How Will Became Master Shakespeare: Clues from an Unpublished Letter Signed by William Cecil, Lord Burghley

On April 24^th, 1592, the Court of Elizabeth I issued a letter signed by three men acting collectively as England’s interim Earl Marshal: William Cecil, Lord Burghley; Charles Howard, Lord Howard of Effingham; and Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon. All had served the Queen with distinction: Burghley was her oldest and closest advisor; Admiral Howard had defeated the Spanish Armada; and Hunsdon, Elizabeth’s Lord Chamberlain, would soon become patron of Shakespeare’s acting company. (A photograph of this letter and transcription with modern spelling are appended to this article.)

Until now, the letter has escaped scholarly attention. Its signatories admonish Robert Pryce, executor of the estate of Lady Joan Mordaunt, for failing to solemnize Lady Joan’s burial with the funerals to which she was entitled by rank, and for which the Lady had left sufficient resources. The Earls Marshal assert that Pryce, “as we are given to understand[,] would otherwise order the same [funerals] in an obscure and private manner, not fitting to a personage of her degree, being a Baroness.” They affirm that “it hath pleased her majesty to authorize us [. . . to] will and require you to order her funerals agreeable to her degree and calling.” Their order is driven “by the advice and direction of M[aste]r Garter the Principal King at Arms,” Sir William Dethick, head of the College of Heralds, in which the request for a coat of arms from Shakespeare’s father, John, had gone unfulfilled some two decades earlier.

Dethick is referred to by title,…