f 27 (17–23 January)
...
| Alla comedia | 1 s. |
| Per corde d'un' liuto | ij s. |
| Per un libro del' liuto | 5 s. |
...
f 28v (20 February)
...
| Hoggi pagaua á sprignal Barbiere, per certi balli uilanesci, e galiarde | 7 s. |
...
f 29v (26 February)
...
Questo mercordi passato cominciai il mese con Gionsono; che m'insegna il liuto./
...
(5 March)
...
| Al' putto chi m'insegna il ballare | 2 s. |
...
f 30 (7 March)
...
| donaua a Ionsono chi sona il liuto | iij s. |
| In moscatello sta mattina | j s. |
| A un altra schola di ballare | j s |
...
(11 March)
...
| Al' putto chi m'insegna il ballare | 2 s. |
...
f 31 (25 March)
| Hoggi donaua a colui chi m'in |
5 s. |
...
(26 March)
...
| A Gionsono per hauer mi insegnato al liuto | 7 s. |
...
f 32 (11 April)
...
| A lui chi m'insegna a ballare | ij s. |
...
f 32v (13 April)
...
| Nell'andare alle commedie | viij d. |
...
(14 April)
...
| alla scola di Ballare | ij s. |
...
f 34 (21 May)
...
| e da ritornare a Londra | ij s. |
| e su'la strada u'era 2 nani della Regina, le quali uedeua, e diedi. | xij d. |
(25 July)
...
| A Gionsono per mettes' in ordine il mio liuto | v s. |
...
f 42v (1 October) (Cambridge)
...
| In corde dá Liuto | ij s. iij d. |
...
f 45 (5 November) (Mildenhhall, Suffolk)
...
| úi uenneró al' disinare i commedianti del' conte di Lester tacendo una commedia, a'quali il Signor Padre dono | xxxx s. |
...
(6 November) (Soham and Isleham, Cambridgeshire)
...
Hoggi la mattina il Signor Padre solo sene ritornó a casa, io col' Signor Zio andando a Some alla casa del mio cognato Thornton oué disinammó, di capo ritornando ad Isleham, doue questasera fu' una altra commedia.
...
f 48 (29 November)
| In metter corde su'l liuto | iij s. |
...
f 48v (2 December) (London?)
...
sta matina, comincia con Ionsono, il meso./.
...
f 51 (19 December)
...
| sta mattina pagaua ancor' a signor Iohnson per lo mese | x s. |
...
(23 December)
...
| In un libro rigato da liuto | vj s. |
...
f 27 (17-23 January)
...
| At a play (or comedy) | 1s |
| For lute-strings | 2s |
| For a lute book | 5s |
| ... |
(30 January)
| I gave to the dancers and singers of a school | 1s |
...
f 27v (5 February)
...
| To see certain strange (or new or wonderful) things in Fleet Street | 1s |
...
f 28 (13 February)
...
| This morning I gave to Rouland for teaching me to dance (for) a month | 10s |
...
f 28v (20 February)
...
| Today I paid Sprignal the Barber for certain rustic dances and galliards | 7s |
...
f 29 (21 February)
...
| To five musicians | 6s |
...
f 29v (26 February)
...
This Wednesday last I started a month with Johnson, who is teaching me the lute.
...
(5 March)
| To the boy who is teaching me to dance | 2s |
...
f 30 (7 March)
| I gave to Johnson who plays the lute | 3s |
| On muscadine wine this morning | 1s |
| To (or at) another dancing school | 1s |
...
(11 March)
| To the boy who is teaching me to dance | 2s |
...
f 30v (14–15 March)
| To my uncle for a lute | 40s |
...
f 31 (25 March)
| Today I gave to him who is teaching me to dance | 5s |
...
(26 March)
...
| To Johnson for teaching me the lute | 7s |
...
f 32 (11 April)
...
| To him who is teaching me to dance | 2s |
...
f 32v (13 April)
...
| In going to plays (or comedies) | 8d |
...
(14 April)
| At (or to) a dancing school | 2s |
...
f 34 (21 May)
...
| And to return to London | 2s |
| And in the street there were two of the Queen's dwarves, whom I watched and gave (or I saw them and gave them) | 12d |
f 34v (11 June)
...
| To Browne, for mending (or restringing, preparing) the lute, and for a ribbon (or a little cord, a lace) of gold | 8s |
...
f 38v (24 July)
...
| On singing books | 8s |
(25 July)
| To Johnson for making ready (or putting in order) my lute | 5s |
...
f 42v (1 October) (Cambridge)
...
| On lute-strings | 2s 3d |
...
f 45 (5 November) (Mildenhall, Suffolk)
...
| There the players of the Earl of Leicester came to dine, putting on a play (or comedy), my lord father gave them | 40s |
...
(6 November) (Soham and Isleham, Cambridgeshire)
Today in the morning my lord father returned alone to the house; I with my lord uncle going to Some to the house of my cousin Thornton, where we dined; at the end returning to Isleham, where that evening there was another play (or comedy).
...
f 48 (29 November)
| On putting strings on the lute | 3s |
...
f 48v (2 December)
...
This morning I began a month with Johnson.
...
f 51 (19 December) (London)
...
| This morning I paid Master Johnson again for the month | 10s |
...
f 51 (23 December)
...
| On a ruled lute book | 6s |
...
While f 27 notes at its head a sequence of dates 17–23 January, the account entry immediately prior to the excerpted entries is dated 23 January, so it is possible that these activities and purchases also took place on this date.
North held a dinner party on 21 February (f 29); the five musicians were probably paid to play during this event. North provides a list of his guests: William Bourchier (1557–1623), fourth earl of Bath; Thomas Perrott (1553–97), heir of Sir John Perrott, former lord deputy of Ireland; North’s uncle Sir Thomas North (1535–c 1603), the translator of Plutarch’s Lives; his wife Elizabeth Rich and their son Edward North; a 'Greek lady,' North’s neighbour ('la uicina S{ignor}a Greca'); a woman called 'Buttlera' and her husband; 'the lady Mills'; Rocco Bonetti, an Italian fencing master and intelligencer; and Richard Knollys (c1548–96), fifth son of Sir Francis Knollys (for these last two, see Gallagher, 'Italian London,' p 99).
'Gionsono,' first mentioned in 26 February 1577/8 (f 29v), is probably an Italianized version of 'Johnson,' and possibly an early reference to the lutenist John Johnson (d. 1594), who was appointed a court lutenist in 1580 (Charles Edward McGuire and Jan W.J. Burgers (rev), 'Johnson, John (i),’ GMO, accessed 30 August 2021; Matthew Spring, The Lute in Britain: A History of the Instrument and Its Music (Oxford, 2001), 103, 107; Gallagher, ‘Italian London,' p 103). North records payments to Johnson for lute lessons and for repairs to his lutes from February 1577/8 and subsequently through the year.
Since no payment is included here on f 29v, the entry may be to aid the calculation of future payments, or to record an event that North found noteworthy. The entry is marked with two crosses (one above, and one below), suggesting that it describes an event of some importance to North, a system also used in later entries marking lessons with Johnson.
The boy dancing teacher (f 29v) is not named; a boy, possibly the same person, is paid 2s again for dancing lessons on 11 March (f 30).
The uncle North refers to on f 30v is likely to be Sir Thomas North (1535–c 1603), translator of Plutarch's Lives (from Jacques Amyot's French translation), as well as other works in Spanish and Italian. North spent quite a lot of time with his uncle, who appears several times in the accounts; they shared interests in Italian and French and possibly also in music.
The dancing teacher (f 32) might be Sprignal the barber, to whom North paid 7s on 20 February for country dances and galliards, or the boy to whom North paid 2s on 5 March and 11 March for dancing lessons (see ff 28v, 29v, 30, 31), or another unnamed person.
North records that he attended ‘commedie,’ here translated as ‘plays,’ several times in London. The Italian word ‘commedia’ can be translated as ‘play’ and also (more specifically) as ‘comedy.' This translation prefers the word ‘play’ to ‘comedy’ because in these instances it is not clear that the word means ‘comedy’ in particular, and because North refers to the Earl of Leicester’s players as ‘commedianti’ (f 45r), which suggests that he understood ‘comedia’ to mean ‘play’ as much as ‘comedy.’
North's father (f 45) is Roger North (1531–1600), second Baron North, who was the dominant power in later sixteenth-century Cambridgeshire, and lord lieutenant from 1569. Roger North purchased the house and estate of Mildenhall in Suffolk in 1577. Other members of North's retinue at Mildenhall during this trip included 'il caualliero Hynde,' 'the knight Hynde,' possibly Sir Francis Hynde (d. 1595/6) of Madingley, Cambridgeshire, one of Baron North's deputy lieutenants for Cambridgeshire, and a 'Signor Carlo Worlich.'
The ‘cousin Thornton’ (f 45) that North visited in Soham in November is likely to have been a member of the family of that name associated with the village since the early fifteenth century. In the 1580s John Thornton was bailiff of the manor of Soham and maintained a substantial house (VCH: Cambridgeshire, vol 10, 507–29, British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/cambs/vol10/pp507-529, accessed 13 September 2022).
Record title: John North's Private Accounts
Repository:
Bodl.
Shelfmark: MS. Add. C. 193
Repository location: Oxford
Sir John North (c 1550–97) was the son of Roger North (1531–1600), second Baron North, and Winifred Rich (d. 1578), daughter of Richard Rich (1496/7–1567), first Baron Rich, and widow of Sir Henry Dudley. From 1562 North was instructed at Peterhouse and Trinity Colleges, Cambridge, by John Whitgift, master of Trinity College (from 1567), taking his MA in May 1572. Subsequently John was admitted to Gray's Inn and in October 1575 he travelled to Italy to finish his education, staying there until November 1577. On his trip to Italy, John spent time in the Netherlands and the Palatine, meeting there veterans of the Dutch revolt; in the spring of 1577/8, North left England again for the Low Countries, this time to fight with the Dutch as a gentleman volunteer, and stayed until 1580. On 13 November 1581 John married Dorothy (née Dale, 1560–1618), the only daughter of Dr Valentine Dale (c 1520–89), civil lawyer, resident ambassador in Paris, 15 April 1573–October 1576, dean of Wells and canon residentiary, 8 January 1574–89, and master of Requests (possibly by 1564, but definitely from 1576–89), and Elizabeth Forth (d. 1590), daughter of Dr Robert Forth (d. 1595). John and Dorothy resided at Kirtling Hall, the manor where George North wrote his 'A Brief Discourse of Rebellion and Rebels' (see the Introduction, 'Historical Background: Cambridgeshire Families'). John and Dorothy had four sons, Dudley North (bap. 1582, d. 1666), third Baron North, Sir John North, KB, Roger North, the navigator, and Gilbert, and two daughters, Elizabeth, who married William Horsey, son of Sir Jerome Horsey, and Mary, who married Sir Francis Coningsby of South Mimms, Hertfordshire. John returned to the Netherlands in February 1581/2 under Robert Dudley (1532–88), fourteenth earl of Leicester – and godfather to John's eldest son Dudley – to accompany the Duc d'Anjou for his installation as governor general. There, he famously quarrelled with Sir John Norris [Norreys], colonel-general of the English forces, refusing to accept Norris's command. He remained there until the spring of 1583/4, when he returned to England to serve as MP for Cambridgeshire in the parliaments of 1584, 1586, and 1588. He returned to the Netherlands a third time in 1587, travelled to Ireland in 1595, and finally to the Low Countries in 1597, where he died 5 June. Dorothy remarried in 1604 (Michael Hicks, 'Dale, Valentine (c 1520–1589), civil lawyer and diplomat,' ODNB, accessed 28 September 2021); John S. Nolan, Sir John Norreys and the Elizabethan Military World (Exeter, 1997), pp 51–3; HPO, accessed 28 September 2021; D.J.B. Trim, 'North, Sir John (c 1550–1597), soldier and traveller,' ODNB, accessed 28 September 2021).
The following records are drawn from John North's private accounts, which also include Lady North's travel accounts (ff 16v–23v) and John's trip journal. He reached Mantua on 3 November 1575 (f 11v), at which point the accounts are interrupted by a description of what he found there. The accounts resume on f 13v, with other material mixed in, to f 16. Folio 16v begins a new hand and includes accounts dated 1588 (mostly foodstuffs). On f 20 is there is a notation that on 'viijth of April Mr Northe went into Suffolk.' This hand ends on f 23, dated October 1589. A third hand then begins f 24 in Italian, dated 1577.
Recognition and gratitude are owed to Dr Emily Mayne for her systematic check of these records, including her translations from the Italian and her contributions to the research in the footnotes and endnotes.
1577–89; English and Italian; paper: ii + 93; 255mm x 90mm; contemporary ink foliation; contemporary vellum binding, 2 leather tabs on spine, title on spine in later writing, 'Ms Bodl Add C 193.'