When
Elizabeth Came To The Throne He Was Elected Public Orator Of The
University Of Cambridge, But Through Being Idle,
Dissolute, and a
drunkard, he lost all his preferments in England.[127] Barker, or
Bercher, who was educated at St
John's or Christ's, was abroad at the
same time as Ascham, who may have met him as Hoby did in Italy.[128]
Barker seems to have been an idle person - he says that after travels "my
former fancye of professenge nothinge partycularly was verye muche
encreased"[129] - and a papistical one, for on the accession of Mary he
came home to serve the Duke of Norfolk, whose Catholic plots he
betrayed, under torture, in 1571. It was then that the Duke bitterly
dubbed him an "Italianfyd Inglyschemane," equal in faithlessness to "a
schamlesse Scote";[130] i.e. the Bishop of Ross, another witness.
Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford, famous for his rude
behaviour to Sir Philip Sidney, whom he subsequently tried to dispatch
with hired assassins after the Italian manner,[131] might well have been
one of the rising generation of courtiers whom Ascham so deplored. In
Ascham's lifetime he was already a conspicuous gallant, and by 1571, at
the age of twenty-two, he was the court favourite. The friends of the
Earl of Rutland, keeping him informed of the news while he was
fulfilling in Paris those heavy duties of observation which Cecil mapped
out for him, announce that "There is no man of life and agility in every
respect in Court, but the Earl of Oxford."[132] And a month afterwards,
"Th' Erle of Oxenforde hath gotten hym a wyffe - or at the leste a wyffe
hath caught hym - that is Mrs Anne Cycille, whearunto the Queen hath
gyven her consent, the which hathe causyd great wypping, waling, and
sorowful chere, of those that hoped to have hade that golden daye."[133]
Ascham did not live to see the development of this favorite into an
Italianate Englishman, but Harrison's invective against the going of
noblemen's sons into Italy coincides with the return of the Earl from a
foreign tour which seems to have been ill-spent.
At the very time when the Queen "delighted more in his personage and his
dancing and valiantness than any other,"[134] Oxford betook himself to
Flanders - without licence. Though his father-in-law Burghley had him
brought back to the indignant Elizabeth, the next year he set forth
again and made for Italy. From Siena, on January 3rd, 1574-5, he writes
to ask Burghley to sell some of his land so as to disburden him of his
debts, and in reply to some warning of Burghley's that his affairs in
England need attention, replies that since his troubles are so many at
home, he has resolved to continue his travels.[135] Eight months
afterwards, from Italy, he begs Burghley's influence to procure him a
licence to continue his travels a year longer, stating as his reason an
exemplary wish to see more of Germany. (In another letter also[136] he
assures Cecil that he means to acquaint himself with Sturmius - that
educator of youth so highly approved of by Ascham.) "As to Italy, he is
glad he has seen it, but cares not ever to see it again, unless to serve
his prince or country." The reason they have not heard from him this
past summer is that his letters were sent back because of the plague in
the passage. He did not know this till his late return to Venice. He has
been grieved with a fever. The letter concludes with a mention that he
has taken up of Baptista Nigrone 500 crowns, which he desires repaid
from the sale of his lands, and a curt thanks for the news of his wife's
delivery.[137]
From Paris, after an interval of six months, he declares his pleasure at
the news of his being a father, but makes no offer to return to England.
Rather he intends to go back to Venice. He "may pass two or three months
in seeing Constantinople and some part of Greece."[138]
However, Burghley says, "I wrote to Pariss to hym to hasten hym
homewards," and in April 1576, he landed at Dover in an exceedingly
sulky mood. He refused to see his wife, and told Burghley he might take
his daughter into his own house again, for he was resolved "to be rid of
the cumber."[139] He accused his father-in-law of holding back money due
to him, although Burghley states that Oxford had in one year L5700.[140]
Considering that Robert Sidney, afterwards Earl of Leicester, had only
L1OO a year for a tour abroad,[141] and that Sir Robert Dallington
declares L200 to be quite enough for a gentleman studying in France or
Italy - including pay for a servant - and that any more would be
"superfluous and to his hurte,"[142] it will be seen that the Earl of
Oxford had L5500 "to his hurte."
Certain results of his travel were pleasing to his sovereign, however.
For he was the first person to import to England "gloves, sweete bagges,
a perfumed leather Jerkin, and other pleasant things."[143] The Queen
was so proud of his present of a pair of perfumed gloves, trimmed with
"foure Tufts or Roses of coloured Silk" that she was "pictured with
those Gloves upon her hands, and for many yeeres after, it was called
the Earle of Oxford's perfume."[144] His own foreign and fashionable
apparel was ridiculed by Gabriel Harvey, in the much-quoted description
of an Italianate Englishman, beginning:
"A little apish hat couched faste to the pate, like an oyster."[145]
Arthur Hall and the Earl of Oxford will perhaps serve to show that many
young men pointed out as having returned the worse for their liberty to
see the world, were those who would have been very poor props to society
had they never left their native land.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 14 of 54
Words from 13243 to 14242
of 55513
