particular 
 invitations, at whose respective houses I have re- 
 ceived so many favours, and so much obliging civi- 
 lity, that are sufficient to bind my gratitude to a 
 perpetual remembrance and acknowledgment ; and 
 as a mark of their kindness and esteem, they have 
 admitted me of their society. And thus you may 
 observe that a man may be excluded from one body 
 politic, and immediately incorporated into another ; 
 and in truth 'tis but justice that a man return with- 
 out complaint what he received gratis, and all that. 
 
 Now I proceed to inform you what antiquities I 
 have observed, and now and then, if I should prove 
 
LETTER FROM WARWICKSHIRE, 1693. 11 
 
 tedious by telling stories relating to these matters, 
 you will, I hope, excuse it, for 'tis what I thought 
 worthy my remembrance, and by consequence my 
 friends.' 
 
 The first remarkable place in this county that I 
 visited, was Stratford-super-Avon, where I saw the 
 effigies of our English tragedian, Mr. Shakspeare : 
 part of his epitaph I sent Mr. Lowther, and desired 
 he would impart it to you, which I find by his last 
 letter he has done ; but here I send you the whole 
 inscription. 
 
 Judicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem, 
 Terra tegit, populus mseret, olympus habet. 
 Stay, passenger, why goest thou by so fast ; 
 Read, if thou canst, whom envious death hath plac't 
 Within this monument, Shakespeare, with whome 
 Quick nature dyed, whose name doth deck this tomb 
 Far more than cost, sith all that he hath writt 
 Leaves living art but page to serve his witt. 
 
 ObijtA. Dm 1 1616. 
 
 jEtat. 53, Die. 23. Apr. 1616. 
 
 Near the wall, where his monument is erected, 
 lieth a plain freestone, underneath which his body 
 is buried with this epitaph made by himself a little 
 before his death : 
 
 Good friend, for Jesus sake forbear 
 To dig the dust enclosed here. 
 Blest be the man that spares these stones, 
 And curst be he that moves my bones. 
 
 The clerk that showed me this church was above 
 eighty years old. He says that this Shakespeare 
 
12 LETTER FROM WARWICKSHIRE, 1693. 
 
 was formerly in this town bound apprentice to a 
 butcher, but that he ran from his master to London, 
 and there was received into the play-house as a 
 servitour, and by this means had an opportunity 
 to be what he afterwards proved. He was the best 
 of his family; but the male line is extinguished. 
 Not one, for fear of the curse abovesaid, dare touch 
 his grave-stone, tho' his wife and daughters did 
 earnestly desire to be laid in the same grave with 
 him. 
 
 There are other stately monuments in this church, 
 as the monument of George Carew, Earl of Totness, 
 who was a considerable man in Ireland in the time 
 of Queen Elizabeth, and also in the time of King 
 James, both there and in England. He died tempor. 
 Car. I. His brave actions and titles of honour are 
 here upon his monument enumerated, which are 
 too tedious to be here inserted. There is also the 
 monument of the Cloptons here, who are an ancient 
 family : there are some of them still remaining in 
 this town. 
 
 I shan't trouble you any more in this place, but 
 my next stage shall be to the church of Warwicke, 
 which, for its multitude of many fair and stately 
 monuments, will afford matter enough to feed the 
 most hungry pen in Europe for a considerable time. 
 But my curiosity shall terminate in a slender account 
 of a few of them. 
 
 The first I shall begin with shall be the monu- 
 ment of Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and 
 
LETTER FROM WARWICKSHIRE, 1693. 13 
 
 the Lady Katherine Mortimer his wife, daughter to 
 Roger Mortimer, first Earl of March, made by King 
 Edward III. Here the statues of him and his 
 countess are excellently cut in white marble. They 
 both died in one year, viz. in the forty-third of Ed- 
 ward III. He dying at Calais in France, and being 
 brought to this church, was enterred with his said 
 lady. This Thomas Beauchamp was as eminent for 
 his public service as any one of his line ; he accom- 
 panied King Edward 3rd in the twentieth of his 
 reign into France, and was one of the principal 
 commanders that, with the Black Prince, led the van 
 of his army in that famous battle of Crescy, where 
 the English gained such immortal honour. In 
 the 29 Ed. 3d, he attended the Prince of Wales 
 into France, where, in a little time, the memo- 
 rable battle of Poictiers happened, in which the 
 King of France was taken prisoner, and in this 
 also the noble earl gained a lasting renown, for he 
 by his own hands took that day Will, de Melleun, 
 Archbishop of Seinz, and many other prisoners of 
 note. This earl was one of the founders of the noble 
 Order of the Garter, instituted by King Edward the 
 Third. These and many other extraordinary things 
 may be related of this nobleman ; but this taste shall 
 suffice, and being subjects of general discourse, I 
 thought not impertinent to send you. 
 
 The next I came to was the monument of Thomas 
 Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, (son to the aforesaid 
 Thomas,) and Margaret his wife, daughter to the 
 
14 LETTER FROM WARWICKSHIRE, 1693. 
 
 Lord Ferrers of Groby : he died anno 1401, anno 
 2 Henry IV. They lie under a fair monument of 
 marble, with this inscription upon it : 
 
 " Hie jacent Dominus Thomas de Bello Campo quondam 
 Comes Warwici qui obiit octavi die mensis Aprilis Anno Domini, 
 Millessimo. CCCC. primo, et Domina Margeretta quondam Comi- 
 tissa Warwici qui obiit xxii mensis januarii Ano Domini Mil- 
 lessimo CCCC. sexto : quorum animabus propicietur Deus. 
 Amen/' 
 
 This Earl, for his great wisdom and prudence, was 
 by the parliament, an 3 R. II, chosen governor to 
 the king, then but young ; but he was ill rewarded 
 by that unhappy prince, for when he got the go- 
 vernment into his own hands, he had him attainted 
 for high treason ; but he granted him his life in 
 exchange of a perpetual banishment to the Isle of 
 Man, &c. But this cloud was presently dissipated 
 by the advancement of Henry the Fourth to the 
 crown, and thereby this noble earl restored to his 
 liberty, honours and possessions. 
 
 I made my next step to the monument of Richard 
 Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, son to the last men- 
 tioned Earl Thomas : he died at Roan, anno 1439, 
 and lies buried in a vault here ; in memory of whom 
 stands the noblest monument that ever my eyes 
 beheld ; 'tis in my judgment, much beyond Henry 
 the seventh's. His statue in brass, double gilt, is 
 the most exact and lively representation that hitherto 
 I ere met with. The inscription thereon is thus 
 literally taken: 
 
LETTER FROM WARWICKSHIRE, 1693. 15 
 
 " Preieth devoutly for the sowel whome God assoile of one 
 of the moost worshipfull knights in his days of monhode and 
 conning Richard Beauchamp, late Earl of Warwicke, L d Des- 
 penser of Bergavenny, and of mony greate other Ldships, whose 
 bodie resteth here under this Tumbe in a full faire vout of stone 
 sett on the beare Rooch, the which visited with long sikness in 
 the Castle of Roan thereinne deceased full cristenly the last day 
 of Aprill the yeare of our L d God A. M. cccc.xxxix. he being 
 at the time Lieutenant Generall and Governour of the Roialme of 
 France and of the Dutchy of Normandy by sufficient authority 
 of our soveraign Lord the King Harry the VI. The which body 
 with great deliberation and full worshipfull conduct by see and 
 by lond was brought to Warwick the iiii day of October the 
 year abovesaid, and was leid with full solemne exequies in a 
 feir chest made of stone in this church afore the west dore of 
 this Chappell, according to his last will and testament therin to 
 rest till this Chappell by him devised, in his leife were made, 
 al the whitche Chappell, founded on the Rooch and alle the 
 members thereof, his Executors dede fully make and apparaile 
 by the auctority of his sede last will and testament and thereafter 
 by the same auctoritie they did translate full worshipfully the 
 seide bodie into the vout above saide honored be god therefore." 
 
 Round about this tomb there are fourteen statues 
 in copper, double gilt, standing on the ends and 
 sides of the monumenting, representing his family 
 and near relations. To recount the many noble 
 exploits of this man would require a treatise of 
 itself nay, the stories of him which still continue 
 fresh in this town of Warwick would be very 
 tedious ; but in fine in martial prowess and great 
 employments he exceded all his noble ancestors ; 
 and amongst the many that I have heard, take these 
 few. He fought three severall days at Guignes in 
 
16 LETTER FROM WARWICKSHIRE, 1693. 
 
 France, in the personage of these three knights, viz. 
 1, the Green Kt. 2, the Chevalier vert, 3, the Che- 
 valier attendant. Those that he fought with were, 
 
 O ' 
 
 1, le Chevalier Rouge, 2, le Chevalier Blanche, 3, Sir 
 Collard Fines, over whom he had the better, for which 
 he was much respected both at home and abroad. 
 
 He was sent from England with many other noble 
 men to the council of Constance in Germany, at 
 which time he fought a Duke and slew him in justing. 
 King Henry the V. upon his death, appointed this 
 Earl should have the tutelage of his son Henry VI., 
 then an infant, till he were sixteen years of age, which 
 the Parliament approving, he afterwards had, &c. 
 
 There be severall other large and fine monuments 
 belonging to the family of the Nevilles, that after 
 the Beauchamps came to be Earls of Warwick, and 
 also many noble monuments in memory of the 
 family of the Dudleys, who were Earls of Warwick 
 after the extinguishment of the Nevilles. 
 
 Besides this, there is the monument of Sir Foulke 
 Greville, which, as I am informed by the learned in 
 the orders of building, is for its architecture inferior 
 to none in the kingdom. The epitaph on this tomb 
 is in my mind worth your knowing, which is this, 
 viz. : 
 
 Fulke Grevil, servant to Queene 
 Elizabeth, Councellour to King James, and 
 Friend to Sr Phillip Sidney. 
 Trophseum peccati 
 
 Now I will bid adieu to monuments and cast my 
 
LETTER FROM WARWICKSHIRE, 1093. 17 
 
 eye on Kenilworth, which I was so pleased with the 
 first time, that I made another visit to its ruins as I 
 returned from Coleshill (from whence I writ you 
 my former letter). 
 
 This castle was first built in the time of King 
 Henry I. by one Geoffery de Clinto ; and a great 
 pool, which was two miles long, was made at the 
 same time. There were additional buildings and 
 fortifications to this in every king's reign. In the 
 49th of Henry III. after the defeat of the Barons at 
 the battle of Evesham, the scattered rebels fled to 
 this place ; and in the 50th of this king, he with a 
 potent army, came in person and besieged it, which 
 was very close, for six months, but at last he was 
 glad to grant them their own terms. 
 
 During this siege, the sword Curtana was deli- 
 vered to the king in the camp. This is allways 
 since carried before the kings at their coronation. 
 
 Here the unfortunate King Edward II. was im- 
 prisoned in the 20th of his reign, and then deposed ; 
 here 'twas that a surrender of his regal dignity was 
 extorted from him, and from hence he was huried 
 to Berkley Castle, and there some time after most 
 barbarously murdered. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth made a grant of this Castle to 
 her beloved the Earl Leicester, who laid out on 
 buildings and repairs upwards of 60,000/. 
 
 'Twas in this castle that the said Earl had the 
 presence of Queen Elizabeth for seventeen days. 
 The entertainment was so noble that as I am in- 
 
18 LETTER FROM WARWICKSHIRE, 1693. 
 
 formed, there was a book then writ, entituled " The 
 Princely Pleasures of Kenilworth Castle." 
 
 This castle came afterwards to the crown, and in 
 the late usurpation for its good service to the king, 
 was totally demolished, so that now there remains 
 but the ruins (which even still looks noble) of a 
 most stately fabrick. But truly they have done 
 one piece of service, and that is by draining the 
 pond above mentioned, and rendering many hun- 
 dreds of acres to be worth 40s. per acre, which before 
 was purely matter of prospect and curiosity. This 
 place was by King Charles II. granted to the present 
 Earl of Rochester, with whose steward I perambu- 
 lated this place. 
 
 I am afraid I have already trespass'd too long on 
 your patience, else the describing this place, its 
 situation, conveniences, &c. would not be amiss, but 
 I shall conclude this letter with Kenilworth, and as 
 you like this, you shall have more waste-paper, 
 which shall give you my observations on Guy's 
 Cliff, the Castle of Warwick, Caesar's tower, and 
 Guy's tower, cum multis aliis, &c. 
 
 I am afraid that after you have read this over 
 (if there be any thing in it worth your knowledge,) 
 that you will justly say it is laid under so much heavy 
 rubbish that it's the cinder-wenches' trade to find it 
 out. But tho' I am very well assured that it is an 
 elaborate piece of folly, yet I hope you wo'nt expose 
 me in this undress for truly I am in no fit apparel 
 to appear abroad. But, if you please, two or three 
 
LETTER FROM WARWICKSHIRE, 1693. 19 
 
 friends more may be diverted in a chamber with it, 
 if such can affect their humours. 
 
 But to make amends for all, I here inclosed 
 send you a true copy of my friend's speech to the 
 corporation of Warwick, at the opening of their 
 Charter, which I desire you keep for me again I 
 come to town, and let none out of your family hear 
 one word thereof. You may in some time have an 
 account of our entertainment in the garret. 
 
 The assize begins at Warwick to-morrow morn- 
 ing, and in order to be there to hear the charge, &c. 
 from Mr. Justice Clodpate, viz. Justice Ne 1, my 
 friend and I ride thither this afternoon ; we shall 
 stay there till thursday. If there be any thing there 
 worth your knowing, I will trouble you with it. 
 Pray favour me with your receipt of this. 
 
 My service to all the family, and I conclude, dear 
 Cousin, 
 
 Your very faithfull 
 Kinsman and most 
 aff te humble serv* 
 till death 
 
 JOHN AT STILES. 
 
I 15 
 
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