Henry Neville's Birthdate Settled?

Henry Neville's birthdate has been an open and unsettled question for a long time. Many Neville researchers have looked into this issue. I think we finally have enough evidence to say confidently that Henry Neville was born around April 11, 1563 (Easter Sunday). I will summarize all of the evidence here. If you are aware of more evidence, please let me know!

Henry Neville's Baptism

Henry Neville's baptism was registered at St Ann Blackfriars church on May 20, 1564. This information alone might suggest that he was likely born in May 1564. 

However, as we will show below, he was likely born a year earlier. Note that Henry Neville was likely one of Queen Elizabeth's godchildren; see this list:

Henry Neville's Entry to Merton College, Oxford

There is a record of Henry Neville entering Merton College, Oxford on 20 December 1577 at age 15. That would suggest he was born in 1561/2. 

Henry Neville's Age at Death

Henry Neville died on July 10, 1615. His friend James Whitelocke recorded in his diary at the time that Henry Neville was 52 years old. This suggests a possible birthdate of 1562/3.

Portrait Evidence

Before leaving for France as ambassador, Henry Neville appears to have sat for a portrait with Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger. The portrait is dated 1599 and says he was 36 years old. 

The Answer: Thomas Gresham's Chancery Inquisition Post Mortem

Henry Neville's mother's uncle, Thomas Gresham, left him and his father some property. So Henry Neville's age is listed in the inquisition taken after Gresham's death. Specifically: "The said Henry Nevell was on the 21st March last past of the age of 16 years 11 months and 10 days and is now living."

In other words, on March 21, 1580, Henry Neville was 16 years 11 months and 10 days old. So, if you subtract 16  years, 11 months, and 10 days from March 21, 1580, you get April 11, 1563.

The Confirmation: His Mother's Funeral Certificate

Henry Neville's mother, Elizabeth Gresham, died on November 12, 1573. Her funeral certificate lists the ages of her children at her death and lists Henry as being 10 years and a half. That is perfectly consistent with his birthdate being April 11, 1563.

Conclusion

It is still an open question why Henry Neville was baptized so late. It could be related to his being Queen Elizabeth's godson or there could be some other reason. Please let me know if you have any insight on this issue!

Is Jaques in As You Like It based on Henry Cuffe?

The Jaques character in As You Like It might be based on Henry Cuffe. Cuffe was a protégé of Henry Savile at Oxford and became Regius Professor of Greek. He then went on to be a secretary to the Earl of Essex. Cuffe participated in the Essex Rebellion and was hanged on 13 March 1601.

Henry Cuffe and Henry Neville

Cuffe was a close friend with Henry Neville. You can read Henry Neville's confession for details on how Cuffe tried to involve him in the Essex Rebellion.  At his execution, Cuffe asked for Neville's forgiveness and wrote this in his will:

I pray him [Henry Neville] to accept from his poor distressed friend, whose exceeding grief it is, that he hath by his late master's command been an occasion of his trouble; which I pray him most heartily to forgive me.

Henry Cuffe's The Differences of the Ages of Man's Life 

As You Like It was likely written in 1599/1600. Henry Cuffe's book, The Differences of the Ages of Man's Life, was published posthumously in 1607 with the date 1600 on the title page. You can read a transcription of the book or examine a digital facsimile:

Shakespeare scholars have long noted the connection between Jaques' speech on the seven ages of man and the themes in Cuffe's book. Henry Neville would almost certainly have read Cuffe's book in manuscript, and he could have referenced it when writing As You Like It.

Though discussion of the ages of man was a common topic from Aristotle onward, Jaques' speech has many parallels with Cuffe's book:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing. (As You Like It, 2.7)

Here is Cuffe; the parallels are obvious:

So have we seven several parts of our life, comprising our Pubertatem and adolescentiam,
Accordingly whereto the Astrologers have assigned to every of them their peculiar predominant Planet: our Infant age is allotted to the Moon's mild and moist dominion, cherishing us with her sweet influence which she hath especially upon moist bodies: our Boy-hood, Mercury hath charge over, inclining us to sportfulness, talk, and learning: Venus guides our blossoming lustful age: our youthful prime, by the Sun's lively operation is lifted up from base delights, to a loftier and more man like resolution and liveliness. Mars the stern god of war, hath the precincts of his dominion limited within compass of our man-age, adding courage to our livelihood, and whetting our otherwise dull spirits, unto a more ventrous boldness in quarrelling combats: Old age from Jupiter receiveth gravity and staidness: Decrepit crooked age, from the angry aspect of dry Saturn, sucketh the poisonous infirmities of crazy sickness and wayward pettishness: and this is briefly the summary explication of the differences of mans ages, and the causes of this distinction, together with those properties which the Astrologians mystically and darkly have propounded, as proper and peculiar to every and all of them.

The book overall is very impractical and philosophical in nature. It aligns very well with the Jaques character: as he is described by other characters and as he speaks in the play. 

Jaques' Greek Invocation

Jaques describes this song of his as a "Greek invocation, to call fools into a circle", perhaps a reference to Cuffe, who was a Greek professor:

JAQUES  Thus it goes:

   If it do come to pass

   That any man turn ass,

   Leaving his wealth and ease

   A stubborn will to please,

Ducdame, ducdame, ducdame.

      Here shall he see

      Gross fools as he,

An if he will come to me.

AMIENS  What's that "ducdame"?

JAQUES  'Tis a Greek invocation to call fools into a

circle. I'll go sleep if I can. If I cannot, I'll rail

against all the first-born of Egypt. (As You Like It, 2.5)

Jaques' Melancholy Pessimism

Jaques takes a very pessimistic, melancholy attitude. (note that the reference to Atalanta is a figure in Greek mythology):

You have a nimble wit; I think 'twas made of Atalanta's heels. Will you sit down with me? and we two will rail against our mistress the world, and all our misery. (As You Like It, 3.2)

It is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my travels; in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness. As You Like It, 3.2)

 Compare with this from Cuffe's book:

We will come to the most pertinent comparison of man with man in this kind, if first we shall only remember what was Plinies opinion of the shortening our lives, namely, that God herein did greatly gratify us, by cutting off these days of misery: agreeable to which, Silemus being demanded what was the greatest happiness and good that God could doe a man, made answer, Never to be borne; and the next unto that, to die quickly.

Compare to King Lear:

When we are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools. (King Lear, 4.6)

 Cuffe and Cartomancy

There is another very interesting possible connection between Cuffe and Shakespeare. This 1620 book by John Melton, The Astrologaster, tells a story of how Cuffe consulted someone who did divinations via cards and foretold his death. You can read the full book here or examine a digital facsimile here:

Here is a transcription (modernized spelling):

There was another Wizard (as it was reported to me by a learned and rare Scholar, as we were discoursing about Astrology) that some twenty years before his death told Cuffe our Countryman, and a most excellent Grecian, that he should come to an untimely end: at which, Cuffe laughed, and in a scoffing manner entreated the Astrologer to shew him in what manner he should come to his end: who condescended to him, and calling for Cards, entreated Cuffe to draw out of the Pack three, which pleased him; who did so, and drew three Knaves: who (by the Wizards direction) laid them on the Table again with their faces downwards, and then told him, if he desired to see the sum of his bad fortunes reckoned up, to take up those Cards one after the other, and look on the inside of them, and he should be truly resolved of his future fortunes. Cuffe did as he was prescribed, and first took up the first Card, and looking on it, he saw the true portraiture of himself Cape a Pe, having men compassing him about with Bills and Halberds: then he took up the second Card, and there saw the Judge that sat upon him: at last, he took up the last Card, & saw Tyborne, the place of his Execution, & the Hangman, at which he then laughed heartily; but many years after, being condemned for Treason, he remembered the fatal Prediction of the Wizard, & before his death revealed it to some of his friends. If this be true, it was more then Astrology, and no better then flat Sorcery or Conjuring, which is devilish.

Melton's earlier book references Hamlet directly, so it's possible Melton was in the same social circles as the author of the works of Shakespeare. Much more to come on this! 

Part 8: Henry Neville and Henry Savile Annotations in Roman Antiquities

I have acquired a new, higher resolution image of this annotation by Henry Neville in the 1546 copy of Roman Antiquities by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. This annotation was discovered by John Casson and is from a private collection held at Audley End:

Here is a translation of the Latin: "Ancus Martius and Tarquinius Collatinus are omitted here, who reigned for 62 years. When these are added, the entire count of years will square". This annotation relates directly to Rape of Lucrece and Coriolanus.  I have a blog post that goes into detail demonstrating that this annotation is indeed in Henry Neville's handwriting. You can a digital facsimile of another copy of the same book here. 

John Casson also noted this reference to Lucius Tarquinius Superbus. It is in the same 1546 book and also relates directly to Lucrece. The Argument from Rape of Lucrece begins: "Lucius Tarquinius, for his excessive pride surnamed Superbus". This annotation was written by Henry Savile who had very distinctive handwriting. I have a blog post that goes into detail on Henry Savile's handwriting with many examples you can compare. Page 185 (digital facsimile):

Of course, Henry Savile was Henry Neville's tutor at Merton College, Oxford and they travelled together in Europe for several years.

This identification of Henry Savile's handwriting in the same book offers further confirmation of Henry Neville's annotation. Not only does the handwriting match Henry Neville's, not only is the book originally from Billingbear where Henry Neville lived, in addition his tutor's handwriting is in the book.

Here is another annotation of the same book on Page 9 (digital facsimile), clearly Henry Savile's handwriting:

Here are the close-up images:

Here is page 11  with Henry Savile's handwriting (digital facsimile):

Here is page 255 with Henry Savile's handwriting (digital facsimile):

Marston's "What You Will" and Shakespeare

The connection between What You Will and Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is well-established. They were both written around the same time (likely in 1600), and Twelfth Night is actually subtitled "What You Will"; it's the only Shakespeare play with a subtitle:

In addition, in February 1602 Twelfth Night was performed at the Middle Temple, where Marston was a member, according to this diary entry by John Manningham:

In 1607, publisher Thomas Thorpe teamed up with printer George Eld to publish John Marston's play What You Will. Two years later they published Shakespeare's Sonnets. 

My Shakespeare Affinity Test detects an extremely strong intertextual relationship between What You Will and the works of Shakespeare. In fact, it scores higher on my test than many Shakespeare plays (marked below in orange, #18):

What does this mean? What You Will has many words in it that appear in other Shakespeare plays but aren't that common in the entire database of 500+  plays. This is a completely objective test and it really singles out What You Will as unusually Shakespeare-like. The play is relatively short and very "dense" in the sense that there a very large number of unique words compared to the length of the play.

What is going on here? I believe this is due, in part, to Marston consciously and purposely using some unusual words from Shakespeare. That is what the Shakespeare Affinity Test is counting, after all: the number of unusual words in a play that occur in First Folio plays. There is also likely some influence going the other way; Shakespeare adopting some of Marston's words later on. And the two authors were likely pulling from common sources as well.

Examining the Whole Play

To get a better sense of what might be going on, I have reproduced the modern-spelling version of What You Will from EarlyPrint.org (under their CC license), and I have marked in red the "hits" from the Shakespeare Affinity Test. I have also marked in dark blue some sections that specifically seem to reference Shakespeare.

Note, just because a word is marked in red doesn't mean it is a borrowing from Shakespeare or vice versa. In some cases Marston and Shakespeare are just both using an uncommon word, and in some cases there is likely an intertextual connection. The threshold for "unusual" is completely arbitrary, and I could produce a version of this with more or fewer words marked in red just by changing that threshold. In other words, don't over-interpret a word being in red.

If you read through this, you will note that the Quadratus character seems to be satirizing Shakespeare. Here is one of the most interesting examples, where Quadratus specifically quotes Shakespeare "a horse a horse my kingdom for a horse". He also says this "Away Idolater, why you Don Kynsayder" which is a jab at Marston himself:

Quadratus.
signior Laverdure, by the heart of an honest man, this jebusite, this confusion to him, this worse than I dare to name, abuseth thee most incomprehensibly; is this your protest of most obsequious vassalage, protest to strain your utmost sum, your most—
Lam.
So Phoebus warm my brain, I'll rhyme thee dead,
Look for the Satire, if all the sour juice
Of a tart brain, can souse thy estimate,
I'll pickle thee.
Quadratus.
Ha he mount Chirall on the wings of fame.
A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse,Image 010-a eeboLook thee I speak play scraps. Bydet I'll down
Sing, sing, or stay we'll quaff or any thing
Rivo, Saint Mark, let's talk as loss as air
Unwind youths colours, display ourselves
So that you envy-starved Cur may yelp 

And spend his chaps at our fantasticness.
Sym.
O Lord Quadratus.
Quadratus.
Away Idolater, why you Don Kynsayder
Thou Canker eaten rusty cur, thou snaffleTo freer spirits.
Thinkest thou a libertine, am ungiu'd breast
scorns not the shackles of thy envious clogs
You will traduce us unto public scorn.

And this very interesting reference to Sonnets:

Quadratus.Light Angels, prithee leave them, withdraw a little and hear a Sonnet prithee, hear a Sonnet.

Quadratus also says "Rivo" several times, for instance:

Qua.
Feed and be fat my fair Calipolis,
Rivo here's good juice, fresh Burrage boy?

The above quote is also a reference to Henry IV, Part II:

Then feed and be fat, my fair Calipolis.
Come, give's some sack.

And "Rivo" likely comes from Henry IV, Part I:

I prithee, call in Falstaff: I'll play Percy, and
that damned brawn shall play Dame Mortimer his
wife. 'Rivo!' says the drunkard. Call in ribs, call in tallow.

And another character comments on Quadratus using this word:

there's my chub my Epicure Quadratus, that rubs his guts, claps his paunch & cries Rivo, entertaining my ears perpetually with a most strong discourse of the praise of bottle ale & red Herrings

Who is Quadratus Satirizing?

The character of Quadratus is a bit of an enigma.  In the play, he says this about himself: "I am fat and therefore faithful". He is also described, as we saw above, as an "Epicure...that rubs his guts, claps his paunch & cries Rivo". One wonders what fat individual might have been the true target for Marston's satire. Much more to come on this.

[Originally I reproduced the whole play here, if you actually want that just contact me.]

Did Shakespeare write Arden of Faversham?

There's been a lot of buzz in the press lately about Arden of Faversham. Gary Taylor is claiming that Thomas Watson may have collaborated with William Shakespeare on the play. You can read his full paper here.

The evidence for Watson seems quite weak to me, but the real question is whether we have strong evidence for Shakespeare -- and co-authorship -- in the first place. Are there really two or more playwrights at work here? Was Shakespeare one of them?

Examining the rare vocabulary in the play

Running the Shakespeare Affinity Test on the play, we get a scatter plot that looks like this (click on the image to see the full plot):

Each dot is a word that occurs in a First Folio play but is relatively rare in the corpus of 500+ plays. I've marked in red an obvious cluster of "hits" which correspond to Act 3 in modern editions of the play. (see Gutenberg.org) As far as I can tell, this is roughly the section identified as being "by Shakespeare" by Taylor and others.

Any test that tries to identify the hand of Shakespeare has to rely on Shakespeare's later works. This is going to weaken the result on a very early play like Arden of Faversham. We are dealing with a span of 20 years of writing, so much of the vocabulary and unique characteristics of Shakespeare's works wouldn't be evident in 1591. We should expect fewer Shakespeare-like characteristics, even if it was indeed written by the same author.

As a whole, the play doesn't score very high on the Shakespeare Affinity Test. It scores quite a bit lower than Titus Andronicus, for instance, another early play with a low score.

Is the identification of Shakespeare plausible?

That cluster above marked in red does have a high density of "hits"; it's what one might expect from a play written by Shakespeare.

Some passages that very much read like Shakespeare. For instance:

Such deep pathaires, like to a cannon’s burst
Discharged against a ruinated wall,
Breaks my relenting heart in thousand pieces.
Ungentle Alice, thy sorrow is my sore;
Thou know’st it well, and ’tis thy policy
To forge distressful looks to wound a breast
Where lies a heart that dies when thou art sad.
It is not love that loves to anger love. 

Readers of this blog know about Cannons in the Canon,  my look at cannon imagery in the works of Shakespeare. This fits right into that pattern, even with a reference to "forging".

Is co-authorship the best explanation?

So we have a cluster of hits that really seem to indicate a decent likelihood of Shakespeare's hand in the play, but how are we to interpret that empty bits of the scatter plot? Another author is certainly one possibility, and that seems to be the consensus of scholars who attribute part of the play to Shakespeare.

However, there isn't any independent external evidence for co-authorship of the play and very limited internal evidence. Just because certain parts of the play show up as more Shakespeare-like in a test, that doesn't mean someone else wrote the other bits. The variability could be due to stylistic choices of a single author. It could also be due to sections of the play being written or revised at different times by one author.

Digital tools are limited

The digital tools we have for analyzing plays are not very robust to begin with. Plus, there are very few extant plays from the 1590-1595 period. So they are even more limited since there is so little data available for comparison. So we shouldn't rely too heavily on any digital analysis to give us firm conclusions about authorship.

Conclusion

Lexical tests on Arden of Faversham do indicate sections that seem to strongly suggest an affinity with the vocabulary used in the works of Shakespeare. However, we shouldn't over-interpret this result. Since we have so few plays from the period and such under-developed digital tools, we really should be cautious in jumping to assumptions about co-authorship without strong independent evidence.

Check Out the New YouTube Channel!

So I've put together a YouTube Channel to go together with the content on this blog. As of now there are nine videos:

How Unusual was Shakespeare's Signature?



Introduction to the Northumberland Manuscript (blog posts):


Henry Neville, Southampton, Humphrey Fludd, and Shakespeare (blog post)



Could William Shakespeare Write His Own Name?



The Sonnets Inscription (blog post)

 

Alibech and Rustico (blog post)



Learn to Read Secretary Hand with Henry Neville (Part 1)



Learn to Read Secretary Hand with Henry Neville (Part 2)


Please Subscribe to the new channel and spread the word!

Henry Neville, Shakespeare, and Boccaccio's Decameron

After the Northumberland Manuscript (discovered in the 19th century) and the Billingbear Book List debuted on this blog in August 2019), this is one of the most exciting documents in relation to the Shakespeare Authorship Question. I discovered it from the National Archives:

In 1591, Thomas Savile, the younger brother of Henry Savile, forwarded to Henry Neville a series of letters in Italian. These letters gave news updates on military campaigns and other political events taking place in Europe. On the back of one of them, Henry Neville made the above scribbles.

This document directly connects Henry Neville, in 1591, with Boccaccio's Decameron, a major source for the works of Shakespeare. All's Well that Ends Well and Cymbeline both use it as a source, as does Two Gentlemen of Verona -- a play written at that time.

These scribbles connect Neville with a specific story in the Decameron that is referenced often in the works of Shakespeare. It may also relate to the character name Petruchio/Petruccio in Taming of the Shrew, written about that time.

It demonstrates unequivocally Neville's knowledge of the Italian language and interest in Italian history, culture, and politics; this aligns perfectly with the Shakespeare plays written in that period.

In addition, this document proves conclusively that Henry Neville consciously and purposely varied handwriting styles. He also had the habit of writing and rewriting other people's names as scribbles. The exact same behaviors are displayed on the covers of the Northumberland Manuscript which has the names "William Shakespeare" and "Francis Bacon" written many times with varying letter forms. The fine handwriting and willingness to play with letter forms adds evidence to support his writing the inscription on the Rylands copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets.

This document is also important because it provides an early example of Neville's italic handwriting, confirming that the annotations in the books at Audley End are, indeed, his.

Above all else, it shows us what Henry Neville was actually interested in. Almost all of the letters we have from him are diplomatic or official correspondence from 1598-1613; this gives us an essential glimpse into the unguarded person in 1591.

Who are Alibech and Rustico

The story of Alibech and Rustico is from Boccaccio's Decameron. In the story, a young woman, Alibech, is unwittingly seduced by Rustico. This is an extremely lewd story, you can read it here.
Key takeaway: in the story, the act of seduction is called putting the devil (the man) into hell (the woman).

There are two copies of the Decameron listed on the Billingbear Book List. One was initially owned by Thomas Hoby and is currently at Audley End; read about this copy at Cambridge University. The whereabouts of the other is unknown. So, not only did Neville own two copies of this very important Shakespeare source, he referenced the work specifically in his scribbles.

(See this extensive discussion in Shakespeare's Courtly Mirror: Reflexivity and Prudence in All's Well that Ends Well by David Haley (1993) of how  the Decameron is incorporated into All's Well that Ends Well including the story of Alibech and Rustico.)

Who is Rusticuccio

After writing "Rustico" three times, Neville writes "Rusticuccio" four times. He is using the -uccio diminutive suffix in Italian to modify the name. In the same way, the name "Petruccio/Petruchio", the character name in Taming of the Shrew, is formed from the name "Pietro". There was a Cardinal Rusticci(o) at the time, so this might relate to him. There was also a Cardinal Petruccio referenced in Guicciardini's The History of Italy, a book at Audley End which Neville seems to have owned and annotated.

Note how dramatically Neville varies the capital R of Rusticuccio. Seen in isolation, one would think this is the handwriting of four different people. This habit of varying letter forms matches the variation in the handwriting on the Northumberland Manuscript -- as well as the variation we see in the handwriting in Neville's letters:

Taming of the Shrew is believed to have been written around 1591, precisely when Henry Neville was writing "Rusticuccio" on the back of this letter. It is worth noting that in Taming of a Shrew, the play published anonymously in Quarto in 1594, the main character's name is "Ferando" rather than "Petruchio". The exact relationship between this 1594 play and the First Folio version of the play is a matter of controversy. Romeo and Juliet, written around 1595, has an off-stage character also with the name "Petruchio".

Sonnet 144 and other references to devil/hell

Many scholars (KAMBASKOVIĆ-SAWERS 2007, Shore 1999, Berry 1999, Shindler 1892) have suggested that Shakespeare's Sonnet 144 seems to allude to the story of Alibech and Rustico:

Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman colour’d ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turn’d fiend
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another’s hell:
Yet this shall I ne’er know, but live in doubt,
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

Since Sonnet 144 was published in Passionate Pilgrim in 1599, and was likely written well before then, the timing aligns nicely with the 1591 dating of the Henry Neville's Alibech/Rustico scribbles.

Shakespeare often uses the term "hell" to refer to a woman, probably in reference to Alibech/Rustico. Here are some examples of devil paired with hell:

I say a devil. Think'st thou, Hortensio, though her father
be very rich, any man is so very a fool to be married to hell? - Taming of the Shrew (1.1)

I am sorry thou wilt leave my father so:
Our house is hell, and thou, a merry devil,
Didst rob it of some taste of tediousness. - Merchant of Venice (2.3)

Why Sir John, do you think, though we would have the
virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders
and have given ourselves without scruple to hell,
that ever the devil could have made you our delight? - Merry Wives of Windsor (5.5)

Who was Henry Killigrew?

Henry Killigrew was the father of Henry Neville's wife Anne. Anne's mother, Catherine Cooke, died in 1583. Above, Neville writes the last name "Killigrew" four times then writes "Sr Harry Killigrew". There isn't a lot of variation in how he writes it, unlike "Alibech", "Rustico", and "Rusticuccio" where he seems to vary the handwriting a good bit.

This habit of writing the names of people he knew, over and over, is strikingly similar to the Northumberland Manuscript, where the names of Francis Bacon and William Shakespeare are written over and over again.

Other Notes on Handwriting

See how Henry Neville varies "and" four different ways in a single document:

This type of intentional variation is characteristic of his scribbling on other documents and is similar to what we observe on the Northumberland Manuscript and in Neville's other handwriting:

How do we know this is Henry Neville's handwriting?

The scribbles are written on the back of a letter written to Thomas Savile, who along with his brother Henry Savile, was one of Neville's closest friends at the time and his travelling companion in Berkeley. The document was kept by the Neville/Braybrooke family with Neville's other documents at deposited at the archive around 1950. The handwriting is an exact match for Henry Neville's signatures and other italic handwriting. You can see samples of Neville's italic handwriting here.

Conclusions

The search for documents related to Henry Neville has really just begun, and the careful analysis of the discovered documents hasn't really even started yet. That said, this discovery  helps us to understand the annotations at Audley End, the Northumberland Manuscript, the Sonnets inscription, and so much more.

As you can see on this blog, Henry Neville research is quickly producing a steady flow of very important *real* discoveries of documentary evidence. This evidence links him directly and unequivocally to the sources used to write the works of Shakespeare. We are just getting started here, there is much, much, much more to come.

New Discovery: Dudley Digges, Henry Neville, and Shakespeare

Dudley Digges (1583 - 1639), his younger brother Leonard Digges (1588-1635), and their father Thomas Digges (1546 - 1595) had many close ties to Henry Neville. This post offers a new discovery of a legal examination of Dudley Digges that clearly demonstrates his close connection to Henry Neville.

As is well known,  Leonard wrote a poem in praise of Shakespeare for the 1623 First Folio. He also wrote a hand-written note in 1613 praising Shakespeare's Sonnets. The 1640 edition of Shakespeare's poems, published five years after Leonard's death, has another long poem further praising Shakespeare and criticizing Ben Jonson.

1615 - Dudley Digges Examination Proves His Close Connection To Henry Neville

Here is the document I discovered from the National Archives:

This is an examination from November 1615 concerning the 1613 murder of Thomas Overbury. In it, Dudley Digges describes a conversation he had with Henry Neville before the murder. Here is the calendar summary:

Examination of Sir Dudley Digges. On expressing Sir Henry Neville his fear that Rochester was desirous to be rid of Overbury, both he and Sir Thomas Mansell told him, from Overbury's own mouth, that he was confident Rochester would not dare to abandon him.

Here is the full transcription done by John O'Donnell:

The examination of Sr Dudley Digges
knight taken the 6 of nov 1615
this examinate signifieng to Sr henry nevill his dystrust that my lord of Rochester was
desirous to be ridd of Sr Tho: Ouerburie, his aunswere to this examinate he pressing
him diuers tymes, was that Sr Tho: Ouerbury was confident and said often, that my
lo: of Rochester did not dare to leave him / and further saith that Sr Robert mauncell
knight hath related so much to this examinate as from Sr Thomas Ouerburies owne
mouth And this was tould to this examinate both by Sr henry nevill, and Sr Robert
mauncell as he thinketh as well in the life tyme of Sr Tho: Ouerbury as since his
decease.
Dudly Digges

This is new and absolute and incontrovertible evidence of Henry Neville's close relationship with Dudley Digges. Of course, the following is equally strong proof:

1614 - Dudley Digges Defends Henry Neville in Parliament

In 1614 a controversy erupted in Parliament over the 1612 Advice Henry Neville gave directly to King James. John Hoskins and Dudley Digges, among others, stood in defense of Neville. Here is what Digges said (Proceedings in Parliament, 1614 -House of Commons):

Sir Dudley Digges said he thought that a private man might go and move the King for the good of the country, uncalled, and did instance his father who projected divers things to Queen Elizabeth and yet was a parliament man after, without being excepted against.

Dudley Digges and the Virginia Company

Dudley Digges "joined the board of the Virginia Company in 1609, and became one of the three principal backers of Hudson’s last voyage in search of the North-West Passage" (History of Parliament) Dudley's son Edward later became governor of Virginia. Henry Neville, too, was on the governing board of the Virginia Company. You can see the full list here, which also includes the Earl of Southampton (dedication of Venus and Adonis and Rape of Lucrece) and William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke (dedication of First Folio and perhaps Sonnets).

Thomas Digges and Henry Neville - Connection with Henry Savile and John Chamber

Astronomer, mathematician, and military theorist Thomas Digges (father of Leonard and Dudley) died in 1595. Thomas Digges was on a commission with Henry Savile and John Chamber in 1583 to decide whether to change England over to the Gregorian calendar. Savile had just been on a four year trip with Neville to Europe. Savile and Chamber were both from Merton College, where Neville attended, and all three men remained close friends their whole lives. Chamber traveled with Neville to France in 1599;  Savile and Neville were executors of Chamber's will. So Henry Neville and Thomas Digges almost certainly knew each other from this connection.

The Family Connection between Henry Neville and the Digges Family

Thomas Digges' wife, and mother of Dudley and Leonard, was Anne St. Leger. She was the daughter of Ursula Neville, wife of Warham St Leger. Ursula was Henry Neville's father's first cousin.

Anne St. Leger married Thomas Russell after the death of Thomas Digges. So Russell was the stepfather of the Digges brothers. Thomas Russell famously was the overseer, along with Francis Collins, or Shakespeare's will.

Thomas Russell was also the half-brother of Maurice and Henry Berkeley. Maurice was one of Neville's closest friends and was one of the executors of his estate. Henry Berkeley married Henry Neville's daughter Elizabeth.

So Henry Neville had close family ties both to Anne St Leger (Anne Digges) and Thomas Hall, the mother and stepfather of the Digges brothers.

Thomas Digges, Dudley Digges, and the works of Shakespeare

There is a vast literature connecting the Digges family with the works of Shakespeare. Othello. Coriolanus, Hamlet, and Troilus and Cressida have all been linked to Thomas and/or his son Dudley. Here is some detail on Coriolanus from Lee Bliss of the Cambridge edition of Coriolanus:

It has been suggested that the character Cassio in Othello might have been partly modeled on Thomas Digges, Oxford Othello 2008:

Hamlet is also thought to reflect Thomas Digges' view of an infinite universe ("O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.")

Dudley Digges and Ben Jonson and Coryate's Crudities

According to "Ben Jonson's Library and Marginalia: An Annotated Catalogue," by David McPherson,  Studies in Philology, Vol. 71, No. 5, 1974, Ben Jonson had a copy of A Geometrical Practical Treatise Named Pantometria with this inscription: "I am Ben Jonson's book from the gift of my very dear Dudley Digges, son of the author." Digges also contributed a commendatory poem to Jonson's play Volpone.

Dudley Digges also wrote a poem for Coryate's Crudities. So did Ben Jonson and Hugh Holland, both of whom contributed poems to the First Folio.

Conclusion

There is a strong connection between the Digges family and Henry Neville. The evidence above demonstrates clearly that Dudley Digges, though about 20 years younger than Henry Neville, was a friend and close political ally. This connection was multi-faceted but likely was due in part to a previous relationship Neville's family had with Dudley's father and mother. This is an important area for further research as we try to trace the facts surrounding the works of Shakespeare.