Today we met most private near my sister’s barn.
Me, my sister, Nero, and Linkin. The Mad Cat came, unarrkst. (He followed Linkin.)
I told of my plan. A performance in the Cats’ Field.
I sayt we would name ourselves Lord Southampton’s Cats. This pains me, I confess. I am my lord’s cat. There can be none other.
But all players must be the servants of some great personage, else they are vagabonds.
And the others would not wish to be known as Lord Southampton’s Cat’s Cats.
Indeed, they were disputatious.
Item: I gave an explication of a performance. I thought my sister and Linkin might not know, she being a barn queen and he from a puritan household.
But Linkin knew all, as ever. His master goes to plays in the city, and on his visits to his mother tells of what he’s seen.
Item: I sayt we would enact A Most Lamentable Tragedie of Everybodie.
Linkin sayt that only one in a play can be tragick. All others are there to be killed, to show how tragick that one is.
My sister sayt, “If it be a tale of blood and scruffing, best call it a comedy.”
Item: I sayt I had in mind four excellent characters, there being but four of us. But I also fancie a ghost that wails of revenge.
All looked to the Mad Cat, but he was sleeping.
“Some may play two parts,” sayt Linkin.
Nero sayt, “I’ll agree to nowt till I know more.”
Item: I told of the first act. “Lion Rampant enters and tells all he is hungry. He praises cooks most high, for they have all the scents and savours of the kitchen in their veins.
“He recalls how once he lapped the blood of a cook killed by the Earl of Ox-Foot. Lord Purrlie [Burghley] excused the crime, and Ox-Foot married his daughter.
“Then, while bending low before the Queen, Ox-Foot let a fart. He was so shamed he fled to Italy.
“Now Lion waits for him to come home and kill again, so he may have another lick of choice blood.”
Nero arrkst, “Who will play Lion?”
I sayt my sister might.
Nero gave her unkind looks.
My sister sayt she couldn’t, because she’s great-bellied.
“I fear,” sayt I, “you’ll have birthed and reared those kits before any sees this play.”
They took my meaning. I continued, “Ox-Foot enters, most italianate. He complains of the pirates who hindered his return.”
Nero narrowed his eyes. He told my sister she would do well as Lion.
She sayt she was too fat to act rampant.
I sayt, “Ox-Foot boasts of his Italian lecheries, and tells Lion he hates his own wife. He hates his daughter too. He hopes Lord Purrlie will find her a husband.
“The Queen enters, very hot for Ox-Foot. She says:
Ah, fate most cruel that kept us far apart.
Why so long away? We have forgot the fart.
“She and Ox-Foot run off. Lion is left hungrie. Word of pirates makes him long for blood that savours of the sea and the fish that swim in it. He swears he’ll be avenged on Ox-Foot.”
My sister arrkst, “Is that it?”
“There’s more Acts to follow.”
“How shall we learn all we must say?” she arrkst.
“I’ll instruct you in your speeches.”
Linkin found it needful to tell us he could read play books. (Newes to me.)
Sayt he, “They’re printed fair. But I can’t read what’s writ by pen, so I’ll require instruction.”
“I’ll devise mine own speeches,” sayt Nero.
I let that pass.
Then he sayt “’Twere best our play be named The Most Lamentable Comedy of the Earl of Ox-Foot.”
“Call it what you will,” sayt I. “What’s in a name?”
Item: Our agreement. I will play Lion Rampant, Nero the Earl of Ox-Foot, Linkin Lord Purrlie, and my sister, great-bellied or no, the Queen. Also the Ghost, if we have one.
Then the Mad Cat spake against us. (We thought he slept.)
He sayt, “Never have I heared of such lewd and bloodie doings.”
“Spread that abroad,” sayt Nero. “So all good cats know to keep away.”
Nero is suttle.
Gib’s play provides an example of how writers of what Gib would call “poetick fictions” can draw on their own experience to produce something that bears no resemblance to it.
The Lion Rampant character is a bogey from Gib’s kittenhood, when Gib saw him in the Wriothesley coat of arms. As for Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (1550–1604): Gib’s heard all the gossip, of which there was plenty.
Oxford did kill an undercook, while he (Oxford) and a companion were fencing. The coroner’s decision was that the man had committed suicide by running onto Oxford’s sword. His hostility to his first wife (Anne Cecil, daughter of Lord Burghley) was a scandal, along with his initial claim that their first child Elizabeth wasn’t his.
Gib’s fart story may be an invention, though it’s mentioned by John Aubrey (1626-1697) in his Brief Lives.
Oxford was also a poet and playwright, but none of his plays have survived. Unless, of course, you believe that they’re the ones that were printed under the name of William Shakespeare. I can’t do justice to his erratic life here; check him out on Wikipedia.
The Earl of Southampton's Cat 
The actors bow. The applause is loud and long.
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So the cats hope. But they’ve got a way to go yet.
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My goodness, but Ox-Foot got about a bit.
Gib’s play sounds like fun, even if it is a tragedy. Shakespeare could have learned a thing or three from him.
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Ox-Foot certainly did. His antics must have kept court tongues wagging. And I do believe that some of the work attributed to Shakespeare originated with the Earl of Southampton’s cat. That would explain a lot.
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You are one of my favourite bloggers! The form is perfect and I learn much upon the historical matters themselves. And I enjoy the moment I am reading your posts (and re-reading them…) Thank you.
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Thank you, Camille. I’m so happy to have discovered Gib’s papers. I believe that by transcribing and publishing them I can make a valuable contribution to Elizabethan literary studies.
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You are not only erudite but so modest. I hope you get your due, which is likely an honorary doctorate.
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In transcribing the memoirs of cats.
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Remarkable. I have heard of the musical bow, but not of the suicidal cook. Perhaps the inquest should have gone into the quality of his pastries, to see if the lack thereof provided possible motive for cookicide.
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You could be on to something there. I’m sure that in some accounts I’ve heard, this self-slaughterer was described as a “butcher”. Perhaps, as undercook, his job was to prepare the variety of meats for cooking? In which case he may have been substituting cats for conies in them pies.
On a more sober note, any estate a suicide had was forfeit. So his wife and children would have got nothing. Ah, Merrie England.
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Oh, how droll it is !
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Thanks! I think poor Gib will be tearing his fur before he gets this production off the ground.
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Such is the life of the great and famous 🙂
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I do hope that Gib’s play gets off the ground. He has a talent for the dramatic (even more so than most cats). A series of plays with the hint of more to come, is just the ticket.
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Thank you, Claudio. But I fear that Gib may have been wrong when he observed in an earlier journal entry that writing plays would be easy work for a poet. He was unaware of the need to manage his players.
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Yes I wholly concur – the term “herding cats” springs to mind.
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I fear that Gib is to be upstaged by his players.
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True! And he’s still got most of his play to negotiate with them. But no cat has ever been deterred by biting off more than s/he can chew.
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How right you are! The next instalment of this historie reveals a maiden most beautiful, skilled at lolling. I am privy to her company, and stardom will come to her provided others do any actual work.
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“disputatious”…If you never hear of me again, it is because I have called my significant other disputatious
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Mmm. As a reader of your blog, I think your significant other might reply, ‘Look who’s talking!’ 🙂
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Very entertaining! The Earl of Ox-Foot (most Italianate), must have had the coroner in his pocket. The poor under-cook!
Interesting premise that Ox-Foot may have written more than he was credited for.
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Ox-Foot was about 17, and a ward of William Cecil’s when he killed the under-cook, and I think the killing may have happened at Cecil House in London. Which suggests that the unfortunate under-cook was one of Cecil’s servants. Anyway, the pressure brought to bear on the coroner’s court probably originated with Cecil. To be fair, he might have preferred a verdict of self-defense; the normal Elizabethan “get off free” card.
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Double standards?
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Indeed.
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I’m afraid those little Thespians may end up turning tragedy into comedy and comedy into tragedy, if given free-reign. Whatever, it will be quite entertaining for all in the end.
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Now Nero’s wormed his way into the title role, I’m sure he’ll help Gib keep the others under control. How well he’ll keep himself under control is anybody’s guess.
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Roxie seems to have an affinity for Nero since they both love being the center of attention. This does not bode well!
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Another bodacious marvel!
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Love the references to certain human characters of the dramatic persuasion (Gib is a very clever fellow). Re. Linkin’s assertion that “all others are there to be killed,” I’m reminded of a line by Guy in the modern classic Galaxy Quest: “I’m not even supposed to be here. I’m just ‘Crewman Number Six.’ I’m expendable. I’m the guy in the episode who dies to prove how serious the situation is!”
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To my shame I haven’t seen Galaxy Quest. I’ll have to track it down – Guy’s line made me laugh.
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One of my faves.
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