_ This was built by the Earl of Salisbury
on the site of an 'olde long stable' in the Strand on the north side
of Durham House: 'And upon Tuesday the tenth of Aprill this yeere, one
thousand sixe hundred and nine, many of the upper shoppes were richly
furnished with wares, and the next day after that, the King, Queene,
and Prince, the Lady Elizabeth and the Duke of Yorke, with many great
Lords, and chiefe Ladies, came thither, and were there entertained
with pleasant speeches, giftes, and
ingenious
devices, and then
the king gave it a name, and called it Brittaines Burse.
John Donne
was hailed by him not long since a
little without the Gulf, and answering that he was bound for Venice,
"Tell those flat caps" (said he) "who have been the occasion that I
am banished out of my country that before I have done with them I will
make them sue for pardon." In this style he speaketh.' Pearsall Smith,
_Life and Letters of ... Wotton_, ii. 415. Mr. Pearsall Smith adds in
a note that Ward hoped to 'buy or threaten the English Government into
pardoning him', and that some attempt was also made by the Venetian
Government to procure his assassination.
If 'Island' be the right reading the sea referred to must be the
Adriatic. The Islands of the Illyrian coast were at various times the
haunt of pirates. But I have found no instance of the phrase in this
sense.
l. 25. _the Brittaine Burse.
_ This was built by the Earl of Salisbury
on the site of an 'olde long stable' in the Strand on the north side
of Durham House: 'And upon Tuesday the tenth of Aprill this yeere, one
thousand sixe hundred and nine, many of the upper shoppes were richly
furnished with wares, and the next day after that, the King, Queene,
and Prince, the Lady Elizabeth and the Duke of Yorke, with many great
Lords, and chiefe Ladies, came thither, and were there entertained
with pleasant speeches, giftes, and
ingenious
devices, and then
the king gave it a name, and called it Brittaines Burse.
' Stow,
_Chronicle_, p. 894.
l. 27. _Of new built Algate, and the More-field crosses._ Aldgate, one
of the four principal gates in the City wall, was taken down in 1606
and rebuilt by 1609: Stow, _Survey_. Norton refers to Jonson's _Silent
Woman_, I. i: 'How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the
people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity while they were
rude stone, before they were painted and burnished?'
'The More-field crosses' are apparently the walks at Moor-field.
Speaking of the embellishment of London which ensued from the long
duration of peace, Stow says, 'And lastly, whereof there is a more
generall, and particular notice taken by all persons resorting and
residing in London, the new and pleasant walks on the north side of
the city, anciently called More fields, which field (untill the third
yeare of King James) was a most noysome and offensive place, being a
generall laystall, a rotten morish ground, whereof it tooke first the
name.' Stow, _Chronicle_. For the ditches which crossed the field were
substituted 'most faire and royall walkes'.
