The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

LR85 - British Library - Harleian MS 7000, fol. 336-337v

Letter from John Pory (?1570-1635, traveller and writer)   to Sir Thomas Puckering (1592-1636)   , 20 Sept. 1632, expressing surprise that Jonson has produced a new play. Mentions Sir Henry Bourchier   , Sir Thomas Cotton (1594-1662, librarian)   , and Walter Montague (?1603-77, playwright). The letter appears in a collection of letters from the 1620s and 1630s and comprises one leaf, folded in half to make four pages. Pages 1-4 are filled with the contents of the letter; there is no address or seal.
Eugene Giddens


[fol. 336]
Sept. 20 1632 [This date is in a different hand from the rest of the letter.]

Noble Sir,/

That story of king Henry the eigths raigne written in latine by Sir Henry Bourchier was neuer yet printed, nor will bee publishe or communicate at, till Sir Thomas Cottons study be sett at liberty, that hee may compare it with the originals there, out of which hee first took it. That which the Queens Majesty some of her ladies, and all her maides of honour are now practicing upon is a pastorall penned by Mr Walter Montague, wherein her Majesty is pleased to act a parte, as well for her recreation, as for the exercise of her Englishe. Ben Ionson (who, I thought, had bene dead) hath written a play against next terme called the Magnetick lady ...

[fol. 337v]
so I rest and am your humble seruant Io. Pory

London Sept. 20. 1632.

Bought of Mr Baker. [This note is in a different hand from the rest of the letter.]

Bibliography
Gifford/C, 1.1v
JAB, 177
H&S, 1.92
Bland (1998a), 154-82

Pory graduated MA (Cantab.) in 1595, and then became 'a sort of pupil of Richard Hakluyt' ( DNB ), publishing A Geographical History of Africa in 1600. He became MP for Bridgwater, Somerset in Nov. 1605, at which time he settled in London and became part of Cotton's circle. In 1612 he had travelled to Paris to deliver to Cardinal Perron 'a treatise written by Isaac Casaubon and the bishop of Ely' ( DNB ). The following year he travelled on through Italy and thence to Turkey, where he remained until 1616; in 1619 he went to America. He returned to London for good in 1624.

Puckering was 'between 1605 and 1610, the companion of Henry , prince of Wales ' ( DNB ); he was knighted and made a baronet in 1612. He was MP for Tamworth 1621-28 and high sheriff of Warwickshire in 1625. He was a member of the North-West Passage Company.

Presumably Sir Henry Bourchier , second earl of Essex (1472-1540). He was prominent at the courts of both Henry VII and Henry VIII, and represented the latter on many state occasions; he was the bearer of the sword of state at the Field of the Cloth of Gold (1520).

Cotton was the only surviving child of Sir Robert Cotton, and is mainly remembered as the custodian of his father's library, although he was also an MP and a close friend of Sir John Eliot. He removed the library from London during the civil war, in order to keep it safe from political factions; in the meantime, Charles I was lodged in his house in Westminster during his trial. Like his father, he continued to open the library freely to scholars.