Early Modernity Today: 4 January

On this date, 4 January:

1553-4: George Ferrers and courtiers perform at city and court.

Ferrers presented himself at court by coming ‘oute of the mone’ (Anglo, 306), and his entourage was extensive. There was a play on Christmas day; on 2 January 1552 the lord of misrule was involved in a ‘dronken Maske’ (ibid.), and on the next evening took part in a mock midsummer-night revel, which probably included jousting on horseback. The visit to the city took place on 4 January, when Ferrers was accompanied by a great number of young knights, many on horses, and all wearing yellow and green baldricks around their necks: among his attendants were ‘Counseilloures’ (ibid., 305), among them Sir Robert Stafford and Thomas Wyndham. They landed at Tower wharf and proceeded by way of Tower Hill to a large scaffold by the cross at Cheapside. The lord was accompanied by music and morris dancers, as well as a guard of a hundred men in red and white. At the scaffold the lord of misrule's office and progeny were proclaimed, wine was distributed, and Ferrers rode to the lord mayor, with whom he had dinner: later they visited the lord treasurer at the Austin Friars, went to Bishopsgate, and returned to Greenwich from Tower wharf. The revels accounts reveal that the entertainment involved gaolers, manacles, locks, stocks, a pillory, a gibbet, an executioner's axe and block, and other items for imprisonment and punishment.

Ferrers's role as lord of misrule in the entertainments and in the visit to the city appears to be without precedent, and was sufficiently successful for him to be appointed to the position again the following year. This time he intended to come ‘oute of a place caulled vastum vacuum’ (Anglo, 309), where he was supposed to have been since last year, in a blue costume. On Christmas day an ambassador and interpreter would prepare the king for his arrival with his even more exotic entourage on the next day by ship at Greenwich. Again there was jousting and a mock midsummer show on new year's day and a visit to the city on 4 January: it reprised the theme of imprisonment and execution.      (Woudhuysen)

1616: James I gives a large New Year's gift to William Herbert.

Pembroke must have organized the Christmas revels of 1615 well pleased by the events of the year, but the threat to his position represented by his erstwhile client Villiers grew far more quickly than the new lord chamberlain could have expected. James gave the young man a handsome new year's gift on 4 January 1616, making Villiers master of the horse. When, that summer, James visited Wilton, it was with Villiers in tow. Pembroke's appointment as a commissioner to execute the office of earl marshal in September was hardly adequate compensation for the prominence of the newly ennobled Viscount Villiers.     (Stater)

1618: James Shirley registers first poem with Stationers.

Soon afterwards, on 4 January 1618, his first known poem ‘Ecco and Narcissus the 2 Unfortunate Lovers’ was entered in the Stationers' register. No copy of this remains, although editors agree that it is probably the poem about Narcissus in the 1646 edition of Shirley's poems.    (Clark)

1659: Thomas Gumble gets out of bed.

He, however, was quick to secure comfortable lodgings for himself and, on the morning of 4 January, was observed to have ‘stragled out of his Quarters [on the road between Wooler and Morpeth], and found Christmasse-Pie and strong Beer at a Gentleman's House’ (Price, 77).    (Callow)

1690: Richard Stafford presents a tract arguing for the Jacobite cause.

After the revolution of 1688 Stafford devoted his attention to promoting the Jacobite cause. On 4 January 1690, ‘out of burning zeal’, he presented to parliament his A Supplemental Tract of Government (Wood, Ath. Oxon., 2.1124). In this he laid out Christ's laws of government and argued that the revolutionaries had departed ‘from the established and fixed order of things he hath set up’ (Stafford, Supplemental Tract, 1). England, therefore, stood under divine judgment. This action led to his imprisonment at Newgate for four weeks.    (Cornwall)

1698: Fleetwood Sheppherd corrects reports of his demise.

Sheppard's last and best joke may have been his death, unmarried and without children, in 1698. In September 1694 Godolphin was informed that Sheppard was dead. Sir Fleetwood was able to deny this report himself, while ‘confessing that he was afflicted with the stone for the last 12 or 14 years’ (Redington, 385). In December 1697 he was again reported to be ‘dead or dying’ (CSP dom., 1697, 538), but on 4 January 1698 the report was denied: ‘Sir Fletw. Shepherd has deceived us, and still lives’ (CSP dom., 1698, 12).     (Ellis)

Works Cited

Callow, John. “Gumble, Thomas (bap. 1626, d. 1676).” John CallowOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Jan. 2008. 4 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/11735>.

Clark, Ira. “Shirley, James (bap. 1596, d. 1666).” Ira ClarkOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, . 4 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/25427>.

Cornwall, Robert D.. “Stafford, Richard (bap. 1663, d. 1703).” Robert D. CornwallOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, . 4 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/26213>.

Ellis, Frank H.. “Sheppard, Sir Fleetwood (1634–1698).” Frank H. EllisOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, . 4 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/25342>.

Stater, Victor. “Herbert, William, third earl of Pembroke (1580–1630).” Victor StaterOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Jan. 2008. 4 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/13058>.

Woudhuysen, H. R.. “Ferrers, George (c.1510–1579).” H. R. WoudhuysenOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, . 4 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/9360>.